Downtown Homewood development! (Birmingham: hotel, houses, neighborhoods)

[GotLuv4Bham]

Just 5 minutes from booming downtown Birmingham, downtown Homewood seems to be going through some major changes too. I've always been a fan of the new dense and walkable development taking place in downtown Homewood, but some in Homewood think the character of the area is being threatened. What do you guys think?

Check out this video
WBRC : Lots of demolition brings new projects to Homewood

[tacosman]

Originally Posted by GotLuv4Bham

Just 5 minutes from booming downtown Birmingham, downtown Homewood seems to be going through some major changes too. I've always been a fan of the new dense and walkable development taking place in downtown Homewood, but some in Homewood think the character of the area is being threatened. What do you guys think?

Check out this video
WBRC : Lots of demolition brings new projects to Homewood

Homewood is not 'walkable' in any true sense. Depending on where I live in edgewood or the business district(which are really the same almost), I may be able to walk to dawsons, the library, the barbeque and pizza place, the cupcake place, tacomama, etc and the gas station on oxmoor. MAYBE. But being able to walk to get a taco or pizza or slurpie is not really 'walkable' in any true sense.

We know this because all one sees when they drive through edgewood is parked cars. Cars parked on the side of the street left and right. one after the other. If the area were so darn walkable it wouldn't appear to have the highest per capita of cars in the entire birmingham area.

What you do see a lot of people doing in homewood is walking for exercise up and down the sidewalks. But even this is misleading- a lot of people walk in places like liberty park as well. The difference is it APPEARS more people are walking in edgewood just because the housing density is so high. But if the housing density is 4 times as high as a very spread out golf community and it looks like 4 times as many people are on the sidelines, more people per house arent really 'out walking'....

but when I think edgewood all I think is 'cars cars cars'.....cars backed up on oxmoor and broadway, cars clogging the side residential streets parked, cars stacked up on oxmoor's shops, cars everydamn where.....

[Tourian]

Originally Posted by tacosman

but when I think edgewood all I think is 'cars cars cars'.....cars backed up on oxmoor and broadway, cars clogging the side residential streets parked, cars stacked up on oxmoor's shops, cars everydamn where.....

Ha ha. Yes there are a lot of cars there. But maybe a large portion of it is non-Homewoodians...Home...non-Homies who come there to visit. Particularly at lunch time it can be difficult trying to get to Saw's or Johnny's etc... Even on weekend's just to get a freakin' popsicle at Steel City it is packed up. Some might call parking a nightmare if we would dare to indulge ourselves in such vivid expression.

Thats just part of the price for being the metro's trendiest suburb.

[tacosman]

Originally Posted by Tourian

Ha ha. Yes there are a lot of cars there. But maybe a large portion of it is non-Homewoodians...Home...non-Homies who come there to visit. Particulaly at lunch time it is overwhelming trying to get to Saw's or Johnny's etc... Even on weekend's just to get a freakin' popscicle at Steel City it is packed up.

Thats just part of the price for being the metro's trendiest suburb.

I'm mostly talking about all the cars parked on the street outside peoples homes. Typically the families have 2 or 3 cars. Since garages are rare, one car is typically parked in the little sliver the lot has for a driveway and another car or two(occasionally three) is parked on the street outside the house. So thats why you get the mass of car clutter. Every single family who lives in homewood has multiple cars....because it's not a truly walkable neighborhood.

Have you driven down west glenwood recently?(where it comes off roseland). I guarantee you will have to play ******* at least three times on the first stretch since there are cars parked on that tiny street in both directions CONTINUOUSLY. So only one car can pass at any given time.

This is different than truly walkable neighborhoods in actual cities, because there families often don't need multiple cars because they actually walk to go about the needs of their day. Nobody actually does that in homewood. Which is fine- nobody does that in Liberty Park or Trace crossings or whatever either. The difference is that in Liberty Park or trace crossings there is a bit more room to do things like park all the cars you need on your lot. so the car clutter is avoided to the same extent.

[tacosman]

why did it block out the name of a 1981 arcade game where frogs cross a busy road with hazards haha

[Tourian]

Dunno. Maybe a mod had that name or its too close to a swear word.

I guess a truly walkable neighborhood is anomaly because it is attached to a generally nonwalkable sunbelt metro. People here still need a car for when the leave the nest and there is no BRT to take them from the 'Wood to downtown. And who knows if they would ride it if there was. Maybe we will find out someday.

[GotLuv4Bham]

Looks like the demolition happening in downtown Homewood will lead to a new hotel/ retail development.

http://www.bizjournals.com/birmingha...el-retail.html

[MinivanDriver]

I'm really surprised that those small warehouses between Soho and 280 haven't gone through redevelopment. The land they're on is like gold.

[Tourian]

Yeah it would be nice to see get some height to it along Rosedale down to 280 and around this new hotel site. The owners of those older crustier buildings in Homewood are probably looking forward to a big payday when a developer eventually comes knocking.