Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > Alabama > Birmingham area
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 03-16-2019, 12:15 AM
 
1,636 posts, read 2,124,765 times
Reputation: 1827

Advertisements

I'm in town visiting. I thought that, overall, downtown Birmingham was nice and has real potential. One thing that I found interesting was that there seems to be a lot of people and activity downtown and it is clean, but there were a few streets with a lot of empty shops. I couldn't understand the two opposing realities. I live in the Detroit area, and before the downtown was revitalized, there were a lot of closed stores but the streets were empty and dead. So I found the fact that there was a lot of activity in downtown Birmingham but yet there were closed shops and couldn't understand why.

The area by the Hospital seems to be up and coming, and combined with the central district, it seems to be good bones for an expansive downtown. The civil rights museum was very good.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 03-16-2019, 07:42 AM
 
10,494 posts, read 6,932,320 times
Reputation: 32298
Quote:
Originally Posted by Republic of Michigan View Post
I'm in town visiting. I thought that, overall, downtown Birmingham was nice and has real potential. One thing that I found interesting was that there seems to be a lot of people and activity downtown and it is clean, but there were a few streets with a lot of empty shops. I couldn't understand the two opposing realities. I live in the Detroit area, and before the downtown was revitalized, there were a lot of closed stores but the streets were empty and dead. So I found the fact that there was a lot of activity in downtown Birmingham but yet there were closed shops and couldn't understand why.

The area by the Hospital seems to be up and coming, and combined with the central district, it seems to be good bones for an expansive downtown. The civil rights museum was very good.

Thanks for your comments. It's a work in progress. Just to give you perspective, ten years ago, downtown was still a ghost town. Nothing was going on down there. The Railroad Park wasn't there. The baseball field wasn't there. None of the apartments, either. I'm kind of excited to see what the next five-ten years brings.

Last edited by MinivanDriver; 03-16-2019 at 07:59 AM..
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-16-2019, 08:43 PM
 
Location: Birmingham, AL
2,438 posts, read 2,187,634 times
Reputation: 1048
glad to have you in town! which streets in particular did you visit?

you're right about empty storefronts, especially from a retail perspective. downtown living has really just taken off in the past 10 years, so hopefully they will start filling up.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-17-2019, 11:09 PM
 
1,636 posts, read 2,124,765 times
Reputation: 1827
Quote:
Originally Posted by TimCity2000 View Post
glad to have you in town! which streets in particular did you visit?

you're right about empty storefronts, especially from a retail perspective. downtown living has really just taken off in the past 10 years, so hopefully they will start filling up.
I believe 3rd Ave comes to mind. Believe or not, I actually thought it was one of the nicest streets as it had a lot of historic buildings. I'm wondering if lofts or any plans for them exist in any of these buildings.

On a side note, I went to Huntsville. I have a friend who is a realtor there and she gave me an extensive tour of some upscale developments on the hills, Providence, as well as in Madison (just admiring not buying..lol). Huntsville was nice too, but I found the downtown to be much smaller than I imagined as the city is kind of well known throughout the country. I was expecting a much more urban downtown. Don't misunderstand me, it was nice, but was not as expansive as other cities its size. But probably it will grow in the future.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-17-2019, 11:35 PM
 
81 posts, read 70,022 times
Reputation: 42
Quote:
Originally Posted by Republic of Michigan View Post
I believe 3rd Ave comes to mind. Believe or not, I actually thought it was one of the nicest streets as it had a lot of historic buildings. I'm wondering if lofts or any plans for them exist in any of these buildings.

On a side note, I went to Huntsville. I have a friend who is a realtor there and she gave me an extensive tour of some upscale developments on the hills, Providence, as well as in Madison (just admiring not buying..lol). Huntsville was nice too, but I found the downtown to be much smaller than I imagined as the city is kind of well known throughout the country. I was expecting a much more urban downtown. Don't misunderstand me, it was nice, but was not as expansive as other cities its size. But probably it will grow in the future.
Yeah Birmingham definitely still has a lot of vacant buildings. That is one thing that, in a way, excites people about what is happening in the city and for the future. There has been good progress made and a lot of available historic buildings left. It just depends building to building what is going on. There are some buildings that may look vacant at the street level, but actually have lofts on the higher levels. We also have, in my opinion, a problem with property owners just sitting on properties. This could be attributed to a lot of things, but, in my opinion, the businesses community / investors have lagged behind the everyday people involved in the city. Maybe because of the past or the history of the city, a lot of people have been cautious to dive into the deep end, I think that is starting to change now.

