Symbols of the season light up downtown

No one would expect a 30-story office building would become an icon embodying Birmingham’s holiday spirit. But the Regions Center downtown has assumed that status since its completion in 1972.

The building, originally called the First National-Southern Natural Building, is famous for its huge Christmas symbols — trees, a wreath and a stocking — displayed in colored lights on the building’s sides.

Alabama News Center called the building — headquarters for Regions Financial Corporation — “Birmingham’s most visible sign of the holidays.”

The design was made possible by the fluorescent light tubes placed above each window during the building’s construction.

The lights were designed to illuminate the structure at night year-round — “what Southern Natural Gas planned as a ‘Tower of Light,’” writes local historian Tim Hollis in his book, “Christmas in Birmingham.”

The 1970s energy crisis disrupted that plan, but the Christmas lights went on.

“A gas company executive visited Houston, Texas, during the holidays and saw a building with a similar ‘curtain wall’ design,” said John McGowan, head of facilities for Regions Bank. “Upon his return, the executive described the display to others and led an effort that resulted in the holiday displays we know today.”

It was building superintendent Ollie Nix who mapped out the original grid, according to Hollis. Colored gels are placed over certain lights in a pattern that creates the designs.

“The on-site maintenance team begins working on the display three to four months ahead of illumination to complete the process and check all the lights before the switch is flipped,” McGowan told ANC.

“The Christmas designs remain as the oldest continuous Yuletide sight downtown,” Hollis writes.