By Nathan Prewett, For the Tribune
LEEDS – The Leeds City Council approved a tax abatement of five years for C&B Piping to construct a new building on Parkway Drive during a meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 20.
Before approving the resolution for the abatement the council went into executive session but returned shortly afterwards and heard from C&B Piping President Stephen Gables and Vice President of Operations Blake Williams.
C&B Piping supplies ductile piping systems, focusing primarily on the water and wastewater industry. Gables said that the company is a family-owned business that was established 38 years ago and has operations outside of Alabama.
C&B acquired the property on 8771 Parkway Drive in order to construct a building to accommodate its excess production in Leeds.
“We just don’t have enough room,” said Williams. “We want to be able to do more, and we also do carbon steel and stainless steel fabrication. And we have a growing market for those products and we do not have enough space to scale those at the level that our customers are asking us.”
“This facility will allow us to do much more jobs on carbon and stainless steel piping systems and will add to our space to be able to make more ductile pipe as well.”
The cost of construction is $13,650,000.
The council passed the abatement in a 5-1 vote, with Councilman Eric Turner being the sole “no” vote. He later explained to the Trussville Tribune that while he personally approved of the abatement, there was a member from the Birmingham Business Alliance or BBA who was present at the last meeting and expressed their support for it.
He said that the BBA had once employed a man who spoke at a past council meeting, who was afterwards alleged by a city employee to have used homophobic remarks. According to Turner, he was told to apologize but refused to, leading to him being fired and so Turner voted against the abatement.
During public comments Farest Hartsfield asked about the status of what he said was an illegal building on Mountainview Lane that was subject to litigation in 2020. Miller said that there was an appeal made and that the building remains in litigation and that it is “out of the [city’s] hands” until a decision is made from the circuit court.
Hartsfield asked if there was any indication of how much longer the matter would be, to which Miller replied that he did not know.
The council also passed a resolution to participate in a proposal by Heidelberg Materials to apply for a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to reduce the plant’s fossil fuel usage.
Heidelberg Materials maintains a plant in Leeds that produces Portland cement, which relies on mining and processing 1.05 million tons of limestone, producing a rated clinker capacity of 772,000 tons per year.
“We met with Heidelberg,” said Mayor David Miller. “It will include funds to locate alternative fuels that are more environmentally friendly and won’t cost the city anything. It’ll actually benefit the city.”
Heidelberg seeks to use the funds to implement an alternative fuels receiving, handling and dosing project, as well as a carbon capture and storage system. The council passed the resolution unanimously.
Additionally, the council heard from Yashiba Blanchard, who is running for Jefferson County Probate Judge, Place 1. She spoke about some of the goals in her platform, among them being expediating case hearings and education on voting and absentee ballots.
In other business, the council:
- Granted a liquor license to Guerro Mexican Grill.
- Approved buying a replacement fire truck for $1,049,928 in a purchasing process that will take four years.
Meetings are held on the first and third Mondays of every month at City Hall on 1400 9th Street Northeast. Agenda packets can be seen online at the City of Leeds website.
Nathan Prewett can be reached at nthomasp6@gmail.com.