After 10 years of thinking about it, Huntsville is ready to make the leap.

The Huntsville city council received initial plans at Thursday's meeting to annex more than 600 acres in Morgan County - which would expand the city's footprint across the Tennessee River into Morgan County in the area of the Whitesburg Bridge.

Plans call for a recreational development directly across the river from Ditto Landing, Mayor Tommy Battle said.

It's been a leap that city leaders have thought about since 2006 but plans never fully developed.

"I think there's a lot of upside potential on this," Battle said. "It can tie the two commercial recreation districts together. There are a lot of pluses for the whole community."

If the council ultimately approves the proposal, Huntsville -- located in Madison County -- will have annexed into parts of Limestone and Morgan counties.

The proposal of annexing 659.1 acres on the east side of U.S. Highway 231 and the north and south side of River Loop Road was presented to the council under new business items for introduction.

The council typically will announce a public hearing for land it plans to annex before taking action. No public hearing has been scheduled yet. City officials said a detailed presentation of the project would be made at the council's Feb. 22 meeting.

"We have been working this process for a long time, doing a lot of checks and balances to make sure it's the right thing to go over there and come into that area," Battle said. "I think it will make our recreational facilities stronger by doing that."

Battle said "just about all of (the land)" will front the Tennessee River.

"Strategically, the advantage to us is it's right across from Ditto," councilwoman Jennie Robinson said.

Dennis Madsen, the city's manager of Urban and Long-Range Planning, said most of the land to be annexed is "undeveloped."

Jim McGuffey, the city's manager of Planning Services, said the land would ideally be zoned for residential use as well as commercial recreation and that the land would mostly be used for recreation purposes.

"Some of it will have big lots with big homes but the vast majority of it is that recreational property," Battle said.

The mayor said there were no immediate plans for major infrastructure developments in adding the land to the city limits.

"We're not promising a lot of infrastructure over there," Battle said. "We're not promising sewer, we're not promising water. We want to be good neighbors with Morgan County and make sure that as good neighbors, we continue to support the utilities and infrastructure that they have in place."

Updated today, Feb. 8, 2018, at 8:36 p.m. with new information throughout.