[B'ham Bound]

Relating to the SSA project... 14th Street will be receiving a makeover from 10th Avenue South around the UAB campus to 8th Avenue North where 14th terminates at the entrance of the new SSA Building. This news is over a month old but I don't recall seeing it posted earlier, so...

City's 14th St. corridor to get makeover
Birmingham Business Journal - November 24, 2006
by Lauren B. Cooper (Staff)

Birmingham's well-worn 14th Street, from 10th Avenue South to Eighth Avenue North, is scheduled for a facelift.

Chris Hatcher, vice president of planning for Operation New Birmingham, said improvements to the street will include general streetscape improvements like curbs, sidewalks, trees, lighting and other infrastructure, making the street more pedestrian and vehicle friendly.

Hatcher said $1.2 million has been allotted for the repairs - 80 percent coming from the Alabama Department of Transportation's Congestion Mitigation Air Quality fund and 20 percent matched by the City of Birmingham.

ONB hopes the improvements will serve to better connect the University of Alabama at Birmingham with downtown Birmingham and the Entrepreneurial District, which is roughly bordered by Morris Avenue and Third Avenue North, and 11th and 18th Streets, and includes the currently renovated Entrepreneurial Center's Innovation Depot.

Hatcher said ONB's plan to turn one-way streets into two-way streets will not be part of this project, but will be part of the city's master plan for some downtown Birmingham streets. A portion of 14th Street, from Second Avenue North to Eighth Avenue North, is one-way heading north.

Hatcher anticipates a nine- to 12-month planning process with construction beginning in mid 2008. He said local architectural firm KPS Group Inc. will serve as consultant on the project.

Susan Matlock, president of the Entrepreneurial Center, said the improvements will help UAB and the Entrepreneurial District feel like a part of each other.

"It will make the whole area - beginning with the railroad tracks and into the campus - more attractive for development," she said.

Matlock said since ONB's workshop in October, "Untapped Opportunities: The Entrepreneurial District," she has seen more interest in the Entrepreneurial District and in Innovation Depot, making improvements to the road running to the heart of the district and ending at the Social Security Administration's building more important.

Renewed interest by existing property owners in the district has picked up as well, Matlock said. "Those property owners have started thinking about what options and opportunities there could be."

Matlock said the Entrepreneurial Center is still on track to move into the 145,000-square-foot Innovation Depot by April.

Hatcher believes the Entrepreneurial District, the Railroad Reservation Park, which recently broke ground, and the $20 million University House Birmingham, located on 14th Street and Second Avenue North, will spur further development.

The city's Railroad Reservation Park is expected to begin construction in the next year and, once completed, will stretch from Titusville to Sloss Furnaces.

I'm disappointed that 14th's northern section won't be converted into a two-way street yet... Looks like that will happen a few years from now when the city starts to implement it's master plan -- and we all know how long that might take.