Hangout Music Festival to Feature Foo Fighters, Paul Simon

2-1-11 Gulf Shores, AL

For a festival that’s only in its second year, Alabama’s Hangout Music Festival has a star-packed lineup. The event, held on the coast of Gulf Shores, Alabama, will feature Foo Fighters, Paul Simon, Widespread Panic, My Morning Jacket and The Black Keys as its headliners.

The Southern festival is a three-day affair, taking place May 20-22. The rest of the lineup includes The Flaming Lips, Cee Lo Green, Primus, Michael Franti & Spearhead, Pretty Lights, Bassnectar, Girl Talk, Ween, Matisyahu, Umphrey’s McGee, the Drive-By Truckers, the Warren Haynes Band, Trombone Shorty and Galactic.

This year the event will expand to five stages, including an air-conditioned tent stage. The grounds will feature a replenishing saltwater lagoon with shade, hammocks, art installations and the sky-bar tower, a structure offering 360-degree views of the festival. The festival also will offer an extended kids' area, family events, late night DJs and shuttle service between stages.


VIP ticket holders will have access to a resort-style, in-ground swimming pool with views of the main stage and deckside bar service.

Organizers estimated about 15,000 people per day attended last year's inaugural Hangout Fest, which was anchored by the Zac Brown Band, John Legend and Trey Anastasio & Tab.

Tickets for the festival, which features five stages on the beach, go on sale today at 9 a.m. (CST). For more information, visit http://hangoutmusicfest.com.

The Hangout Beach Music and Arts Festival Announces 2010 Lineup Featuring John Legend, Trey Anastasio and TAB

Feb 18, 2010
The Hangout Beach Music and Arts Festival Announces 2010 Lineup Featuring John Legend, Trey Anastasio and TAB
Zac Brown Band, Alison Krauss and Union Station Featuring Jerry Douglas, The Black Crowes, The Flaming Lips, Ben Harper And Relentless7

GULF SHORES, Ala., Feb. 18 -- The Hangout Beach Music and Arts Festival announces the lineup for its inaugural year including performances from Trey Anastasio and TAB, Zac Brown Band, John Legend, Ray LaMontagne, Ben Harper and Relentless7, The Flaming Lips, and Alison Krauss and Union Station Featuring Jerry Douglas. The three-day festival is scheduled for May 14 - 16 and will feature musical entertainment directly on the sandy white beaches of Gulf Shores, Ala. The Hangout is the first major music festival of the summer festival season. A confirmed lineup is listed below with more bands to be announced in the coming weeks.

"Watching this caliber of performers directly on the beach will truly be a unique experience. There's just nothing like it," said A.J. Niland, of HUKA Entertainment. "This will be one of the biggest beach parties this area has ever seen."

With performances taking place on four stages including two main stages on the beach, the festival hopes to bring the Gulf Coast into the national music scene. In addition, festival organizers have other activities still to be announced. Attendance will be limited to 35,000 people per day.

Festival tickets are available online at hangoutmusicfest.com as well as at The Hangout and Surf Style stores along the central Gulf Coast. Ticket prices are $159 for a three-day pass and limited $82 day passes will be available after the schedule is announced in the weeks to come. VIP ticket packages and travel packages start at $500 and are available online or by phone at 1-888-512-SHOW 1-888-512-SHOW.

There is an assortment of lodging options surrounding the festival including traditional hotels, beach-front condos and camping at the local state park. Visit hangoutmusicfest.com for more information.

WHEN: MAY 14 - MAY 16
WHERE: 101 EAST BEACH BOULEVARD IN GULF SHORES, ALA.
(THE SOUTHERN END OF AL-Hwy 59)
PRICES: $159 THREE-DAY PASS / LIMITED $82 DAY PASSES / VIP TICKET
AND TRAVEL
PACKAGES AVAILABLE
WEB SITE: hangoutmusicfest.com

CONFIRMED ARTISTS: Trey Anastasio and TAB, Zac Brown Band, John Legend, Ben Harper and Relentless7, The Black Crowes, Alison Krauss and Union Station featuring Jerry Douglas, Gov't Mule, The Flaming Lips, Ray LaMontagne, Michael Franti and Spearhead, Rodrigo Y Gabriela, Funky Meters, Blind Boys of Alabama, Matisyahu, Girl Talk, Guster, Brett Dennen, Keller Williams, Jerry Jeff Walker, North Mississippi All-stars, ALO, The Whigs, Ozomatli, OK GO, Orianthi, Davy Knowles & Back Door Slam, Pnuma Trio, Black Joe Lewis and the Honey Bears, Toubab Krewe, Mat Hires, A.A. Bondy, Rachel Goodrich, Moon Taxi, El Cantador, Kristy Lee, Roman Street

For more information, please visit hangoutmusicfest.com.


