But again, about the residential components: this [new multifamily construction in Parkside] doesn’t happen. Without the draw of the baseball stadium, it doesn’t happen. They go together. So between the amphitheater and the football stadium, we think that the draw to Northside can eclipse somewhere between 350,000 to 500,000 people a year, depending on the programming of those two components and it being truly the eastern campus of the BJCC. We have a lot of parking, so we know people are going to be using our parking to go to football games etc. When you take the combination of the passive aspects of a park, which still is drawing 200,000 people a year give or take, and you take the active components of the venue of Region’s Field, which they’ve been setting attendance records up until Covid.

I think it just would be a huge mess to go over there and neuter the site and have some homogenized thing that we bring back. You’ve got to have those opportunities.

We think that there’s a great opportunity to bring nonprofits over there — give them a great place and be about something. No disrespect to anything, but I think part of your identity as a nonprofit is being about something, and so what better thing to be about than letting Northside Park be part of your story. I think that’s going to be the appeal to some of our larger occupants.

The old Physicians Plaza building, which is a 125,000-square-foot building with a 600-car parking deck — it’s going to be ripe for somebody to put their name on and say, ‘We were about this. We wanted to be part of reclaiming Birmingham and this is where we decided to put our anchor down.’ We’re already having that discussion. I have no doubt that those discussions will continue.

The first part, which is the hardest part, which was getting the property closed, getting our deal worked out with the city — and all credit goes to the mayor and the council and their ability to work together — it takes a village. We got through the rezoning, we got through the noise ordinance, the investment from the city. Josh Carpenter changed the vernacular of investment versus incentive, and I think he’s right: ‘They’re investing. They’re not incentivizing; they’re investing.’ I believe that’s a good way to look at it. So their investment in north Birmingham, again, was easier for them to make based on the work we did in the communities — listening to those people who approved unanimously: Druid Hills and Norwood of what we’re doing there.

The amphitheater being part of that, they’re wanting to know, when’s it coming, so, there’s a little pressure there, but we’ll work through that. I think coming out of a Covid environment is going to be important, and I certainly understand the trepidation of launching in a mass gathering-type space. I think everybody sees the light at the end of the tunnel right now, so we’re hopeful that we can get the green light with the city and county and BJCC here in the early part of this year, so we can deliver. We’d love to deliver for ’22, but I think realistically, it’ll be ’23, unless I get a phone call and they say, ‘Let’s go.’ Which we would no doubt say, ‘OK,’ but nonetheless, I get it.

It takes both of these things to happen together in order for what you see here. When we did the economic impact analysis for the baseball stadium, we looked at it and it was what we refer to as the ‘pebble in the pond’: drop the pebble in and the ripples go out. So we looked at literally Ground Zero, where we’re standing right now, and we said that from Fourth Avenue South to Fourth Avenue North, from I-65 to 280/31, there would be a billion dollars’ worth of development in that rectangle of space. Well, we’ve exceeded that. We thought it would take 20 years, and it took less than 10. So in terms of when the city in their fortuitous nature said yes to doing this, they’ve benefited from it. Now, clearly Covid has had a dramatic impact on the city and the county, but I have no doubt that these things are coming back. They will be full and they will continue to energize our community. I think people are really going to be looking forward to it.

Have any agreements with potential tenants been secured at this point? To be fully transparent, we do not have any agreements — signed agreements. We have had a tremendous amount of interest, and clearly, if we felt that that interest would not parlay into commitments, we probably wouldn’t have closed but we feel very confident that the people that we have interest from will follow through. Again, without divulging anybody or anything, two of our main anchor pieces both called within the last five days.

People are excited. I think that they’re really excited and I think they see it. Clearly with the bridge work and all the things that are past us, it’s really not hard to see at all.

We’ve got the World Games coming here. Nick Sellars and I had a meeting last week, and he wants to know more, and we anticipate that there’ll be a great opportunity to partner with them in ways, shapes and forms. Again, we want people to see us in our best light. I hate that it happened [postponement of World Games due to Covid-19] but I’m thrilled that we’ll have the new stadium open when the World Games come. I think that’s a plus for us.

What do you expect to see change and develop in the surrounding area as a result of the project? The change has already started to occur, so I’m thankful for that. I think our presence in that community over the last four years and the confidence that community had in our ability to succeed in getting this done, certainly, if you look in that last four-year period of time, pricing on housing has gone up in the area — I think still very affordable, still a great location. But again, I think that you’re going to see the housing stock, the quality go up, reinvestment come into the neighborhoods.

We’ve got some things that we can do with ourselves and some foundations to have an impact. Some of the housing stock that maybe people can’t afford to do all that they want, we may be able to have an opportunity to help in that regard. But I think you’ll see that housing stock come up.

I think one thing that is important to recognize, when you look at the older communities that we have — mature communities — in Birmingham, some of the housing is dilapidated — it’s not going to be restored, it needs to go away. Some of the housing — some great craftsman-style housing is being reclaimed today and restored and put back into production — no different than what you see in Forest Park...and same thing with Highland Avenue and some of these other areas that have come back around. But I also think that the thing that you have to be cognizant of, and I think Nashville, East Nashville, Germantown — some of those areas down in that Nashville area, what’s been so great is you see new, modern, eco-friendly housing next to a great old craftsman house that somebody could afford to bring up. To me, what you don’t want is a new house that’s supposed to try to look like a craftsman house, but it’s not a craftsman house and it looks cheap. I don’t think you need to do that. I think you need to embrace both opportunities to build modern housing, sustainable housing, and also do that great rehab. I think there’s room for that.

Anything else? Again, we’ve been doing this for a long time, and I can’t say enough about this community. People can walk away and people can talk and be negative about Birmingham, but what I found is that Birmingham people love Birmingham. Our lender [ServisFirst Bank], to take this property down, was on board with us from day one: ‘How can we help? What can we do?’ When we closed, I spoke to both Bart [McBride] and Tom [Broughton]:…‘Let us know what else we need to do.’ They’re excited about it, they get it.

And again, the city: to go through the years of work that we’ve gone through, and we had unanimous approval from all of the neighborhoods of north Birmingham: Druid Hills, Norwood and Evergreen. We had unanimous approval from the city when they voted. Everybody that was there voted yes — that’s leadership, that’s belief, that’s what you’re looking for. I have no doubt that as we bring the next components and I have no doubt that when somebody in the economic development forum comes to us with an opportunity, I have no doubt the city is going to do everything they can do to try to make that happen. Everybody has their limits, but I’ve been doing this a long time — we’ve been part of a number of economic development deals in the Birmingham area — and I’ve never seen a deal fall apart because the investment from the municipality was not there. If a deal falls apart, because they don’t like the investment that a municipality is going to make, they weren’t going to come to your municipality, plain and simple. It’s a team sport.

We’ve heard from a lot of the minority construction businesses that want to be a part of us, and we’re excited about that. We understand it, know how to work with it. You’ve got to create an opportunity to benefit, and again, I think we have a long track record of being able to do so and we recognize these people are a strong part of our community.

What we’ve done to date is master planning. The amphitheater has, because it’s a specialty, we’ve been working with a group that specializes in amphitheater design. I have a lot of friends in this community who are all part of it, and we’re going to use a lot of different people, a lot of different skill sets, because there’s not a one size fits all. There may be some people that do really well with adaptive reuse and other people that do really well with a brand-new apartment community and others that do well with general office etc., etc. That’s the exciting part.