What's New in McCalla Alabama: Businesses and Local Growth
September 10, 2026
September 10, 2026
What do a vacant JC Penney, a barbecue joint with a line out the door before it even opens, and a $24.5 million groundbreaking at a place called JeffMet have in common? They're all in McCalla, and none of them happened by accident.
For a long time, McCalla's story was simple: you drove through it to get to Tannehill Ironworks State Park, or you worked at one of its big industrial plants and went home somewhere else at night. The last twelve months have quietly complicated that story. A cluster of new businesses opened in McCalla during that time, alongside industrial investment in Jefferson County.
If you've driven past Tannehill Promenade in the last year, you've noticed the old JC Penney box looks different. That's because Onelife Fitness, a Virginia-based chain opening its first Alabama location anywhere, took over the space and opened in December 2025. The facility runs 58,000 square feet and includes a STRIKE boxing studio, water aerobics, cycle and chair yoga classes, and a Kids Club with its own small movie theater.
A vacant anchor store sitting empty for years is a familiar sight in suburban Birmingham. What's less common is a first-in-state location choosing that specific box over the dozens of other empty big-box spaces scattered across the metro. Onelife had its eye on Birmingham generally, according to the company's leadership, but McCalla is where the first Alabama flag went in the ground.
Total Dermatology, the group behind Total on 1st in Birmingham, opened a full clinic in McCalla on December 18, 2025. It's located on Eastern Valley Road, right off Exit 1, next to the Piggly Wiggly and across from McAdory High School. The clinic offers full-body skin checks, biopsies, treatment for acne, psoriasis and eczema, plus cosmetic services like Botox and dermal fillers, all with board-certified dermatologists on site.
That's a small thing until you consider what it replaces: a drive to Homewood or Hoover for an appointment that now takes place a few minutes from McAdory. A few miles south on Highway 216, Recover Now opened a $2.2 million addiction treatment campus in spring 2026, its first site in Alabama, chosen specifically for its position between Tuscaloosa and Birmingham. Two very different kinds of healthcare investment landed in McCalla within months of each other, though neither depended on the other.
Here's the one that got people talking. Austin Whereabouts BBQ opened near UAB Medical West in the spring of 2026, serving Central Texas-style brisket and pork belly burnt ends, sliced in front of customers the way it's done in Austin. Staff reported customers lining up 10 to 15 minutes before the 11 a.m. opening, which is not a normal problem for a new restaurant in a town this size.
The timing matters. Just weeks earlier, all three Rodney Scott's BBQ locations in the metro, in Trussville, Homewood, and Chelsea, closed. That left a real hole in the region's barbecue options. On Saturdays they run a Texas Twinkie, a jalapeño stuffed with cheese and brisket wrapped in bacon, which tells you this isn't a place hedging its bets on being generically good. It's open Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.
One major development in McCalla is the new ITU AbsorbTech plant. In June 2026, ITU AbsorbTech, a family-owned industrial laundry and textile supplier based in Wisconsin, broke ground on a $24.5 million processing plant at Jefferson Metropolitan Park, known locally as JeffMet McCalla. The 50,000-square-foot facility is the company's first processing plant in the region and is projected to bring 40 high-wage manufacturing jobs, with construction running through mid-2027.
Bham Now reported the company's explanation: "We chose McCalla for its strong business climate, strategic regional location and high-quality workforce." That's not marketing copy written for residents. It's a company explaining, in plain terms, why it picked this specific patch of Jefferson County over other options.
ITU AbsorbTech isn't the only one making that bet. Smucker's has been running its Uncrustables plant in McCalla since November 2024, part of a three-phase, $1.1 billion commitment to the site. In January 2026, the company pulled a new $27 million permit for a further expansion of that same facility. That's two companies, in two different industries, both expanding their footprint in McCalla within the same twelve-month stretch. Retail and service businesses are part of the change, alongside the industrial investments in McCalla.
None of the above touches the reason a lot of people first learned the name McCalla. Tannehill Ironworks Historical State Park has run its own calendar for years, independent of whatever is happening at the shopping centers along Highway 216 or 459. This Labor Day, the park hosted its annual Alabama Workers Appreciation Day, the kind of low-key community event that's been part of the park's rhythm for decades.
The rest of the fall calendar is worth marking down now:
None of these events depend on the new gym or the new BBQ joint to draw a crowd. They've been pulling vendors, campers, and day-trippers to the park's 1,500 acres for years on their own momentum. What's changed is that a Saturday spent walking Tannehill's trails or browsing Trade Days booths can now end with a Texas-style brisket plate a few minutes down the road instead of a drive back into Birmingham.
None of these five things, the gym, the dermatology clinic, the BBQ joint, the AbsorbTech plant, or the Smucker's expansion, would be interesting on its own. A single new restaurant opening is not news. What's worth noticing is that they all landed within the same twelve-month window, in the same small town, alongside significant industrial investment.
If you've lived in McCalla for a while, this is probably confirming something you already half-suspected: the town feels different than it did two years ago, and it's not your imagination. If you're newer here, it's worth knowing that this isn't a one-time cluster of coincidences. It's a snapshot of a town where industrial investment and storefront changes are happening at the same time.
Whenever you're curious how any of this shows up in what a McCalla home is actually worth, or what it means for buying or selling in this specific stretch of Jefferson County, that's a conversation worth having with someone who watches this market closely. Roxanne Hale works this side of the Birmingham metro every day. Let's Connect.
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Based in Birmingham, I help clients buy, sell, build, and relocate across the region’s most sought-after communities — from Homewood, Mountain Brook, Vestavia, and Hoover to Cullman, Decatur, Huntsville, and beyond.
