The New York Times reports that the city has been working for three years on the $25 million Railroad Park, which is a 19 acre space located in the middle of downtown Birmingham.
City officials say Railroad park celebrates the city’s industrial and artistic heritage.
In April, the city opened Region’s Field bringing more allurement to downtown. Region’s Field is an 8,500-seat minor-league baseball stadium home to the Birmingham Barons, who are currently in the midst of one of their most successful seasons in recent memory.
“The momentum of downtown is palpable,” Derek Waltchack, a principal of Shannon Waltchack, a Birmingham-based investment firm, told the New York Times. “You have all the pieces in place for it to be really hot for the next 10 years.”
Entertainment isn’t the only thing the city is looking to bring downtown. Countless businesses currently have plans on building anew or revitalizing older buildings in downtown Birmingham to bring more retail space, apartments, and other businesses to the city.
Investors say downtown Birmingham is becoming more desirable with the help of revitalization projects like Railroad Park and Region’s Field, even though Jefferson county filed for bankruptcy in 2011. It was at the time the largest government bankruptcy in US history. Jefferson County filed a $4.2 billion bankruptcy claim when the county’s government was unable to make debt payments. The city of Detroit has since filed a bankruptcy that dwarfs Birmingham’s, coming in somewhere between $18-20 billion.
Birmingham will continue struggling to emerge from its financial difficulties, but it can’t hurt that the national media is noticing its downtown renaissance.
Click here to read the New York Times piece.
