TRoberts

That would be nice but I can't see it happening... With the rumored (although possibly cancelled now) Westin to go on the other end of the shopping center and Colonial's desire to move the center slightly more upscale, I don't see Target being a good fit. Plus a "regular" Target is in the neighborhood of 130k sq. ft. which would probably be pushing it for that site. I'm not sure what the existing building encompass however. Since leasing seems to have done so well with that office tower, I honestly would expect to see another office tower on site with ground level retail and restaurants. Another parking garage as well would compliment the site and allow for more of the existing parking to be used up. I'd like to see another "street-scape" retail created like what is in front of Brookwood. They could create another entrance promenade type setting as you come across the bridge at Applebee's. Have Applebee's frame one corner and another new restaurant frame the other with some shops and whatnot leading back to the existing office tower and a new one. Another option... Would be Brookwood taking some of the land for further development. They are slowly growing to the point they have no more land and I'm sure they are looking toward the future themselves. Personally, it makes more sense to put the rumored hotel on the end with Brookwood and build some type of connection to the two so that Brookwood could take advantage of having a hotel connected to the hospital.

Kimco Developers is listing the Target location at over 191,000 sq. ft. which clearly puts it in the size range of a SuperTarget. Regular Target stores with the small food sections generally run 110,000 to 130,000 sq. ft. (the Target at Tannehill is 127,000). It's also clearly marked on the marketing information for The Grove that it is a SuperTarget.

Well duh... It was always an asanine idea to place the dome anywhere else besides the BJCC. The racecourse was only considered because LaLa and McGregor are in bed together financially...

You're right... But also keep in mind the first and foremost reason the Georgia Dome was built??? As a permanent home for the Atlanta Falcons. It's also connected to the Georgia World Congress Center which is one of the largest convention centers in the southeast and regularly host very, very large scale conventions that Birmingham will quite honestly never host. And not to sound argumenative, but mentioning GA Tech just proves my point. You have a university that has one and half times the land area as UAB with a stadium that has been in existence since 1913 at its present site. The university itself has been around since the late 1800's. UAB has only been in existence since 1969. Although mentioning GA Tech does bring me to think about Georgia State University who is starting a new football program and will be playing in the Georgia Dome for all their home games. GSU is going to be in the same situation as UAB with a very fixed amount of land available to the university and additional land at a very scarce amount at very premium prices. Going back to something Leonard said, I could actually see UAB ultimately moving baseball off campus to possibly a city park or Regions Park (heck, play baseball at historic Rickwood Field - I mean how cool would that be) so that that large land area can at some point be developed further into Academic, Residential and Research space for the university. Off topic, but I'd actually like to see a very quiant and intimate ball park eventually built as part of the BJCC and have the Birmingham Barons ACTUALLY play in Birmingham. Downtown ballparks are reviving lots of downtown areas around the country. We simply have to look to our north in Chattanooga to see that. The new park in Chattanooga has done wonders to help continue growing the downtown area and nightlife choices there.

Thanks for the info Leonard... I knew there probably were but like I said, I searched and searched online for events at Legion Field and never could find anything really. The city of Birmingham pages don't even list the events currently held there except the Magic City Classic and Papa John's Bowl.

First off no, it's not an argument. It's a public forum where you and I are both posting our thoughts and/or opinions. Secondly, there is no need for personal attacks on anyone i.e. "use that advice for your life also". As for being negative, no, actually I'm not. I was making a suggestion that would by far benefit the entire Birmingham area rather than just two or three select areas. I was suggesting taking many of the local parks in the area that may not be being used to their highest and best potential and updating them or repurposing them for other activities. What's so negative in saying that the city could fix up Crestwood park for a soccer field or put some money into Woodlawn High Schools stadium for events... Or put money into Rickwood field to host ball events. There's absolutely nothing negative in any of that. I'd love to see some of the parks and public spaces in Birmingham fixed up. It might help bring some neighborhood pride back to these areas that need some help. Give people a reason to be proud of their city and their community again and maybe some of the negativeness that is so prevalent right now will dissipate. I'm all about positive impact... hence my suggestions for only one stadium venue that could be better utilized more often rather than sitting empty a lot of the time. And actually, I would probably know more about the events that go on at Legion Field if they were publicized but I actually haven't been able to find a single article or calendar advertising events there. The only events I've found anything about what-so-ever online are UAB and Birmingahm-Southern's games along with the Papa-Johns Bowl, Magic City Classic and the AHSAA State Championship games. So I would actually love to know about some of the other events that held at Legion Field on a regular basis.

