By Barnett Wright | The Birmingham Times
The future of City Walk, a popular downtown Birmingham public space for community members and visitors worldwide could be in jeopardy as Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin and Jefferson County Commission President Jimmie Stephens quarrel over funding.
The mayor believes Jefferson County should help with expenses to maintain the 31-acre space covering 10 city blocks in downtown while the commission president says Birmingham should bear responsibility for space within its own municipality.
City Walk opened in time for the 2022 World Games and has since become one of Birmingham’s most popular downtown attractions hosting art shows, recreational sports clinics, social mixers, artists, skateboarders, pickleball players among others that bring residents together year-round.
In the first and second quarters of 2025, more than 562,500 people visited City Walk, one of the most visited landmarks in Birmingham, according to a REV Birmingham report.
While City Walk was built by the Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT), the Birmingham Jefferson Convention Complex (BJCC) has an agreement where it manages and operates the area, keeping the sidewalks clean, the greenery pruned and the lights on.
Under that agreement the BJCC’s expenses were reimbursed by ALDOT which capped that amount at $4 million. That number has been reached and ALDOT won’t pay more. On Wednesday, the department issued a statement that said: “ALDOT is in continuous communications with the BJCC and other stakeholders to develop strategies to ensure that City Walk BHAM will remain the viable community gem it is.”
Without ALDOT’s share the BJCC has paid $3.1 million out of pocket. “We’ve made it clear to everyone that the BJCC can’t continue to fund it ourselves,” BJCC CEO Tad Snider told the Birmingham Times Tuesday.
That means asking the city, county, private sector and the state to chip in, according to officials.
Woodfin said he has no problem with the city contributing but the county should as well. Stephens disagreed.
“The county is not responsible for anything that goes on in the city of Birmingham, no more than it does for what goes on in the city of Hueytown, the city of Bessemer, Homewood, Gardendale,” said Stephens. “… we have over 30 municipalities. Each of them needs help.”
He continued, “[City Walk] is a park within the City of Birmingham on ALDOT right-of-way and the county has no obligation. I stand by that, as the same I would if it was a park within the City of Gardendale and they asked us to support that.”
Woodfin said Stephens’s comments were “shameful.” Both sit on the BJCC board and “you can’t sit in one chair as a member of the BJCC board that says, ‘we’ll give $200,000’ and then sit in your county chair and say we won’t give. That doesn’t make sense,” the mayor said.
Woodfin said the park is within the city but also within the county. “So if the city can put in a portion, the county can put in a portion, the private sector put in a portion and BJCC put in a portion ….’
He also pointed out that this year the city received a $250,000 grant to aid in maintenance at City Walk.
The commission president said the county has gone “above and beyond” in support of BJCC initiatives including the building of Protective Stadium and the renovation of Legacy Arena. “If you were to add up every dollar that city has put in and the county has put in, you’ll be surprised to find out the county is the major contributor,” Stephens said, adding that singling out Birmingham over another municipality is “not what we do.”
This isn’t the first time Woodfin and Stephens have been at odds. Two years ago, the two sides couldn’t agree on an intergovernmental agreement related to the provision of jail services.
Now, the concern for some is whether City Walk could be shut down.
“We’ve not wanted to cancel the agreement for funding, stop maintenance and compromise the operation of the park, but it may come to that because, frankly, we just cannot continue to afford these monthly expenses,” said BJCC Board Chairman Michael Keel, in a June interview with www.cbs42.com.
On Tuesday, Keel appointed an ad hoc committee to find a sustainable long-term solution.
Snider was optimistic that a way out could be found. “We’re at the ‘how do we figure this out phase?” he said Tuesday. “[City Walk] has been built. it belongs to the state. It will always belong to the state. What’s out there doesn’t belong to the BJCC. [But] it’s our front door. We can’t just let it fall into disrepair.”
This story was updated on Nov. 19, 2025 at 10:07 p.m. to include a statement from ALDOT.