Just as one small example of the frustrations, but promise, 2nd Ave N in between 19th and 20th has a lot of historic buildings that are completely vacant and have been for awhile. It has several buildings that could be really cool renovated. It is also in a prime location near the McWane Center, Pizitz, and Alabama Theatre. Little by little it is coming around. First it was Paramount that opened on the corner on 20th. Then in the last year chocolate shop opened a little store. Now an organic grocery store is going into a historic early 1900 building. If you go down that street, it still seems fairly vacant. But it is showing signs of life and will continue to improve, imo.

Huntsville is definitely an interesting one from a city level. Most of their businesses are located in the Research Park, which has left their downtown behind a little bit. It has started to see some development the last few years and it is much more of a smaller city downtown feel. I'm not sure it will ever be a very urban place, but it is nice for what it is.

Glad to have you in the city!
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-18-2019, 08:12 AM
 
Location: Jack-town, Sip by way of TN, AL and FL
1,699 posts, read 1,945,434 times
Reputation: 3012
Quote:
Originally Posted by Republic of Michigan View Post
I believe 3rd Ave comes to mind. Believe or not, I actually thought it was one of the nicest streets as it had a lot of historic buildings. I'm wondering if lofts or any plans for them exist in any of these buildings.

On a side note, I went to Huntsville. I have a friend who is a realtor there and she gave me an extensive tour of some upscale developments on the hills, Providence, as well as in Madison (just admiring not buying..lol). Huntsville was nice too, but I found the downtown to be much smaller than I imagined as the city is kind of well known throughout the country. I was expecting a much more urban downtown. Don't misunderstand me, it was nice, but was not as expansive as other cities its size. But probably it will grow in the future.
Huntsville is a 'new' city, so it will never have the downtown grid (or bones) of Birmingham. Most of Huntsville's growth was during/after the suburban boom of the U.S. so in essence the whole place is a big suburb with tons of sprawl.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-18-2019, 10:26 AM
 
1,326 posts, read 2,376,109 times
Reputation: 997
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mississippi Alabama Line View Post
Huntsville is a 'new' city, so it will never have the downtown grid (or bones) of Birmingham. Most of Huntsville's growth was during/after the suburban boom of the U.S. so in essence the whole place is a big suburb with tons of sprawl.
This, Huntsville boomed during the Space program / cold war defense buildup. It's one of the oldest cities in Alabama but was pretty much a small town of around 10K prior to that. Decatur, AL was a much larger city than Huntsville when the interstate system was planned.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-18-2019, 02:13 PM
 
Location: Madison, Alabama
12,612 posts, read 9,128,869 times
Reputation: 8679
Quote:
Originally Posted by TimCity2000 View Post
glad to have you in town! which streets in particular did you visit?

you're right about empty storefronts, especially from a retail perspective. downtown living has really just taken off in the past 10 years, so hopefully they will start filling up.
5 years from now, there'll be a new football stadium downtown (or essentially downtown) and I believe the BJCC is undergoing an expansion. There will probably be all sorts of other new things in town by that time too. It's all part of the apparent trend to revitalize downtown areas, and it's a good thing.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-20-2019, 09:10 PM
 
6,334 posts, read 11,495,469 times
Reputation: 6304
I'm another tourist who loves the "urban fabric" of downtown.

What options available for public parking?

The restaurant/retail segment started to thrive in my mid-sized city after the city built multiple parking garages offering free parking on evenings and weekends. Downtown residents and workers can only support a limited amount of commercial activity - it really helps when people come in from the suburbs and surrounding neighborhoods.

I know about the free parking for an hour (2?) near Pitzlic food court. That's what I'm talking about, but I'm not sure how well it is publicized.

That said, Meters can usually be found. 2 of the recent times I parked in Bham I happened to pull into spots with a busted meter - so free parking!
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-20-2019, 09:30 PM
 
81 posts, read 70,022 times
Reputation: 42
Quote:
Originally Posted by creeksitter View Post
I'm another tourist who loves the "urban fabric" of downtown.

What options available for public parking?

The restaurant/retail segment started to thrive in my mid-sized city after the city built multiple parking garages offering free parking on evenings and weekends. Downtown residents and workers can only support a limited amount of commercial activity - it really helps when people come in from the suburbs and surrounding neighborhoods.

I know about the free parking for an hour (2?) near Pitzlic food court. That's what I'm talking about, but I'm not sure how well it is publicized.

That said, Meters can usually be found. 2 of the recent times I parked in Bham I happened to pull into spots with a busted meter - so free parking!
The Pizitz parking deck is great, I think it is fairly well publicized. I have never had a parking issue in the city. The city also has a lot of decks throughout that I doubt many people know about:

https://bhamnow.com/2019/03/19/how-t...ecks-and-lots/

A lot of them are free the first hour and pretty affordable after that.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:


Settings
X
Data:
Loading data...
Based on 2000-2020 data
Loading data...

123
Hide US histogram


Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > Alabama > Birmingham area
Similar Threads

All times are GMT -6.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top