By Steve Alexander.

If you haven’t visited Five Points South lately, you’ll be amazed with what you see.

Gone is the graffiti.

Clean and Safe ambassadors patrol the district.

There are no encampments in the park.

The unhoused are being proactively connected to the
services they need.

Five Points South is re-emerging right before my eyes.

From the outset let me admit to some bias. I was born in Birmingham, I am a product of its schools, and since college have lived in Southside. I am still close with my childhood friends although for valid reasons most moved in different directions, but for me it just always seemed like the Magic City was home, and well, magic.

A Lifelong Citizen’s Perspective

As a child in Roebuck I only went Downtown to shop with my parents, but in the 1970s a far-sighted program in the Birmingham schools sent me there to work at a law firm in my senior year. That program charted the path of my career as I gained a wider perspective of Birmingham and glimpsed my future.

During law school in the early 1980s I moved to Five Points South, where after exams my friends would meet at any one of a dozen bars. I walked to Ranelli’s Deli, tried tofu at the Golden Temple, and through his café windows saw Frank Stitt change the meaning of Southern cooking. (All three are still here).

From my apartment window I watched the streets closed for Iron Bowl pep rallies, frequent music festivals and the early St. Patrick’s Parades. In that apartment building I also met Lisa, after which this quirky, diverse, vibrant urban neighborhood became the place we lived, worked, played, invested, worshipped, and raised our children.

BIDs Really Work

When I worked Downtown most stores and theaters had moved out to the suburban malls, leaving empty historic buildings and dark sidewalks at night.

But in the 1990s visionary community leaders in the City Center created Alabama’s first Business Improvement District (a “BID”), in which property owners pooled their money to supplement city services. The work proved so successful that retail returned, restaurants opened, property values went up and people moved back into a now appealing urban residential neighborhood.

When I moved my office to Southside my commute shrank from ten minutes down to two. But many of the issues I had seen addressed by the BID in the City Center were growing unabated in Five Points South.

Over the next two decades our own community leaders volunteered their time to work toward bringing that kind of progress to our southern half of Downtown, and in 2023 that vision was finally realized when the votes of Five Points South property owners and a new City ordinance drew us into the BID.

Five Points South is Transforming

In the third year of the BID in Five Points South I can now see from my windows the blue uniformed CAP ambassadors cleaning sidewalks, guiding visitors, and patrolling Brother Bryan Park. In addition to CAP’s clean and safe services the BID has also enhanced safety in the district with off duty police officers while the City rebuilt its police force to full strength – but the work won’t stop there.

The annual investment of our property owners, overseen by a representative Board of those owners, is now allowing our contracted partners at REV Birmingham to professionally manage all aspects of this unique commercial district to include events, new infrastructure and business recruitment, making us well positioned for growth.

More People and Opportunities

My window also faces the newest of four different multi-story apartment buildings to come onto the market in Five Points in the last few years, which together added over 1,000 rental units to what was already one of the most densely populated zip codes in Alabama.

Southern Research recently opened their $98 million biotech center, and nearby the Edgehill at SouthTown mixed use community is preparing the site of its new commercial phase.

Importantly, in the midst of all this and more, the Birmingham Dept. of Transportation is now working to improve traffic flow and keep Five Points safe for pedestrians and bicyclists.

Five Points South was Birmingham’s first southern suburb in 1887, and today it is where the City meets the suburbs. It is a gateway with historic architecture and a large diverse population, providing opportunities to start a business, own a piece of Birmingham history or just bring your family to see a parade.

This month we once again closed the streets for the 42^nd Annual St Patrick’s Parade, which our data experts say hosted 15,900 out-of-market visitors to Five Points on parade day alone. The renewal those visitors saw was not by magic, but through the work and investments of the people here. We hope you’ll come see it yourself soon.

Steve Alexander is an attorney in private practice, founder of the Five Points Alliance and a property owner representing Five Points South on the Board of Directors of Birmingham’s BID. You can reach him at steve@fivepointsbham.com

David Sher is the founder and publisher of ComebackTown.  He’s past Chairman of the Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce (BBA), Operation New Birmingham (REV Birmingham), and the City Action Partnership (CAP).

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