Protective Stadium (live, suites, firm)

[MinivanDriver]

Originally Posted by RocketDawg

But there's no telling what might happen given the Covid-19 effects. There's an article on al.com that says Birmingham is expecting to see $75-$120M shortfall just from decreased taxes with the loss of taxes and fees. And no one knows what's going to happen with restaurant and business closures. Presumably similar-sized cities in the state are facing the same shortfalls. All mayors and councils are going to have to do some repriotizing as to how they spend their money.

Exactly. We're already committed to the new stadium, so putting additional moneys into Legion Field is a budget buster.

[bhamblazer]

Hopefully federal aid can help plug some of that hole.

[mcalumni01]

https://yellowhammernews.com/bjcc-master-plan/

Looking at the master plan from 4 years ago, I was wondering why there was so much space between the stadium and the resturants currently and realized, that's phase 2 of uptown going there. The original plan also called for the potential for a parking deck on 11th ave and a parking deck/hotel on 24th St. across from the stadium. It's a grassy area right now, so hopefully, both spots are still in the works.

[TimCity2000]

yeah, i was wondering if they were still planning on doing phase 2 of uptown... i think that would help liven up the area having restaurants / bars on both sides of the street and a plaza leading to the stadium gates.

as for the hotel / parking deck, that piece of land now has an on ramp going through part of it, so i guess it might have to be reoriented on the site to work.

[steveklein]

Originally Posted by TimCity2000

yeah, i was wondering if they were still planning on doing phase 2 of uptown... i think that would help liven up the area having restaurants / bars on both sides of the street and a plaza leading to the stadium gates.

as for the hotel / parking deck, that piece of land now has an on ramp going through part of it, so i guess it might have to be reoriented on the site to work.

Maybe eventually, but probably not any time soon. There didn't appear to be any movement on it from 2017-2019 with a white hot economy. I can't imagine the current economic climate is going to spur that type of development.

[RocketDawg]

Originally Posted by TimCity2000

the next decade will be interesting for legion field. anyone know what the capacity was when it was first built? i wouldn't mind seeing it downsized to something like that, so that the historic portions are preserved at least. maybe high schools could still play there. plus it would be less for the city to maintain. the immediate surrounding area needs some other development to complement the stadium and the neighborhood, but that's not likely to happen anytime soon.

as for parking, the same questions were raised about regions field, and it works just fine. the good thing about having these stadiums (stadia?) in the core is that street parking is plentiful. also, there is at least one garage in the area and i imagine we might see another built in the surrounding area at some point.

You probably don't want it that small. It was opened in 1927 with a capacity of 21,000 and only cost $429,000 (that was a lot of money in those days, but even with inflation, not near what stadiums cost today).

There's a history of renovations in this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legion_Field

[mcalumni01]

Originally Posted by TimCity2000

yeah, i was wondering if they were still planning on doing phase 2 of uptown... i think that would help liven up the area having restaurants / bars on both sides of the street and a plaza leading to the stadium gates.

as for the hotel / parking deck, that piece of land now has an on ramp going through part of it, so i guess it might have to be reoriented on the site to work.

I don't think both could work there. Probably has to be one or the other. If the old Salvation Army spot is going to be a parking deck, then maybe they can just do the hotel there.

[mcalumni01]

Protective Stadium getting an increased in seats without increasing cost.

https://www.bizjournals.com/birmingh..._news_headline

"Protective Stadium will have a slightly larger capacity than initially planned. The BJCC said an additional 1,200 seats will be added into the new downtown stadium's north end zone, bringing total capacity to 47,100."

Remember that area was supposely going to be a grassy area. Seats are going there instead. Also the original seating capacity was 45,900.

https://www.wvtm13.com/article/legac...wning/32898292

[TimCity2000]

^good. i think seats vs grass will look more professional.

[magiccity3]

I don’t think this has been mentioned, but apparently they are going with turf over grass. A little surprised. Thought they’d go grass to attract US soccer events.