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It's really just a matter of what you are used to. Even now, I imagine most people who need to make a 15 block trip across Birmingham probably take a car. Most New Yorkers would call that walking distance.
When the vast majority of your population is used to suburban shopping malls and restaurant parking lots and single family homes with garages, then all of a sudden having to park 3 or 4 blocks away from something might be enough of a deterrent to just not even go. On the flip side, I doubt too many people who have spent a lot of time in Seattle, Chicago, New York, Boston, etc. would bat an eye at having a 3-4 block walk at the end of their trip.
Some trivia: I've only been to NYC a couple of times, but it seemed to me like blocks in Manhattan were incredibly short compared to other cities. And googling verifies that - in the north/south direction, a block is only 264 feet or about 20 blocks per mile. East/west is another matter.
People walk in NYC because driving is a pain and parking costs a fortune. Plus, many live not far from where they work. They have good, cheap public transportation as well (though not as safe as it once was) for longer distances. Washington is the same way to a degree.
Yeah I hate all the hoopla going on about having to walk a few blocks. Some of the same people complaining go out of town & walk a mile to an event with no complaints but in Birmingham it'sa problem. I say shut up leave early & go enjoy what we events we have coming good grief enough is enough.
Yeah or just look at Alabama and Auburn. Can you park right next to their football stadiums? I have walked upwards of a mile to park and walk to one of those football games.
Yeah or just look at Alabama and Auburn. Can you park right next to their football stadiums? I have walked upwards of a mile to park and walk to one of those football games.
Well, they are sacred. People will put up with a lot more and not complain because they are a necessity to a lot of us. Blazer football or whatever minor league comes to town or whatever else goes on down there doesn't have the cachet.
But it also won't be 100k people like at a Tide home game either.
Well, they are sacred. People will put up with a lot more and not complain because they are a necessity to a lot of us. Blazer football or whatever minor league comes to town or whatever else goes on down there doesn't have the cachet.
But it also won't be 100k people like at a Tide home game either.
Fears confirmed. Stadium couldn't look more underwhelming. It'll be a revenue success and with patrons (which is most important), but boy is it right in line, aesthetically, with every other large-scale development attempted in this state -- no care or concern for distinction. Go take a look at the architect's portfolio. Protective is among its most banal projects. Birmingham had a real opportunity here to make a significant visual impact on its skyline, to punctuate it with a truly elegant and imposing design. To signal a departure from the dated late 90s / early 2000s style which is so prevalent amongst downtown's more prominent structures.
But sadly, we are left with an unremarkable result. The two or so renderings before the final iteration were even more appealing. Why can't Birmingham's leadership dream bigger? Why must everything have a "this fits fine for the Alabama-tier" look? Would any of you seriously say this stadium would be heralded as an eye-popping aesthetic achievement in any major (top 25) U.S. metro? To be honest, I'm not so sure this would've been approved in any of our peer cities -- their recent large projects (complete or proposed) are far and away more modern than what we get (see new MSY airport, Devon Energy Tower, BOK Park Plaza, One Beale, Louisville Omni, several developments in Buffalo, etc.)
Am I the only one who is exhausted by the lack of vision in Birmingham? Am I the only one who is crazed at having to see this undiscovered jewel of a city, with it's wealth of unrealized potential, be chronically relegated these trite, hackneyed designs for EVERYTHING that gets built? Let's be honest: Ascend in Five Points or Vesta could easily be mistaken as having been built in 2007. As could Protective.
They talked so long about a domed convention center / stadium. The renderings were awesome. It would've been the most important project ever built in Birmingham. That changed to just an open-air stadium, which again had some decent initial proposed designs. Then it ultimately downgraded to the version that got built out. With its diminished capacity, and passe brick siding to match Uptown's equally uninspiring, new-suburban strip mall chic. The exteriors of Protective and the shops at Lane Park in Mountain Brook are one in the same. How is no one else fed up with this?