I'm sure there are a several events held at Legion Field besides UAB football and AHSAA Championship games and I'm not saying move any of those out of the city but who's to say a facility owned by UAB would be open to those event anyway? How often do you hear about events at Bartow Arena that are not UAB events??? How often do you hear about events at UAB's baseball field that isn't UAB's baseball or softball team??? Yeah, they host camps sometimes but they hardly have a large number of events that aren't connected to UAB. Why would a UAB owned and operated stadium be any different? Are you talking about nightlife around campus at UAB?? Where exactly? Southside is hardly on campus and the only area that UAB would even remotely have a chance to build a stadium would be on the west end of the campus near I-65. There's hardly an argument for nightlife in place in that area unless you count all the liquor stores on Green Springs. The nightlife you speak of will be the Performa Development AT the BJCC (next door to the dome). And IF AND WHEN the trolley's get going, the BJCC and Southside would potentially be connected. I understand on-campus sports venues provide a different atmosphere but you have to also understand that UAB is in the middle of a major metropolitan city. They don't have the land that somewhere like Auburn or Alabama have. They have to fight for the land they get and UAB's best and highest use of the land they get is for research and acedemic buildings. Not for a huge stadium and the infrastructure to support parking of thousands of cars on game day. The amount of acreage it would take to support a stadium on campus with adequate additional parking would consume way more than UAB would be willing to give up. UAB is truly an urban campus and very few truly urban campuses have a large on-campus stadium. Had UAB been along longer and had the foresight to acquire larger swaths of land 50 years ago or 70 years ago, things might be different. High school band competitions (coming from a former band member) are on Saturday's - the same days UAB plays games. The largest, most well known band competition in the Birmingham area is by far the Hoover Invitational held at Regions Park. It's not going anywhere because the Hoover City Schools benefit from the competition. It will remain in Hoover. The Pinson HS Competition is on campus at Pinson High School; they aren't moving. The whole point of most band competitions is to raise money for the host band - that's why most band competitions are held on campus at the host high school. If they go outside that to a place such as UAB or Legion Field, they have to cover additional expenses associated with the venues. And don't you think the city of Birmingham and UAB would expect some sort of cut from ticket sales and food sales? Another perfect example is Spain Park hosting Sparks in the Park with DCI bands. They do it to raise money for Spain Park's high school band. Obviously you haven't kept up to date completely on everything revolving around the dome. A lot of the argument against a 60 or 70,000 seat dome is the LACK OF EVENTS that it would bring. There are too many mid-market cities fighting over too few conventions to fill their domes and convention centers. On the flip side of that, there's the argument that a 30 or 40,000 seat dome would be too small to be financially feasible. Having a dome at the BJCC isn't going to bring so many events to town that the existing events at Legion Field can't continue to be scheduled at the new Dome along with UAB home games. You mentioned several times about soccer games and other small events... You have to also keep in mind the plans for Fair Park and turning that into a sports themed village of sorts. Athletic fields will be included in that project. With a new dome, you also mention the revitalization of the Legion Field area with new homes and retail. Excellent idea... With that revitalization, include a much small athletic complex that seats maybe 7500 to 12000 with a regulation size football field. It could host those smaller events you talk about and also serve as a neighborhood park. They could host rivalry high school games as well. Having this could also help bring a sense of pride to the area having a nice, livable park as well. And just as a side note, if you want to talk about smaller events... there are plenty of city parks around Birmingham that could be revitalized and repurposed to host these smaller events. Crestwood Park provides a great location for Soccer games. Woodlawn High School has a great, historic stadium. There's Fair Park. There's Rickwood Field. The list could go on...

Why build two stadiums to seat over 100,000 people?? If the domed stadium is built so that football can be played in it (i.e. UAB, State Championships, local high school rivalries), then there's no need for UAB to have it's own stadium. If the city, county and UAB can work together towards a common coal to help EVERYONE, why would that not be the best option. UAB wouldn't use a football stadium to it's capacity except for maybe 6 or 7 times a year and that's a huge chunk of money for the university to sink into a project of that size. That could go towards upgrading more of the older acedemic buildings and building more dorms on campus to further their goal of becoming a more traditional college rather than a commuting college. UAB will most likely never match the magnitude of the colleges that have on-campus sports stadiums and is probably better off using municipal facilities in the area. I think everyone would agree that UAB will never have the following of 70,000 or 80,000 fans showing up every game day like Auburn or Alabama.

If (and when) a new domed stadium is built there will be no need to demolish and rebuild Legion Field. Legion Field is in very sad repair as is and any events that are currently held there could be moved to the new domed stadium. The city already doesn't have the funding to pay for all the big ideas that the current administration has; where would funding to completely rebuild Legion Field come from? Certainly not from the University of Alabama system or UAB. If UAB pays to build a new football stadium, you better believe they'd be building it on campus or closer to campus anyway. UAB, in my opinion, would be better off assisting in funding of the domed stadium for the Home of the Blazers. Talk about a state of the art home field advantage. I mean, are there any other college teams that have dome stadiums as their home fields?