Avon Building

The Avon Building is a 2-story, 220,000 square foot building on the southwest corner of 29th Street and 7th Avenue South in the Lakeview district of Birmingham's Southside.

The 1920s building, once the home of the Avon Theater, was heavily damaged as a result of frozen pipes in the winter of 1983-84, forcing tenants to relocate.

It was still vacant when it was purchased in 1986 by the newly-incorporated Bayer Properties for $115,000 as their first redevelopment project. After about $1 million in improvements, Straight Furrow Productions signed on as the first tenant. Six months later, Bayer accepted a proposal from Bombay Café to lease the ground level corner space. The restaurant's success helped establish Lakeview as a night-time destination in the 1990s.

[{Vazda]] studios made use of the former theater space before they moved to the Roger's Trading Company Building in 2006. Some of Vazda's production crew made a short documentary about "Frank", the supposed ghost of a former theater employee.

In December 2006 Bayer sold the building to the Redview Group for $2.6 million. Redview plans to lease the corner space to the Red Mountain Church.

References

• Tomberlin, Michael (December 19, 2006) "Church soon to call historic structure home." Birmingham News