Knowing the Mobile AL Roads

Knowing the Mobile AL Roads

Mobile is one “hot” town. I don’t mean the heat and humidity type of “hot”, even though it feels like 100 degrees in the shade right now.  I mean there seems to be a lot of interest in Mobile from out of town buyers.  The Cummings Company has been sending information on current listings in the Mobile area to several families looking to move here over the next few months.  We are glad to share what our local real estate market has to offer with these interested buyers.

The Mobile Chamber of Commerce 2015 Guide states that Mobile is the largest Gulf Coast city between New Orleans and Tampa and is ranked 120^th in the nation.  According to the 2013 Census, it is estimated that the city of Mobile has 194,899 citizens, Mobile County has 414,079 citizens and the Mobile Bay Area (Mobile and Baldwin counties) has 609,619 citizens.  The Cummings Company is working hard to increase these populations as more and more buyers have expressed interest in moving to Mobile.

I have been touting Mobile’s horn so to speak in all that our great city has to offer to all the out-of-town buyers we are working with.  I also have been giving them “directions”, how far from this house to a school they asked me about, where the closest grocery store is or how far from this house to downtown.  This has helped me as well as sometimes I am “directionally challenged”.  So this got me to thinking, is there a resource list of hospitals, schools, grocery stores, etc. that we can send to our out-of-town clients or does everyone just Google now? The Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce has an excellent 2015 Guide to Mobile on their website.  Road name changes are not listed unfortunately. 

When I was first married, we lived in Tulsa, OK.  This was before cell phones (am I dating myself?) so my new husband handed me a roll of quarters and a Tulsa city map, put me in my car and said “call me if you get lost and can’t find your way home.  Drive around all day and learn street names, landmarks, where the mall is (always very important) and then try to make it home by driving a different direction than when you leave this morning”.  I was scared to death, but I made it home without getting lost.  Tulsa is laid out on a grid and the street names do not change at intersections as they do in Mobile.  We know because we live and work here when a street changes names.  We know how far a road goes.  We know, but our out-of-town clients don’t know.  I have realized this as I have been helping the families who are re-locating to our area.  As I have been giving directions or showing property, I try to remember to say “now this street just changed names”.  We grew up here and we just “know.”  But our out-of-town clients, especially ones that are using a paper map and trying to figure out how our city is laid out, don’t know.  How many roads in the city of Mobile and Mobile County change names from one side of the intersection to the other?  Probably more than I will ever know. That is why I use my phone GPS and my Garmin to get me around town.  Thank goodness for technology because now there are no more pay phones for me to spend my quarters on, but that is a whole other issue.

Here at The Cummings Company, we strive to help our clients in all aspects of buying or selling a home, including navigating around town.  We, as realtors, need to be very familiar of the areas, neighborhoods and subdivisions all over Mobile County.  It definitely helps to know this when you are mapping properties to show a client.   We have a REALTOR® in our office that just recently moved here from another state so she is learning her way around town as she is helping her clients look at properties around town.  I can understand her frustration as I am continually learning new roads myself.  As Mobile continues to progress westward, more streets are being added as new subdivisions are being developed and they don’t always show up in our GPS system. 

These are some of the Mobile road name changes that I do know about:

1. Azalea Road begins at Hall’s Mill Road and ends at Airport Blvd.  Once you cross Airport Blvd., the street name changes to McGregor.

2. Sollie Road starts at Three Knotch Road and ends at Cottage Hill Road.  Once you cross Cottage Hill Road, the street name changes to Cody Road.

3. Highway 90 is also called Government Blvd. which then turns into Government Street at the Loop and runs to the downtown area.

4. Schillinger Road starts at Moffat Rd and ends at Three Knotch Road.  Once you cross Three Knotch, the street name changes to Theodore Dawes Road which takes you to the interstate and then to Highway 90 in Theodore.  Once you cross Highway 90, the road changes to Hamilton Blvd.

5. Snow Road starts at Moffat Road and runs south to Jeff Hamilton Road.  Once you cross Jeff Hamilton Road, the street name changes to McFarland Road.

There are many more street name changes all over the city of Mobile and in Mobile County.  As a realtor, we need to know how to navigate around the city and county as we are showing property.  We also need to know so we can advise our out-of-town clients as they are trying to figure out what areas they want to live.  We don’t need quarters anymore to call someone if we get lost as we all have cell phones now.  But we do need to know how to get around town, especially if our GPS wants to take us in a different direction.