The city of Birmingham announced a $50 million renovation project more than two years ago, but some residents said they aren’t seeing much progress.
The city hosted a meeting to give neighbors an update on the Community Choice Neighborhood Initiative on Wednesday at Legion Field. The project is expected to revitalize three neighborhoods — College Hills, Smithfield and Graymont. The project will plant more trees, create dedicated bike lanes, give people the opportunity to own homes and create funding for people to renovate their homes and businesses.
College Hills Neighborhood Association president Adrienne Pearson wants to know what was taking so long so the city filled her and other residents in. She got some answers to her questions and said she has hope to move forward.
“We’re learning more about it,” Pearson said. “I would like it to go faster as far as the process — the advancements on it — but it’s an exciting time. We as residents have to do our due diligence, and I would like to see more residents being involved, and that’s all across the board. That’s all across Birmingham … Everybody needs to put on their tennis shoes and have that passion and just go full force.”
Cory Stallworth with the city told WVTM 13 that staff are taking their time to be intentional. He said there’s a lot of behind the scenes work like engineering, architecture and finances that make the project move forward.
“We also want to ensure that people have opportunities for housing, whether that is rental, whether that is home ownership,” he said. “We also want to make sure that our youth and that our families have a safe place to thrive. A lot of times blight may bring issues to people with that. We want to make sure that that we remove all of the obstacles—all of the barriers—that may hinder folks from having thriving and healthy neighborhoods and healthy families.”
Residents like Ratashia Boykin are looking forward to the difference the federal money will make in her Smithfield community.
“It’s going to help so many of our neighbors, and I think it will build pride,” Boykin said. “I think anytime things become beautiful people start to feel a little joyous and maybe that will help a little bit. We need to feel a little more joy right now. It’s dismal, but we have to do it ourselves too, and with this help, I think it’ll get done.”
The city said it expects to break ground on phase one of the project this spring. That’s the redevelopment of the former Jefferson County Committee for Economic Opportunity building.
Phase two of the project is already in development and construction is expected to begin in 2027. That will be a multi-family housing development near A.H. Parker High School.
