Tag Archives: Alabama

On the agenda: Sloss and travel

There are really two items on this week’s Birmingham City Council agenda that may be of significant interest to you:

Item 24 allows Alabama Power the right to do the necessary work to power Sloss Furnaces‘ proposed (and long-awaited) visitors center. It’s currently on consent.

Item 36 is an interesting one on today’s agenda. It is a resolution to pay no more than $2,000 to the Neighborhoods USA Conference taking place in Little Rock, AR later this month.

Based on the late registration fee for the conference, this allocation would cover the costs of no more than 10 delegates’ attendance and would not include transportation to and from the conference. Birmingham historically sends the largest delegation to the conference (it normally includes a representative from each of the city’s 99 neighborhoods). Several of our previous mayors have tried to reduce the number of delegates attending so that the money spent on that trip could instead be used for neighborhood projects. Neighborhoods normally used their allocated funds to cover the registration costs of the trip.

Late arrivals

The Lyric (48 of 54). Josh Self/Flickr

Take heed: A voluntary precautionary recall of over the counter children’s medicine by drug maker MacNeil Consumer Healthcare was announced last Friday that included Children’s Tylenol and Children’s Motrin.

Geek out: If you wanted to RSVP for Tuesday evening’s TechMixer Expo (organized by TechBirmingham), your last chance was at 5 p.m. Monday evening. That’s OK – walk-ins are welcome at the Sheraton Birmingham downtown.

Busy weekend: The Birmingham News reported today that 132 arrests were made during this past weekend’s Schaeffer Eye Care Crawfish Boil. Ninety of those were of minors possessing alcohol.

Enter The Marketplace: Birmingham Mayor William Bell introduced a proposal to build a new Westin hotel and an entertainment district adjacent to the BJCC to the City Council this afternoon. It must still be approved by the BJCC Board.

Photo: The Lyric (48 of 54). Josh Self/Flickr

Highlands, Hot and Hot outstanding to us regardless

Frank StittThe James Beard Foundation announced earlier this evening that Daniel in New York City has been awarded the 2010 James Beard Awards for Outstanding Restaurant.

Highlands Bar & Grill in Birmingham’s Five Points South neighborhood had been named a finalist for the prestigious award presented during the awards ceremony at Avery Fisher Hall in New York City.

It is the second time in three years that Frank Stitt‘s restaurant had been honored with a finalist nomination. The other time was in 2008.

Stitt himself was named Best Chef, Southeast by the Beard Foundation in 2001. Chris Hastings of Hot and Hot Fish Club was nominated for the same honor in the Southern region this evening but also wasn’t victorious. He has also been nominated twice in the last three years (2008, 2010).

This year’s finalist selection had probably received even more attention than normal locally due to his ongoing objection to a project that would place a Chick Fil A restaurant – with a drive-through window – around the corner from the award-winning destination.

The Bright Star in Bessemer was honored as an American Classic (as reported by several media outlets earlier this year) during the ceremony.

Photo: Courtesy Southern Foodways Alliance.

New hours for Birmingham’s dog park

Running. Photo Courtesy of Dog Park USAEarlier today Bark for a Park shared information about new hours for the dog park located in Birmingham’s George Ward Park beginning this week.

According to a status update on their Facebook page, the area designated as a dog park late last year will be closed weekly on Wednesday mornings from 7:30-11 a.m.

The purpose of the weekly closings is to that allow them to perform routine maintenance including “mowing, trimming around the fence and areas adjacent to the creek.”

Green Springs Dog Park is currently the only official dog park in the metro Birmingham area, though there are others being considered.

Thanks to DOGingham for the head’s up.

Photo: Running. Courtesy of Dog Park USA

Birmingham prepares for the Second Front

The Second Front logoKyle Whitmire introduced a new political news blog to Birmingham, AL earlier today. The site, called The Second Front , is the first of several blogs that will make up a new site called Weld for Birmingham.

It’s a new venture for Whitmire (an award-winning columnist formerly of Birmingham Weekly ) and his former editor at the Weekly Glenny Brock, who contributed to the site’s first day of stories with a post about last week’s Design Review Committee decision involving Walgreens.

This section of Weld has already collected a lot of fans via Facebook and Whitmire has been tweeting using The Second Front‘s account for a couple of months now.

Wade Kwon was able to catch up with Whitmire by phone to find out more about the new blog and the overall site and shared the answers over on Media of Birmingham while Ike Pigott wrote earlier today about whether or not it is the online newspaper that Birmingham’s been waiting for.

One week = Habitat house in Wylam

Habitat home in East LakeThe local chapter of Alabama Power‘s Service Organization announced its participation in the construction of a new Habitat for Humanity home in Birmingham’s Wylam community to start this Saturday, May 1.

The press release points out that the new home will be built to LEED standards by the organization’s Magic City chapter and other partners in less than one week.

Habitat for Humanity of Greater Birmingham has been extremely busy recently. The photo above shows a home completed earlier this year in Birmingham’s East Lake community. The list of current build projects is available on the organization’s website.

Photo: Habitat house in East Lake. André Natta/bhamterminal.

What’s the plan for the former Engine No. 22?

Surveying Engine Number 22; Birmingham, ALWorkers were surveying the former location for Birmingham Fire Department Engine No. 22 early this morning, just one day after the city’s Design Review Committee held over for review a conceptual design that would allow a Walgreens pharmacy to replace the structure – along with the car repair business immediately next door and apparently long time fixture breakfast venue Bogue’s Restaurant.

According to a Birmingham Business Journal article from earlier this month, there have been several inquiries made about redevelopment of the busy intersection where the Lakeview, Highland Park and Forest Park neighborhoods meet.

Jeremy Erdreich’s blog, Bhamarchitect, has received a great deal of traffic, and comments, as a result of his post about yesterday morning’s meeting.