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04/17/02

Florine and Hal Ettinger, formerly of Bethesda, Md., did something unusual last summer: They retired to Homewood.

While most over-the-mountain cities tallied increases in their 65-and-older population during the last decade, Homewood bucked the trend.

Homewood's total population grew 9 percent to 25,043. Its senior population, however, plummeted 16 percent to 2,650, according to 1990 and 2000 U.S. Census figures.

"I'm surprised," said Dorothy Chambers, president of the city's Primetimers seniors organization.

She speculated that Homewood's heated real estate market is leading seniors to sell their older homes to younger families.

"We have parents willing to pay the prices to put their children in the schools," she said. "That is the reason the older people are moving."

The city is hamstrung by having little available land to support the kind of sizable retirement communities found in neighboring cities.

"Homewood is landlocked," said Brett Isom, a planner with the Regional Planning Commission of Greater Birmingham. "It's not like they have a lot of options for annexation and large subdivision construction. They're pretty stuck."

The city's median age also dropped from 31.7 to 30.5 during the decade, giving Homewood the state's 10th-youngest median age for cities.

Unlike Homewood, Census records for 2000 show other over-the-mountain cities recorded senior population growth larger than their overall growth. Hoover's overall population grew 58 percent to 62,742, but its senior population boomed 74 percent to 6,816.

Though he wasn't aware of the drop in senior population, Homewood Mayor Barry McCulley figured it was a normal occurrence.

"I feel as though this issue of age distribution is cyclical," he said. "I think you will see this cyclical process reverse itself, simply because (of) the baby boomers being a large group in our and any population."

McCulley said the city is looking at having a developer build garden homes for seniors on the balance of the land where the Homewood Senior Center is nearing completion in West Homewood. He doesn't, however, see an exodus of seniors from Homewood.

"Do seniors move out? Sure," McCulley said. "But I don't see that as a major issue."

The new faces in Homewood are in classrooms.

Since 1990, Homewood school enrollment grew by 9 percent to 3,216 students keeping pace with the city's overall growth rate for the 1990s.

Colleges also skew the numbers. Homewood, like many Alabama cities with a low median age, has a college that affects its demographics. Samford University's enrollment grew for the same period by 5 percent to 4,377 students.

With Brookwood Village and Brookwood Medical Center nearby, Homewood has some of the amenities sought by seniors.

The Ettingers considered Mount Royal Towers in Vestavia Hills before settling on Somerby at University Park.

"It's a wonderful location," Florine Ettinger, 79, said. "It's very convenient to everything."

The City of Homewood also is building a $1.4 million senior center in West Homewood. The Primetimers, an independent seniors group with nearly 500 members, is based in Homewood. And Homewood seniors may avail themselves of free bus service to doctors and grocery stores.

Despite those draws, Amanda Miller, marketing director for Mount Royal Towers, estimated about a dozen residents a year move from Homewood to Mount Royal.

"Definitely, Homewood is one of the biggest neighborhoods we draw from," she said.

Somerby, the only sizable retirement community in Homewood, opened in 1999 along Shades Creek and recently completed its second phase.

Chris Blackerby, Somerby marketing director, estimated the community's population between 300 and 350 residents. The second phase added 120 independent-living apartments, which are expected to be half occupied by the end of June.

Those added residents should shore up the city's senior population. But people such as Chambers wonder where the city's thinning ranks of seniors have headed. "I really don't know where they're going," she said.

Isom speculated that the older population is "dwindling naturally, and no older people are moving into the area. There are more young people moving into the area."

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