Inclined Elevator in Store for Coastal Alabama City

City leaders in Fairhope, Alabama, just to the east across Mobile Bay from ELEVATOR WORLD global headquarters in Mobile, Alabama, plan to vote in April on waterfront improvement plans that include an inclined elevator, Gulf Coast Media reports. Fairhope’s Working Waterfront plan consists of improvements — including accessibility upgrades — to its South Beach and Municipal Pier, and will be funded by a federal US$6.2-million RESTORE grant. An earlier plan to make the South Beach bluffs more accessible with a ramp has been scrapped in favor of the inclined elevator, which Scott Hutchinson of Goodwyn, Mills and Cawood, which prepared the master plan, described as “kind of an open-air gondola-looking thing [that] sits on a rail and goes up and down.” The lift would meet Americans with Disabilities Act requirements and include all necessary safety features, he said.