Source: The Hangout Beach Music and Arts Festival

Homeport Marina plans under review

Originally Published by the Mobile Press Register

Proposal calls for hotel, convention center, restaurants

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

By RYAN DEZEMBER
Staff Reporter

GULF SHORES — The owners of Homeport Marina have asked the City Council to rezone about 25 acres on the Intracoastal Waterway to accommodate a 250-room hotel and a nearly 40,000-square-foot conference center.
The plans also call for three restaurant sites of varying sizes, a trio of retail buildings, a 500-space park ing deck and a ferry terminal. The proposal also includes the addition of a bar and stage area for Lulu's, the 450-seat restaurant that already occupies some of the property.
To make the designs work, the owners have asked if they can move East 28th Avenue northward. Without doing so, the east-west potion of that street would bisect the proposed hotel's footprint.

The property owners, led by former Krispy Kreme executive Mac McAleer, first announced their plans in May. The Planning Commission voted unanimously in favor of the designs at its June meeting.
City Clerk Renee Moore said that the council would likely vote on the zoning in the next month. A public hearing concerning the road relocation will be held at City Hall some time before the vote, city officials said.
There has been some debate about when the new East 28th Avenue should be built. City planners have recommended that it be open to traffic before work on the hotel and convention center begins. But the property owners have asked to do both jobs concurrently.
According to a municipal review of the proposal, the hotel and convention center, parking deck and ferry terminal are slated for construction starting in January 2011.
The first phase of the expansion, a waterfront restaurant west of the marina inlet, is scheduled to begin in three months.
The final phase of the work, new retail and restaurant space between the hotel and Jack Edwards Airport, is proposed to start in January 2012.
In their analysis of the plans, city planners wrote that the benefits of the project included not only the hotel and convention center, which would "serve as a gateway to the southern part of the city," but also the ferry terminal.
That, the owners have said, could provide moorage to a Mobile Bay ferry or a boat that would run between Baldwin County's beaches and the casinos on Mississippi's Gulf Coast.
The property owners said they plan to lease space from the state Transportation Department beneath the Dr. W.C. Holmes Bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway for ferry parking, and they plan to build a ground transit terminal that could be tied into a future public transportation system in south Baldwin County.

Gulf State Park officials seek to dredge lakes, sink reefs

Originally Published by the Mobile Press Register

Monday, September 08, 2008 By RYAN DEZEMBER Staff Reporter

GULF SHORES — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is seeking public input on proposals from state officials to dredge parts of Shelby and Middle lakes as well as to turn Gulf State Park's old fishing pier into artificial reefs.

The dredge project, according to a Corps of Engineers public notice, is aimed not only at clearing out sand that blew into the lakes during hurricanes Ivan and Katrina, but also at rebuilding Gulf-front dunes.

To achieve these twin goals, the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources has applied to dredge 44,528 cubic yards of sand — nearly 2,800 dump trucks worth — from a 13.8-acre area in the southern part of Lake Shelby. The sand would then be pumped through an existing culvert beneath Alabama 182 to a 10.2-acre site just west of the park's fishing pier.

From the southeastern-most 16.3 acres of Middle Lake, the Conservation Department has asked to dredge and pump 52,594 cubic yards of sand. Those 3,300 truckloads would be pumped beneath the beach highway to a 9.1-acre area west of the park's beach pavilion, according to the proposal.

Once on the beach side of the highway, the sand will be shaped to replicate the contour of the dunes as they existed before the storms. Salt-tolerant plants and sand fencing will also be installed to help the restored dunes hold their shape, the corps said.

Besides wanting to improve habitat in the dunes around the Gulf State Park's fishing pier, Conservation Department officials have said they seek to better the living conditions for wildlife on the water bottom near the pier.

In a separate proposal, state officials have asked permission to tear down what remains of the park's old fishing pier, which was built in 1968 and destroyed by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, and turn the material into 10 artificial reefs.

The reefs would measure 25 feet by 50 feet, according to the corps, and be sunk around the new fishing pier. Those that wind up in less than 20 feet of water will be

6 feet tall or less, and those in more than 20 feet of water will protrude from the bottom as much as 9 feet, according to a public notice.

The state also wants to install 20 round reefs that are

5 feet tall and 20 pyramid-shaped concrete reefs that are about 8 feet tall around the new pier.

Park Superintendent Hugh Branyan said state officials are hoping the reefs will lure, in addition to more fish, different species than are normally found near shore.

