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Hoover Alabama

Hoover is a city in Jefferson and Shelby Counties in north central Alabama, in the United States. The largest suburb of Birmingham, the population of the city was 62,742 as of the 2000 census and was estimated to be 73,000 in 2008.[2] Hoover is part of the Birmingham-Hoover, AL MSA (metropolitan statistical area) and is also included in the Birmingham-Hoover-Cullman, AL CSA. Hoover’s neighborhoods and planned communities are located along the rolling foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.

 

Hoover is home to the Riverchase Galleria, one of the largest shopping centers in the Southeast and one of the largest mixed-use centers in the U.S. with 2.4 million square feet (222,967 m²) of total retail floor area. The Riverchase Galleria complex includes shopping, hotel, and office space. The shopping complex major anchor stores are JCPenney, Belk, Macy's, and Sears. The Birmingham Barons minor league baseball team, which traces its history to 1885, plays its home games at the 10,800 seat Regions Park. Michael Jordan's brief professional baseball career was with the Barons in 1994.

The MTV show Two-A-Days was filmed in Hoover for the Hoover High School football team.

 

History

The City of Hoover was incorporated in 1967. It was named after William H. Hoover (a local insurance company owner). The area had been known as the Hoover community since the 1930s and was mostly a residential community. In the late 1970s and early 1980s the city was still mostly residential with a small City Hall that included space for the police department. The annexation of the Riverchase business and residential community provided a base of large office buildings and employers to the city. A significant change to the city occurred when Interstate I-459 was opened with a major interchange with Interstate I-65 within the city. The most dramatic change occurred in 1986 when the Riverchase Galleria shopping-hotel-office complex opened. This significantly increased the tax revenue for the city. It was the catalyst to bring new residents and businesses to the city. The city has grown extremely fast with annexations and new developments. The city now provides services from many large city facilities including a Municipal Center, a Library, and a Public Safety Center. Residents and businesses are drawn to the city because of the rolling hills and nice residential areas, schools, city services, shopping, and business communities.

 

Media

Hoover has one television station ABC 33/40 with main studios within its city limits. The metro area has TV broadcasting stations that serve the Birmingham-Anniston-Tuscaloosa Designated Market Area (DMA) as defined by Nielsen Media Research and provide broadcasting for ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, PBS, The CW, MyNetworkTV, and ION TV networks. Charter Communications, Bright House Networks, and AT&T U-verse provide cable television service to specific communities in Hoover. DirecTV and Dish Network provide direct broadcast satellite television including both local and national channels to Hoover residents.

No radio stations operate from Hoover though numerous stations from the Birmingham market serve the city. (WERC-FM is licensed to Hoover but its studio is located in Birmingham.)

Two newspapers serve Hoover: The Birmingham News, the state's primary daily newspaper, and the Over the Mountain Journal, a weekly newspaper that began publishing in 1991. The portion of Hoover which lies in Shelby County is also served by the Shelby County Reporter, a weekly newspaper based in Columbiana, the county seat.