Tag Archives: Birmingham

BBA talks to young professionals Above Birmingham

Posted on June 11, 2010 | Leave a comment

Earlier this week, Birmingham Business Alliance (BBA) president Dalton Smith talked about the organization’s economic development plan for the seven-county Birmingham region called Blueprint Birmingham with leaders of several young professionals organizations during an event at Above at The Redmont Hotel.

The BBA shared the video of Smith’s remarks to their YouTube channel as well as comments made by Katrina Watson and Michele Amaral about the event and the ongoing planning process.

Incidentally, both women were recently named as recipients of b-metro’s first ever YP Awards.

Blueprint Birmingham was originally scheduled for release in May but is now expected to be unveiled this fall.

Where are you watching World Cup matches?

Posted on June 11, 2010 | 3 comments

Those wanting to get out of the house to enjoy soccer’s World Cup (beginning today in South Africa) will have plenty of options here in metro Birmingham.

BTW – here’s a really cool presentation of the tournament calendar.

Rojo, Crestwood Coffee Company, Cantina and Urban Standard are among the places that have confirmed that they will be showing matches during the next two weeks. Cantina will open for 9 a.m. matches, while Crestwood will open for 6:30 a.m. matches (Urban Standard will open at 7 a.m. with Rojo keeping regular operating hours).

Café Firenze and Matthew’s Bar and Grill have said that they will be showing the USA vs. England match tomorrow (Saturday) afternoon; it will start at 12:30 p.m. CDT.

The finals will be broadcast live at Sloss Furnaces on Sunday, July 11 at 1 p.m. Proceeds from the event will benefit the programs of the Birmingham-Jefferson Chapter of the American Red Cross.

The fun starts today at 9 a.m. CDT when South Africa takes on Mexico in Johannesburg.

If you know of anywhere else that’s showing matches during the tournament, add them to the comments section of this post.

3 Comments

Posted in Sports

Tagged AL, Alabama, B'ham, Birmingham, options, viewing, World Cup

Election Night coverage galore (elsewhere)

Posted on June 1, 2010 | 1 comment

If you couldn’t tell, today’s Alabama’s statewide primary elections. Jefferson County is also holding a special election to fill the rest of Birmingham mayor William Bell’s Jefferson County Commission District 1 seat.

Politics is a pasttime in Alabama so of course there are plenty of outlets reporting on the returns.

NBC 13 is providing results using their graphics package they’ve created for tonight’s television broadcast while ABC 33/40, Fox 6, and CBS 42 are providing results using periodic updates of dedicated pages for each race.

Wade on Birmingham is providing a one-stop (one-page) results page while Second Front and AL.com are providing opportunities for a live chat to take place while they report returns.

1 Comment

Posted in Election 2010

Tagged 2010, Alabama, Birmingham, election, night, results

On the agenda: A new use for our old home

Posted on May 25, 2010 | Leave a comment

We weren’t there for that long (we haven’t been gone for that long either), but there is already a new use planned for the space once known as Shift Workspace.

2308 2^nd Avenue North is currently on this morning’s Birmingham City Council agenda as Item 5 (it’s on consent); the space will see new life later on this year as Pale Eddie’s Pour House.

It was one of three businesses that recently went before the Central City Neighborhood association to ask for support of their liquor license applications. Jeremy Erdreich attended the meeting and describes how each of the applicants will affect the commercial scene on 2^nd Avenue North on Bhamarchitect. Urban Standard‘s application signals their intention to serve dinner while the other application signals new life for the Gypsy Market. Tomorrow’s meeting will have five such applications with only one recommendation for denial among them.

The former Positive Maturity facility in downtown Ensley will also be seeing a new use according to Item 21. Ironically, it is one of the city owned properties that would be considered for sale or auction according to Councilor Smitherman’s submitted Item 28. She has also submitted Item 29, one that would ask the mayor to survey city employees to ask for their suggestions for cutting costs. Their suggestions would be due by May 31.

The fun starts when the live stream begins at 9 a.m.

Photo: Pale Eddie’s comes to 2nd Ave. N. acnatta/Flickr

A look inside The Pizitz Building

Posted on May 24, 2010 | 10 comments

The folks over at The Heaviest Corner were able to get inside of The Pizitz Building recently and take a look at how the historic structure currently looks (they aren’t sharing exactly how they got in however). They’d already written about the building earlier this year (February).

They were also able to take some photos of the proposed plans for the building’s renovation.

Plans were for the 1923 building were announced building back in January via The Birmingham News after several attempts to redevelop the building (including this one from 2003).

The developer, Bayer Properties, has created a page for the project, scheduled for completion in 2010, on its official website. Both law firm Baker Donelson and Forest Park grocer V. Richards have announced their intention to move into the building once the project is completed.

Photo: courtesy of The Heaviest Corner post.

UPDATE: These have not been the only photos taken of the Pizitz in recent months. A comment received on the site last night included a link to Naaman Fletcher’s Flickr photoset taken over two years. FYI – the comment was deleted because it violated The Terminal’s terms of use policy.

10 Comments

Posted in architecture

Tagged Birmingham, downtown, exploration, interior, photos, Pizitz Building, plans, project, urban

Baseball downtown? Survey tries to find out if it’s possible

Posted on May 24, 2010 | Leave a comment

Several people have received emails in recent days linking to a survey that is part of a privately financed study to “determine the feasibility of building a new ballpark in downtown Birmingham that could become the new home of the Birmingham Barons minor league baseball team.”

There has been several hints in recent years that some people would like to see the Barons return to playing within the city limits of Birmingham.

In April, the Birmingham Business Journal told readers that approximately $40,000 in private funds had been put up for the study.

Several reports last summer mentioned the Merita bakery across from the soon-to-be completed Railroad Park in Birmingham’s Southside was a possible location, though not specific site has been suggested in the 27-question survey. The story received new attention in January when Birmingham City Councilor Johnathan Austin suggested that the city providing additional financial support for a survey.

Photo: Baseball. theseanster93/Flickr

How big is the oil spill? You don’t want to know…

Posted on May 10, 2010 | 2 comments

That’s the question that the folks at Google decided to help people figure out. The image to your left is a screen capture from Paul Rademacher’s website and shows the spill in relation to the size of Birmingham and Central Alabama.

Rademacher’s site currently contains a Google Earth embed using the application’s API that lets you see how the oil spill compares to several major U.S. cities. Here’s a link to a screen capture of the oil spill in relation to Chicago, IL and Lake Michigan. He’s the engineering manager for Google Maps’ front end.

Visiting the site will also let you compare the size of the Deepwater oil spill to any city and points you to where you can download the data to show it in your own install of Google Earth.

UPDATE: Additional images – one showing the spill area in relation to Atlanta and Montgomery and another one showing the capture from when you first enter Birmingham, AL into the interface.

Image: Screen capture from http://paulrademacher.com/

2 Comments

Posted in National, Online

Tagged Alabama, Birmingham, google, information, interactive, map, oil spill, Paul Rademacher