"Right now, there's not a good way to get across any further south than Skyland." That's Tuscaloosa County Commission Chairman Rob Robertson, describing the Highway 69 South corridor at the county's State of the Community event this month at the Bryant Conference Center. A new connector road linking Highway 69 and Highway 82 further south in the county is now an approved project.
The road is not built. Buyers comparing new construction South of Town with its older, established streets may want to consider road-project status alongside the home itself.
The visible story here is easy to tell. New subdivisions keep opening off 69 South. A shopping center at Skyland and McFarland has a $25 million redevelopment in the pipeline. Prices still run below what you'd pay downtown or on the lake. Another consideration is the timing difference: subdivisions get approved through a single county commission vote, while the roads meant to carry the traffic those subdivisions create move through a separately funded pipeline that can sit without a start date for years. Those timelines are useful context when comparing prices in South of Town.
The Vote That Showed the Split
In September 2025, Tuscaloosa County commissioners approved phase three of the Greymont subdivision off Highway 69 South, after tabling the vote a week earlier and hearing months of comment from both sides. The opposition wasn't asking for the project to be killed. They wanted larger lots so fewer homes would go in. A WBRC report quoted Monroe Payne, speaking for existing Greymont residents, before the vote: "I guess I'm going to tell you we're conceding. We're going along with your wishes and grants today. But I still want to go on record and say that Greymont is opposed to this size development."
The density concern wasn't just aesthetic. Some residents pointed to overcrowding at nearby schools, and they weren't inventing the problem. Tuscaloosa County Schools Superintendent Dr. Keri Johnson has said publicly that schools in the Big Sandy area, which sits along this same 69 South growth line, are at capacity; ABC 33/40 quoted her saying, "Our schools are at capacity and we have reached our limit as far as funding in what we can do to build new buildings." County planning officials have since discussed adjusting minimum lot sizes specifically to manage how fast new density gets added to this corridor.
None of that is a statement about any particular school. It's a capacity and timing problem, the same kind that shows up with roads, and it's worth knowing before you buy into a subdivision that's still adding phases.
The Connector Road Project
The connector road Robertson referenced isn't new. It's listed on the Tuscaloosa County Road Improvement Commission's project page as the SR-69 South and US-82 Connector Road Project, led by ALDOT. Public involvement meetings were held back in September 2023, with the comment period closing that October and an additional online comment window that ran through May 2024. The project letting, the point at which construction actually gets scheduled and funded, is still listed simply as TBD.
"This new connector road is an approved project that's in the works and will help traffic flow in the southern part of the county in those growth areas." — Rob Robertson, Tuscaloosa County Commission Chairman
A second, smaller project sits right at the corridor's main pressure point: the intersection of Highway 69 South and Skyland Boulevard, where an estimated 20,000 vehicles pass through daily. ALDOT spokesman John McWilliams described the plan at a June 2026 public meeting at Skyland Elementary School as adding turn lanes and improving signal timing to help mobility and safety. Robertson, speaking two months later, said work there is only "beginning soon." Two separate projects, both meant to relieve the same growth pressure, both still without a construction date attached, while the subdivisions they're meant to serve keep clearing votes.
Retail Redevelopment Along the Corridor
As reported by Tuscaloosa Thread, the aging Wright Plaza South at Skyland and McFarland, home at the time to a Fresh Value grocery, a Walgreens that closed in 2025, and a Pizza Hut that had reopened as a wings restaurant, was announced in 2025 as the site of a full redevelopment led by longtime property owner Michael Whitworth, with CBRE Group handling the leasing. Tuscaloosa Thread quoted District 7 Councilman Cassius Lanier saying the project, paired with a separate effort called Project Encore, would "change the whole face of District 7," and noted his reference to Culver's and other new-to-market restaurants coming to the area. He also said he was looking forward to city streetscaping upgrades along Skyland Boulevard, though by his own account those were likely years off.
Retail redevelopment and public road projects follow separate timelines. For a buyer, it means the restaurant and shopping options near the corridor may expand on their own timeline, separate from whether the connector road gets a letting date.
Prices and Infrastructure Along the Corridor
Tuscaloosa County's median sales price reached $277,400 in March 2026, up 7.1% from a year earlier, according to the Tuscaloosa Association of Realtors and Alabama Center for Real Estate residential report. New construction, which accounted for roughly a fifth of everything that closed that month, carried a median of $319,900. Countywide inventory that same month was up 20.4% year over year, with 2.9 months of supply on the market.
A quick look at where that gap sits:
- County median sale price, March 2026: $277,400
- New construction median, same month: $319,900
- Inventory growth, year over year: up 20.4%
- Months of supply: 2.9
Established South of Town neighborhoods like Remington and Laurel Wood, both near Hillcrest High School and Shelton State Community College, sit close to shopping and restaurants that are already open and roads that are already built. Buying there, you're paying for finished infrastructure. Buying new construction further along the corridor, closer to where subdivisions like Greymont keep adding phases, means project timelines remain relevant: the connector road has no letting date, the Skyland and 69 intersection work is tentative, and the retail redevelopment is proceeding on its own timeline.
Questions Worth Asking Before You Sign
If you're looking at new construction along this stretch of Highway 69 South, a few questions will tell you more than the floor plan will:
- Is the subdivision built to its original lot sizes, or a revised plan, given that county planners have discussed adjusting density specifically on this corridor?
- What's the current daily traffic count on the road serving the property, and does it run through the Skyland and 69 intersection that's still listed as tentative?
- Is the nearby retail you're picturing already open, or only announced? Right now this corridor has more announced square footage than finished square footage.
- Which school zone does the property fall in, and is there a facilities plan attached to it? That's a capacity and timing question, not a quality one, but it affects how the area develops around you.
None of this makes South of Town a bad buy. It makes it a corridor where the calendar matters as much as the square footage. A subdivision that looks identical to one built five years ago in Remington can carry a very different set of open questions about the road in front of it and the intersection at the end of it.
If you're weighing new construction south of town against something already established, Caitlin Tubbs Wilson can walk you through which streets sit closest to finished infrastructure and which are near projects that remain in planning. Start your real estate journey with a conversation about the status of road and retail projects in the area.
