Huntsville International Airport has been approved by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to allow commercial space vehicles to land in Huntsville. Huntsville International Airport, located in North Alabama, is the first commercial airport in the U.S. approved as a reentry site to receive a space vehicle landing.

“Huntsville has propelled us into another historic first for our state with the award of the commercial space vehicle reentry license for Huntsville International Airport,” said Gov. Kay Ivey. “We appreciate the collaboration exhibited by our public and private partners to make this a reality.”

The Alabama Department of Commerce released the report for the State of Alabama on new and expanding industry announcements for 2021. Morgan County was ranked sixth in the state for both new and expanding capital investments at $332,389,913, and for new and expanding job announcements at 483.

Morgan County had a total of two new projects and 14 expanding projects in 2021 resulting in 362 jobs with a $279,089,913 investment. Some of those expanding companies include Cerrowire LLC, Daikin America, Polyplex USA, Prudent American Technologies, Valley Rubber, United Lauch Alliance, and Watco Transloading LLC.

On Tuesday, three area professionals were honored by the Decatur-Morgan County Chamber of Commerce at the annual Small Business Awards Celebration for their leadership, creativity and commitment to our business community.

Keith Jackson, founder and owner of Jackson Plumbing, Heating & Cooling in Decatur, was named the Raymon Baker - John Cook - Ralph Jones Small Business Person of the Year; Jacob Ladner, CEO of Thirdmark Capital in Decatur, was named the Arthur Orr Young Professional of the Year; and Danielle Gibson, President and CEO of Decatur Morgan County Tourism, was named the Lynn C. Fowler Non-Profit Professional of the Year. The luncheon was held at the Doubletree by Hilton Decatur Riverfront.

Decatur was ranked as one of the top ten places "where homebuyers want to live" by Realtor.com! In the first quarter of the year, more than half, 59.7%, of all of the views on the home listings on Realtor.com® came from shoppers based in other metros, according to recent Realtor.com research. 

The Realtor.com economics team analyzed the search traffic on Realtor.com to figure out the areas where people wanted to move to. They used the data to determine the nation’s most sought-after areas from buyers who are looking at homes in a different metro area from where they live. The analysis covered the 300 largest metropolitan areas in the first quarter of 2022.

Decatur, Alabama was listed at No.9 with a 84.9% of listing views from outside of the metro area. Decatur's median home sales price is $268,000.

According to the National Association of Realtors®' quarterly Metropolitan Median Area Prices and Affordability report, Decatur ranked number 5 out of 185 measured metros for the highest year-over-year price gains in existing single-family home prices for the first quarter of 2022. 

According to the report, the first quarter of 2022 saw more markets reach double-digit annual price gains than the previous quarter. Decatur had a median single-family home price of $237,400 with a 28.9 % year-over-year gain for existing single-family home prices. The median home price last year in Decatur was $184,200 which is an increase of $53,000.