The stadium's look is par for the course for states like AL, MS, and AR. It wouldn't have been OK'd in Nashville, or Atlanta, or Charlotte. Those places would demand so much more. But not us. We don't spend the extra money that is required to do it right / make it transformative, or have the proper people with a discerning eye for urban development approving these things. Birmingham desperately needs an injection of modernity in its developments. Desperately. I don't think any of us want it to become Nashville, but it damn sure needs to elevate its national and regional profile. For the sake of the state economy, and its own future. You don't achieve that by building out underwhelming (and what are, frankly, small potatoes) projects and then try to pass them off as game changers. The separation between us and our peers continues to widen. Hell, even Huntsville is more ambitious in their development designs these days. A downtown stadium isn't something you mail in. It's supposed to be a statement piece that alters the trajectory of a city's core. I have very little hope that Protective will achieve that.
I moved away from Bham in 2019 to take a job in Dallas. Now this isn't a fair comparison, I get it, but upon arrival my eyes were opened to how mega cities with their foot on the gas and a standard for new-build aesthetics works. They don't skimp, they don't delay. Anything that is less than sexy design-wise gets summarily rejected. You have to come proper or not at all. With occasion to go down to Austin frequently, my wourde, the projects in that city are a sight to behold. It's an architectural and artistic arms race, the way they are designing their new builds. It's ALL about the aesthetics. Whereas in Birmingham, we settle for projects that ubiquitously share the tiresome, half-assed gentrification, new Verizon store off the interstate exit look. Protective is no different. I think developers know this as well, and are happy to put up as many Lakeview Green's as we'll allow, because they can cheap out on the schematics and call it a day. They aren't forced to actually come to the table with a competitive vision as they are in other metros. Drives me nuts that Birmingham now defaults to accepting that en masse. I understand there are dollars and cents behind it all, but my Lourde, would it kill this town to just knock one marquee project out of the park? To build something with a design that could play in NYC? Esp. with large public works.
I think Bham royally underdelivered on what its downtown stadium could have been, but my rant notwithstanding, I do believe it will do fine in driving tax revenue. I just hate how boring it looks, and don't expect it to be some catalyst for bigger projects. There are high school football stadiums in DFW that could go toe to toe with it in terms of design for f***'s sake.
I disagree. If there was a billionaire with a pro team kicking in part of the money and then fleecing a city for the the rest of it, we may have had a shot at getting a dome.
As it stands, Birmingham didn't even have to pay for all of it, not even most of it. The money is coming from several sources.
1. It's going to be a lot nicer than Legion Field. By default.
2. It is in a much better location than LF. It's right there in uptown to help support the hotels and restaurants and Top Golf.
3. Birmingham didn't have to borrow big to build it. It's going to pay for itself and other events that we lost or were in the running for are coming because of it and the revamped BJCC.
This is a win, win, win, win all the way around and perfect for the level we are at and what we need to move forward.
Fears confirmed. Stadium couldn't look more underwhelming. It'll be a revenue success and with patrons (which is most important), but boy is it right in line, aesthetically, with every other large-scale development attempted in this state -- no care or concern for distinction. Go take a look at the architect's portfolio. Protective is among its most banal projects. Birmingham had a real opportunity here to make a significant visual impact on its skyline, to punctuate it with a truly elegant and imposing design. To signal a departure from the dated late 90s / early 2000s style which is so prevalent amongst downtown's more prominent structures.
But sadly, we are left with an unremarkable result. The two or so renderings before the final iteration were even more appealing. Why can't Birmingham's leadership dream bigger? Why must everything have a "this fits fine for the Alabama-tier" look? Would any of you seriously say this stadium would be heralded as an eye-popping aesthetic achievement in any major (top 25) U.S. metro? To be honest, I'm not so sure this would've been approved in any of our peer cities -- their recent large projects (complete or proposed) are far and away more modern than what we get (see new MSY airport, Devon Energy Tower, BOK Park Plaza, One Beale, Louisville Omni, several developments in Buffalo, etc.)
Am I the only one who is exhausted by the lack of vision in Birmingham? Am I the only one who is crazed at having to see this undiscovered jewel of a city, with it's wealth of unrealized potential, be chronically relegated these trite, hackneyed designs for EVERYTHING that gets built? Let's be honest: Ascend in Five Points or Vesta could easily be mistaken as having been built in 2007. As could Protective.
