By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

ALABASTER – Drivers traveling to Warrior Park of Thompson Drive can now more easily access Field B at the park, as crews are putting the final touches on a project to realign the entrance to the field’s parking lot.

The Global Management Group recently completed a project to renovate and modify the entrance to the parking lot near the intersection of Thompson Road and Warrior Drive.

The Alabaster City Council voted in June to award a $106,852 bid to the company to handle the project.

During a Sept. 8 City Council work session, Alabaster Parks and Recreation Director Tim Hamm said the majority of the project had been completed, and said he was working with the company to address a few minor issues before finalizing the project.

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

The construction project moved the entrance to the eastern corner of the parking lot, which allows traffic on Warrior Drive to travel straight across Thompson Road into the parking lot. The old entrance in the west corner of the parking lot is now closed.

The project included 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 were 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 was able to maintain about the same number of parking spots serving the four baseball fields at the park.

The city met its goal of having the project completed before the first Thompson High School home football game of the season against Oak Mountain on Sept. 16.