Board for Northport’s University Beach Resort Rushes Through Meeting, Takes No Questions

The board of directors of the University Beach Improvement District met Monday in a rushed meeting during which they took no questions and provided no copies of the documents they approved.

For the uninitiated, University Beach is the $350 million lagoon resort and water park the Northport City Council rushed to approve and partner in a much-maligned decision last year.

READ MORE: Developers Plan 10-Acre Lagoon, Hotels and More at University Beach

A small crowd of concerned citizens and political hopefuls accused the board of being crooks and were essentially dismissed as ignorant.

Texas developers Kent Donahue and John Hughes represented the Improvement District, which was approved by the Northport City Council in September, at the Monday meeting. The third board member, California's Katie Le, did not attend.

Also present were Pfilip Hunt of Florida's Wrathell, Hunt and Associates and attorney Alvin Hope of the Maynard Nexsen firm, both of whom are supporting the district professionally.

The quartet of men rushed through an agenda that considered and adopted budgets for the 2025 and 2026 fiscal years and also OK'd an engineer's report, a developer's agreement and more.

Get our free mobile app

Each item was approved without discussion, and copies of the relevant documents were not made available at the meeting. Hunt said anyone who wanted to see the full papers could ask for them by email, then left the meeting without taking any email addresses.

Hunt dismissed interest in the meeting as overblown and said people did not understand what the special district does, which is to fund and maintain the public infrastructure developers will create to support the $350 million University Beach attraction.

"There's no city, county, state taxes or revenues coming to this district," Hunt said. "We're actually going to create a bond process, a municipal bond process whereby the developer can borrow money to pay for his public infrastructure and the only person that's paying it back is the developer, because we're going to tax his property within the boundaries of the district. Nobody outside the boundaries of the district is being assessed. So that's how it works. It's a self-supporting funding mechanism only within the boundaries this district."

That's not all that was discussed, though - Hunt also referenced "a final version of the master's engineer report" and a development agreement between the improvement district and University Beach, LLC. Donahue and Hughes approved both items without sharing or discussing them publicly.

Although their loose agenda did explicitly include time for audience comments, the improvement district board adjourned without allowing anyone to speak after checking with their attorney, Hope, to make sure it was legal.

Hope told Hunt it was up to the board whether they allowed questions, and he chose not to.

"We're done," Hunt said. "We're done."

This did not sit well with those who attended the meeting, which was held at 12:30 Monday afternoon at the TTL building on Rice Mine Road in Tuscaloosa.

"The way you ran this meeting was a joke, you do realize that? Legal, but a joke," said mayoral candidate Dale Phillips, who was in the audience. "You passed budgets that you didn't even provide information for, so obviously y'all have met and discussed those budgets - tell me I'm wrong."

Hunt said copies of the documents had been shared with the board ahead of the meeting, which is legal.

John Hughes, one of the Texas developers on the improvement district board of directors, stopped briefly as the others left the room and he seemed like he was going to apologize for how things went.

"Sorry - I'm sorry you all don't understand how the process works," Hughes said instead.

As members of the audience called out, "explain it to us," Hughes turned around and left the room.

For more coverage on the development of the $350 million project planned for McFarland Boulevard in Northport, stay connected to the Tuscaloosa Thread.