Birmingham Targets 12 Areas for Neighborhood Revival

TL;DR: Birmingham is moving ahead with its Urban Villages Initiative, a $2 million effort aimed at breathing new life into 12 neighborhood business districts. The City Council approved nearly $700,000 in planning and outreach contracts Tuesday. Plans could include better sidewalks, safer crossings, bike and transit links, public spaces and sites for new development.

Birmingham is moving ahead with an ambitious plan to breathe new life into a dozen neighborhood business districts across the city.

The Birmingham City Council on Tuesday approved nearly $700,000 in contracts to begin work on the city's Urban Villages Initiative, a long-term effort focused on creating more active and walkable neighborhood centers.

The project stretches from Five Points South to Huffman and from East Lake to Ensley.

According to ABC 33/40's report on the initiative, city leaders hope to create places where residents can reach shops, services, transit and public gathering spaces without having to get in a car for every trip.

The 12 areas included in the initiative are:

• Huffman
• East Lake
• Eastwood
• Woodlawn
• Five Points South
• Northwest Downtown
• North Birmingham
• Smithfield
• Titusville
• Ensley
• Five Points West
• Lawson State

The city is putting real money behind the planning effort.

Council members approved three contracts totaling up to $699,155. Interface Studio will receive up to $299,980, while TSW will receive up to $299,575. Wilbron will receive up to $99,600 to handle community engagement strategies and project narratives, according to BirminghamWatch's preview of the council action.

Those contracts are part of a much larger commitment.

Earlier this year, the city set aside $2 million for the Urban Villages Initiative as part of its $31.8 million fiscal year 2024 budget surplus spending plan. The City of Birmingham described the goal as creating "vibrant high-quality walkable neighborhood centers that function as livable resources for their surrounding communities."

The same surplus package included $2 million for sidewalk repairs, $5 million for drainage work near Messer Airport Highway, $1 million for a citywide stormwater master plan and $2 million for interstate lighting.

The Urban Villages concept centers on an idea that was once common in Birmingham: a neighborhood with a small business district where people could shop, eat, catch a bus, meet neighbors or handle basic errands close to home.

“The Urban Village Initiative is really about creating some great walkable places in the city of Birmingham,” Hunter Garrison, deputy director of the Mayor's Office of Resilience and Sustainability, told ABC 33/40. “One thing that we’re fortunate to have in our city is a lot of historic neighborhoods that used to have that, or may still have it in some elements.”

Birmingham already has much of the framework in place. Several of the areas targeted by the initiative have long-established commercial or historic districts. The city's own historic preservation records list Five Points South, Smithfield, Woodlawn and Downtown Ensley among Birmingham's National Register historic districts.

The new plans could call for sidewalk and crosswalk upgrades, bike and transit links, streetscape work, public plazas and new development sites. Consultants will also look at smaller and less costly projects that could be used to test ideas before the city commits to larger investments.

Residents and business owners are expected to have a say as well. The process calls for community meetings, talks with neighborhood leaders and local businesses, and visual concepts showing what proposed changes might look like.

Councilor Jennifer Smitherman said the goal is to “really kind of breathe life back into our business districts on the north side, south side, east side, and west side.”

Not every neighborhood is starting at the same point.

Huffman is already ahead of other areas because its planning work was completed in 2024. That means the area can begin moving toward actual projects while consultants develop plans for other parts of the city.

For most of the remaining areas, the next year will largely be about planning.

The consultants are expected to develop short-, medium- and long-term recommendations. The contracts approved by the council run from roughly 10 months to 14 months, depending on the firm and scope of work. Some smaller projects, however, could move forward before the full planning process is complete.

That distinction is important. The nearly $700,000 approved Tuesday is primarily for planning, design and community outreach, not $700,000 worth of new sidewalks, plazas or construction.

The larger question will come after the plans are finished: which projects Birmingham chooses to build, how much they will cost and where the money will come from.

For now, the city is drawing the blueprint for what it hopes will become a new generation of neighborhood centers — while trying to revive some of the walkable business districts Birmingham neighborhoods once had.