2019 City Center Master Plan
The 2019 City Center Master Plan is a City Center Master Plan intended to guide the development of the City Center for the decade beginning with 2019. The plan was drafted by Stantec's Urban Places group, headed by Craig Lewis of Charlotte, North Carolina. It was commissioned by the City of Birmingham in partnership with Regional Planning Commission of Greater Birmingham and REV Birmingham in September 2018 as an update of the previous 2004 City Center Master Plan.
Planner Craig Lewis explained the importance of the city center as "everyone's living room," and stated that its development should reflect, "the highest ideals of the city." Among those ideals are an essential commitment to equity. The plan states that, "[i]nvestments made in the City Center should benefit everyone in the city and people of all backgrounds should be able to live and find opportunities here that facilitate economic mobility."
Process
Priority Initiatives
The plan laid out 13 "Priority Initiatives":
- "Create a master public realm plan for the Civil Rights District that includes the restoration of Kelly Ingram Park"
Strategic Opportunity Areas
The plan identified six districts in the City Center, dubbed "Strategic Opportunity Areas" which could benefit from targeted investments. These include the following:
- Civil Rights District
- Innovation District
- City Center Core
- Uptown
- Five Points South
- Lakeview
Implementation
References
- Van der Bijl, Hanno (September 13, 2019) "New Master Plan Coming for Birmingham's Urban Core – What's It Mean for CRE." Birmingham Business Journal
- Van der Bijl, Hanno (December 12, 2019) "Urban planner weighs in on new downtown masterplan." Birmingham Business Journal
External link
- Stantec (December 2019) Birmingham City Center Master Plan. (22.5 MB PDF)