Design for Progress

The Design for Progress was a master plan for downtown revitalization created in the early 1960s.

The process was jump-started with the publication of renderings of a Sky City proposal by Harland Bartholemew & Associates of Atlanta, Georgia for the Downtown Improvement Association. The plan was marked by an expansive open-air promenade to be constructed above street level, enabling a "complete separation of pedestrian and vehicular traffic". The proposal, dubbed "Birmingham's jet-age heart-to-be", was intended to create a whole new real-estate market for vacant space above the ground floor in existing buildings. Most of the deck would be built of pre-cast sections supported on piers over existing alleys, with ornamental grills at openings. Some areas could be covered and air-conditioned depending on demand. Connections with the street would be provided by stairs and escalators at multiple "entrance foyers". Bartholomew calculated that the entire project would cost $2,806,000 in addition to required land acquisition, which could bring the total cost to $5-9 million. Their report concluded that the projected increase in property values and sales would more than justify the investment.

In 1962 the Downtown Improvement Association created Operation New Birmingham as a subsidiary committee charged with refining and implementing a broader master plan for structural and economic redevelopment of downtown, dubbed the "Design for Progress".

The expanded "Design for Progress" plan was also created by Harland Bartholemew & Associates with assistance from the Birmingham League of Architects. When it debuted in 1965, it still featured plazas and bridges, planned to create a continuous raised pedestrian level, segregated from street traffic below. The plan also called for a historically-themed entertainment district on Morris Avenue and for a major new multi-venue performing arts and convention center, which was eventually developed as the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center.

Real estate developer William Engel put together a proposal for a $10 million federal office plaza project in the spirit of the Design for Progress. It would be located near the new Birmingham Post Office on the eastern end of downtown, and necessitated the demolition of the unused Birmingham Terminal Station. Though preservationists rallied to prevent the destruction of the landmark Beaux-Arts style station, the spirit of modernism prevailed. The office plaza project, however, was never realized.

While many elements of the Design for Progress never materialized, the plan was credited with triggering the development of several of Birmingham's tallest skyscrapers which were constructed in the downtown financial district in the 1970s and 1980s. Development of the AmSouth-Harbert Plaza in 1989 brought the first upscale indoor shopping mall and food court to downtown. It also housed Parisian, the last of the city's once plentiful major department stores to operate in the city center.