United Bank Community Development has provided lending for a new sanitation building in Atmore and a new fire truck in Satsuma.
A subsidiary of Atmore-based United Bank, the program specializes in providing funding for projects in rural areas.
The Atmore sanitation building, a $1 million investment, will help build a 6,000-square-foot metal building for Atmore’s 20-person sanitation crew, including such features as a hydraulic lift to help in maintaining city vehicles.
“This project has been in the works for more than 20 years, ” said Atmore Mayor Jim Staff. “The Community Facilities Lending program made it affordable for us to move forward on this much-needed update,” noting especially the improvements to equipment, heating and cooling services and safety features.
The Satsuma project, a $447,000 investment, will provide a new fire truck, allowing the city to replace an aging truck.
“It was important to us as community leaders to upgrade and add to our fire truck fleet,” said Satsuma Mayor Tom Williams. “Our intention was to keep the aging truck operational and in our reserve. We knew that if we kept using the aging truck on a regular basis, we might get into a situation where it would not be in service. We explored replacing the aging truck, but until now, we were not able to have proper financing to fund the new truck.”
Satsuma, which the FBI identified as Alabama’s safest city in 2019, has 7,000 residents and provides fire protection assistance in neighboring communities of Saraland, Axis and Creola.
United Bank has been in business 116 years. In addition to its hometown of Atmore, it serves neighboring areas of southeast Alabama and the Florida panhandle.