They talked so long about a domed convention center / stadium. The renderings were awesome. It would've been the most important project ever built in Birmingham. That changed to just an open-air stadium, which again had some decent initial proposed designs. Then it ultimately downgraded to the version that got built out. With its diminished capacity, and passe brick siding to match Uptown's equally uninspiring, new-suburban strip mall chic. The exteriors of Protective and the shops at Lane Park in Mountain Brook are one in the same. How is no one else fed up with this?
The stadium's look is par for the course for states like AL, MS, and AR. It wouldn't have been OK'd in Nashville, or Atlanta, or Charlotte. Those places would demand so much more. But not us. We don't spend the extra money that is required to do it right / make it transformative, or have the proper people with a discerning eye for urban development approving these things. Birmingham desperately needs an injection of modernity in its developments. Desperately. I don't think any of us want it to become Nashville, but it damn sure needs to elevate its national and regional profile. For the sake of the state economy, and its own future. You don't achieve that by building out underwhelming (and what are, frankly, small potatoes) projects and then try to pass them off as game changers. The separation between us and our peers continues to widen. Hell, even Huntsville is more ambitious in their development designs these days. A downtown stadium isn't something you mail in. It's supposed to be a statement piece that alters the trajectory of a city's core. I have very little hope that Protective will achieve that.
I moved away from Bham in 2019 to take a job in Dallas. Now this isn't a fair comparison, I get it, but upon arrival my eyes were opened to how mega cities with their foot on the gas and a standard for new-build aesthetics works. They don't skimp, they don't delay. Anything that is less than sexy design-wise gets summarily rejected. You have to come proper or not at all. With occasion to go down to Austin frequently, my wourde, the projects in that city are a sight to behold. It's an architectural and artistic arms race, the way they are designing their new builds. It's ALL about the aesthetics. Whereas in Birmingham, we settle for projects that ubiquitously share the tiresome, half-assed gentrification, new Verizon store off the interstate exit look. Protective is no different. I think developers know this as well, and are happy to put up as many Lakeview Green's as we'll allow, because they can cheap out on the schematics and call it a day. They aren't forced to actually come to the table with a competitive vision as they are in other metros. Drives me nuts that Birmingham now defaults to accepting that en masse. I understand there are dollars and cents behind it all, but my Lourde, would it kill this town to just knock one marquee project out of the park? To build something with a design that could play in NYC? Esp. with large public works.
I think Bham royally underdelivered on what its downtown stadium could have been, but my rant notwithstanding, I do believe it will do fine in driving tax revenue. I just hate how boring it looks, and don't expect it to be some catalyst for bigger projects. There are high school football stadiums in DFW that could go toe to toe with it in terms of design for f***'s sake.
I too work out of Dallas a lot and I agree, this would have never been approved. While they're not comparable cities, you might compare DFW's suburbs. Have you been to Plano, Frisco, Southlake, Mckinney, Grapevine, etc etc recently? These suburbs wouldn't approve this project and yes their high school stadiums (especially Allen HS) are nicer.
You're right, it's fine for Birmingham but I wouldn't brag too much about it and expect the nation to start looking our way because of it. And yes it's this lack of vision that is accepted in Alabama. Celebrating free throw shots while others are celebrating 3 pointers. The sunshine pumping for no reason unnerves me.
Ever seen Baylor's football stadium driving south into town? That's a statement piece and Baylor is smaller than UAB.
However, do keep in mind that renderings are almost ALWAYS overstated, photoshopped with happy people and fancy cars, bright open high end stores etc.. It's made to look like utopia and it almost never lives up to preliminary drawings, in any city.
280Tony, is your thesis that a better stadium could/should have been designed/built with the allotted $174 million or that the project should have cost more than $174 million in order to get a better/bolder design?
i definitely agree that the stadium is underwhelming, but i am still glad to have it.
For heavens sake........it is a college football field associated with a college that does not stress sports.
As for other cities, in fifteen years all those blue glass boxes that are being built are going to be just as cliche as all these underwhelming apt. complexes being built across america. Socialist buildings for a newly socialist country.
Some people are just easily swayed by sparkle. Give me brick and mortar anytime. Substance and continuity.
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