If you haven’t already heard, the Birmingham Cultural and Heritage Foundation announced earlier today that City Stages is no more. The Birmingham News reported the story first earlier this afternoon. Wade on Birmingham and bham.fm have also posted about the news and already have comment threads of their own. Wade’s includes a link to Dennis Pillion’s post about his last visit to the three-day music festival.

Tonight’s episode of WBHM’s Tapestry program (one of the last weekly editions) plans to include a look at “the death of City Stages” while bham.fm’s Twitter feed gives us a look at how this announcement may have ripple effects throughout the community. There’s also all of the other thoughts being shared on Twitter.

Additional updates after the jump:

UPDATE: bham.fm has posted more information about the vendor situation, including some powerful words from Bottletree owner Merrilee Challiss.

Black & White has posted the upcoming Dead City Diary entry written before today’s announcement while Scott Schablow decided to give the musical festival a lyrical send-off over on my Birmingham.

The Birmingham News reported on Friday that the total debt was estimated at more than $1 million.