Category Archives: Parks

Glen Iris residents want your help

Posted on March 9, 2009 | 2 comments

We just got an email asking for residents to show up at tomorrow’s City Council meeting to show support for residents of the city’s Glen Iris neighborhood. For more than a year they’ve been working to stop development of 107 apartments planned for the eastern side of George Ward Park on the former Knights of Columbus Property. Among other things, the park holds a 24-hole disc golf course.

They will attempt to convince the council tomorrow to initiate a Sector Plan Study of the portion of the Glen Iris Neighborhood that includes the property in question to determine the appropriate zoning. They’re also hoping for a moratorium on building while that sector plan study is being conducted.

The email contains all of the pertinent details.

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The State of the Railroad Park is good

Posted on February 19, 2009 | 3 comments

The current news surrounding Railroad Park is good with Birmingham City Council committees moving forward a proposal that would allowMayor Langford to pledge $5 million for construction of the 3,000 seat amphitheater. While unforseen circumstances have called for some changes from the master plan developed by Tom Leader Studio, it will still be a significant addition to Birmingham’s city center. There may be some that still think that the conversation about the park is premature.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/wZx1UUY4hss" width="400" height="329" wmode="transparent" /] 

One quick drive by the site in recent weeks though would lead you to have a different feeling about it – like progress since work began on the site December 23. It’s currently on schedule to be a Christmas/New Year’s gift to the city.

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You go, Raven!

Posted on November 26, 2008 | Leave a comment

The big story from yesterday’s Birmingham City Council meeting was the hiring of a 13 year-old as a consultant by Mayor Larry Langford – well, sort of.

Raven Hatcher (of no relation to the mayor’s executive assistant Terri Hatcher) actually turns 14 on Friday. This means that she will be able to apply for a work permit and receive $10,000 as a consultant to the city’s parks and recreation department after presenting her suggestions for improvements to Ensley Park to the Council. NBC13 is reporting on their morning show that $5,000 of the total amount will be placed into a college scholarship fund for the W.J. Christian School student.

The girl’s good fortune and suggestions did not prevent some from offering a wide range of comments on AL.com’s blog post about the story, causing the website to not accept more comment early yesterday evening after several violations of the site’s community rules. We’d recommend watching the interview that Joseph Bryant did with Hatcher yesterday.

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Turkey Creek gets an ecoscape

Posted on October 13, 2008 | Leave a comment

acnatta/Flickr

As promised in our post last week, the first of three ecoscapes developed by the Southern Environmental Center made its public debut on Saturday morning at Turkey Creek Nature Preserve.

Features include the installation of natural “stairs” that lead down to the water from the ecoscape and access to an Eagle Scout Trail that runs alongside the creek. It doesn’t hurt that it provides a great view of the creek either. Something to check out if you’re up in the Pinson area.

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A skate park update

Posted on September 24, 2008 | 2 comments

For those of you who haven’t ventured through the comments and the site to learn more about the skate park situation, allow me to share what Peter Karvonen of Faith Skate Supply posted under the relating Magic City Question:

“We are talking with people in the mayor’s office right now and they are very open to the idea of a public skatepark. We have gotten as far as looking for proposed sites now. The city owns the property at sloss north of 1st Ave. North. They are talking with the right people now in hopes that a skatepark conjoined with sloss furnaces would be a great relationship.

I invision a concrete park there with metal skateable sculptures that would be made there at the furnaces steel works! Sounds amazing to me!”

Definitely sounds like something that would be uniquely Birmingham depending on where the proccess goes… and it will lend itself nicely to my editorial tomorrow morning.

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Bike from Anniston to Smyrna

Posted on September 24, 2008 | 2 comments

Map to State Line - PATH Foundation

Map to State Line from Smyrna. PATH Foundation.

It’s been getting tons of coverage for the last month, with yesterday’s post on YP Now’s blog being the most recent mention, and this weekend it becomes a reality. A 95-mile paved bike trail will officially become the nation’s longest when it’s officially completed this Saturday. For those of you in metro Atlanta who can’t resist the call of the bike (which would normally include me), there’s information on the PATH Foundation‘s website about all of the activities planned for the day.

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The dirt’s moving at Ruffner

Posted on September 15, 2008 | Leave a comment

New beginnings at Ruffner
Photo: New beginnings at Ruffner. acnatta/Flickr

Progress on Birmingham’s Park-nership, one of the larger initiatives undertaken by the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham, always seems to be sought after, so I figured it would make sense to post this image. It’s the view looking through where Ruffner Mountain‘s pavillion once stood out to the site of the nature center’s new visitors center, currently scheduled for a May 2009 completion.

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