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VALLEY — Ever since Fairfax Mill was demolished and the site cleared of debris much thought has gone into ways to repurpose the now city-owned site into some kind of public use.

Landscape architect Scott Colomb has been coming up with a conceptual plan of how to do that. At 6 p.m. ET on Tuesday, October 29th he will be making a presentation at the East Alabama Fire Department building located off Boulevard near the mill site. All residents of the Fairfax community and anyone else interested in this project is invited to attend this public meeting and to feel free to offer input and suggestions.

“This is something important to our neighborhood, and we want a good turnout that evening,” Council Member Jim Jones told The Valley Times-News following the Monday meeting of the city council. Jones has represented the Fairfax community on the council for going on three decades.

“How we develop this site will be important to the future of the Fairfax community,” Jones added.

There’s broad agreement that the site should become some kind of public park with lots of green space.

As many see it, it would be fitting to do this since Fairfax has long been known for its village gree feel and public spaces. Fairfax Mill was built by the West Point Manufacturing Company almost 110 years ago. Company President George H. Lanier wanted it to be a towel mill. With the U.S. involvement in World War I on the horizon, initial production was for duck, which was in great demand by the military. In the post-war period, production shifted to towels and Fairfax quickly became known as Towel City U.S.A., especially following getting the rights to produce Martex towels in 1927. They bought the rights from the Margetson brothers in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The town of Fairfax grew up around the new mill, which was the heart and center of the town.

The redevelopment of the mill site is an opportunity to have a new heart and center of Fairfax.

Colomb will have presentation boards on easels at the meeting. People in attendance can see what he has in mind in developing the site. He will be talking about the project through a PowerPoint presentation that should last approximately 30 minutes. He will then open up the program for comments from the public. He will remain afterward for one-on-one conversations with the public.