"We're thinking that even some snapper and grouper will come in," he said. "They're usually farther out but this will be a pretty good bunch of reefs."

Currently under construction, the new 1,512-foot-long pier, which sits about just east of the old structure, is expected to open by February. Nearly twice as long as the old pier and 50 percent wider, the new structure carries a $14 million price tag.

Correspondence regarding both projects should be directed to District Commander, U.S. Army Engineer District, Mobile, P.O. Box 2288, Mobile, AL 36628-0001, Attention: Regulatory District. Comments on the pier proposal must be received by Sept. 17, and those concerning the dredge project are due by Sept. 24.

Local condo boards hold their own in foreclosure crisis

Originally Published by the Mobile Press Register.

Sunday, August 31, 2008 By Kathy Jumper Real Estate Editor

Foreclosures haven't hit local condominium associations as much as their peers in some states, but that may change as new assessments are sent out to help pay for insurance.

Condo foreclosures hit a plateau about six months ago, according to attorney Daniel Craven of Gulf Shores. "We're not in as desperate financial condition," as other parts of the country, he said. "And collection efforts on delinquencies have held their own."

Craven represents more than 100 condominium and property associations in the area.


About 24 million housing units are governed by 300,800 homeowner associations in the United States, according to the Community Associations Institute, a nonprofit group based in Alexandria, Va. While the group had no exact numbers of foreclosed units, officials there said the impact is significant.

Shortfalls may be more common among newer associations that haven't had much time to build up reserves, according to condo managers. But older associations are also hurt if no reserves have been maintained.

There are 13,169 condo units available for lease in Gulf Shores, Fort Morgan and Orange Beach, according to the Alabama Gulf Coast Convention and Visitors Bureau. All have a condo association and many of those associations are managed by local rental agencies.

The condo dues at the Gulf range from $200 per month to more than $1,500, depending on the size and age of the unit, managers said.

"We've had very few foreclosures, and the ones we had were in trouble before the market" slowed down, said Linda Moore of Kaiser Realty in Gulf Shores, which manages numerous condo associations. Most owners who did have problems had several units in different complexes, she said.

Many associations assessed owners after Hurricane Ivan in 2004 to make repairs that weren't covered by insurance, or in some cases where associations were under-insured, condo managers said.

Craven said condo insurance rates are down to 60 cents per $1 value, which was close to what rates were before Ivan.

"Insurance rates have dropped dramatically in the condo sector,"he said.

Condo boards are now asking for an assessment for insurance costs rather than including it in the annual budget, said Lolly Holk of Meyer Real Estate in Gulf Shores, which manages 17 associations.

And associations are moving more quickly on delinquencies than in the past, condo managers said.

"Associations do not let the owners get too far behind on their dues before popping liens on them," Holk said. "The owners have so many days to get the money in and if the association sees it going real far, they will keep updating those liens."

A condo association's budget is based on the assumption that all the unit owners are going to pay, according to Craven. "Ultimately, if it doesn't happen, it can hit the pocketbooks of other unit owners. Most associations are very aggressive in turning a collection problem over," for legal action.

In addition to liens, associations can handle delinquencies with lawsuits and garnishments on wages or bank accounts.

Alabama's condo law offers protection to condo associations on the payment of dues, but not on special assessments, according to Craven. If a unit goes into foreclosure, the lender or other foreclosure entity must pay up to six months of back dues that are owed to the association, he said.

At Meyer, owners that are two months behind on association dues area heading toward a lien, Holk said. The collection time has been reduced to 60 days from 90 days by many association managers, she said.

"One of the issues we've addressed with the boards is that we understand that the guy next door is your best friend and golf partner, but we're looking out for the best interest of the association," Holk said.

Some of the associations are trying to keep the monthly fees down to make the units attractive to potential buyers. But Holk says the informed buyer should be looking at the financials and what's in reserve. "That tells a greater story than the monthly maintenance fee," she said.

San Carlos unit auction halted at seller request

Originally Published by the Mobile Press Register


Friday, August 15, 2008

The auction of 35 gulf-front condominium units at San Carlos in Gulf Shores has been canceled at the request of the seller, auctioneers Sheldon Good & Co. said Thursday.

The auction firm declined to comment further.

An investor from Portland, Ore., purchased the last 87 units in the 142-unit building in June 2007 for $40 million. Financial brokers said at the time the that investor planned to put the units back on the market.

The auction had been scheduled for Sunday at the Renaissance Riverview Plaza Hotel in downtown Mobile. Fifteen of the units were to be offered at absolute auction, with no set price, according to Sheldon Good.

Potential bidders who purchased a bidder's information packet will be sent a refund, according to Alan Kravets, president of the Chicago-based auction firm.