Tag Archives: dome

What are we building in Birmingham?

One of the people who spoke at last week’s launch event for the Birmingham Business Alliance was Birmingham’s mayor, Larry Langford. Among other things, he announced plans for tomorrow’s groundbreaking for the BJCC’s multipurpose facility (a.k.a. dome) and other progress on projects throughout The Magic City.

As people begin to talk about the feasibility of the dome and other projects, they may want to take a look at this story published by The Next American City about whether or not a city should take the leap into convention center expansion.

Langford wants to “Do the dome…NOW!”

The "Do the Dome" shirtBirmingham Mayor Larry Langford shared his intentions with the audience assembled in The Harbert Center early this morning. He hoped that the Birmingham City Council approves his request to release funds to begin construction of the much-talked about multipurpose facility for the BJCC campus downtown.

Or to put it simply, he’s saying, “Let’s do the dome… NOW!”

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What’s in a “mutlipurpose facility” anyway?

We’ve learned that Mayor Langford and BJCC executive director Jack Fields will be participating in an online discussion about the long proposed multipurpose facility via streaming video on myfoxal.com tomorrow (Thursday) at 1 p.m.

The discussion is scheduled to last approximately 30 minutes, with issues such as the facility’s funding plan and its tie to taxes, location, size, costs and need of the facility being covered. There’s no link as of yet, but we’re figuring that you’ll be able to find it on their front page close to start time.  Some current info – last week, the BJCC Board approved Langford’s funding plan for the facility, shortly after hearing via an independent study that downtown is the best location for it. The BJCC is now reviewing architecture proposals for the project  (a source of debate here in The Magic City for at least the past 10 years).

The First 100: The other guys cover the mayor’s first State of the City address

UPDATE: 1.17.2008; You may also find an audio file (available in WMA format, 22.5 MB) of the mayor’s speech on the city’s website.

Everyone seems to be taking away something different from yesterday’s first State of the City address presented by Birmingham mayor Larry Langford. For those that want to know what he actually said, you’ll want to go to CBS 42’s website (get to their local news section) scroll through their online videos and click on the link to the full 30-minute speech. (Yes, it’s there; we actually have a copy of that coverage, but it’s their video, so check it out if you’ve got time). Then take a look at the following links to see how the mainstream did with their coverage.

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