By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

ALABASTER – Crews are on track to finish a project to realign the entrance to Field B at Warrior Park off Thompson Road before the first Thompson High School home football game, according to Alabaster’s mayor.

Crews recently began construction work on project, after the Alabaster City Council voted in late June to award a $106,852 bid to Global Management Group to handle the realignment.

Once completed, the project will renovate and modify the entrance to the parking lot of Field B at the park near the intersection of Thompson Road and Warrior Drive.

Currently, the park’s entrance off Thompson Road is slightly west of the road’s intersection with Warrior Drive. As a result, traffic traveling to the parking lot from Warrior Drive must turn left onto Thompson Road and then immediately turn right into the parking lot.

The construction project will move the entrance to the eastern corner of the parking lot, which would allow traffic on Warrior Drive to travel straight across Thompson Road into the parking lot. The current entrance on the west corner of the parking lot will be closed once the new entrance is completed.

The project will include moving the entrance, installing a few new traffic islands on the east side of the parking lot, removing the current traffic islands on the west side of the parking lot, restriping and adding a new seal coat to the lot. Traffic lights also will be added to the south quadrant of the intersection to handle traffic traveling out of the parking lot.

City officials previously said by rearranging the parking lot’s layout and removing the traffic islands on the west side of the lot, the city will be able to maintain about the same number of parking spots serving the four baseball fields at the park.

On Aug. 22, Alabaster Mayor Marty Handlon said crews were, weather permitting, on track to have the project completed before the first THS home game on Sept. 16 against Oak Mountain.

A few days before the THS-OMHS game, the city will host its annual homecoming parade from Thompson Middle School to Larry Simmons Stadium. The parking lot renovation project lies in the parade route.