Second public meeting about Five Points South master plan set for Oct. 2

Long before Lakeview, Avondale and the downtown Loft District became hip enclaves in a newly vibrant Birmingham, there was Five Points South.

The area, celebrating its 130th anniversary, has been a popular entertainment district and bohemian oasis in a conservative city for decades.

But a recently formed non-profit collective of property and business owners and other stakeholders called the Five Points Alliance has begun work this year on a new master plan for the district to help ensure that it will prosper in the future and that retail and other sectors in the neighborhood can be strengthened.

The Alliance takes the next step in the process – which was opened up to the public at a workshop on July 31 – when they host a second large public meeting at Southside Baptist Church, on Monday, Oct. 2, at 6 p.m.

The purpose is to share some of the results of the July 31 meeting, which was held at Highlands United Methodist Church and attended by about 75-100 residents who were asked to share what they saw as Five Points’ strong and weak points, as well as its possibilities for the future.

The meeting at Highlands UMC, which followed a series of smaller gatherings with business people and other groups held earlier in 2017, was facilitated by Jason Fondren, principal planner with local consulting firm KPS.

At the October meeting, Fondren said, “We will be taking it to the next logical step in the planning process – getting down to the actions the community and the Alliance will take to address the issues.”

Based on the data collected at the July workshop, Fondren said that a few of the key issues for people who love Five Points include “addressing safety and peoples’ feelings of safety, working on lighting, the panhandling issues, making the area cleaner, including the neighborhood as well as the commercial district.”

He also cited parking as a concern, and said that attendees would like to make Five Points a safer place to walk and ride bicycles.

Many attendees also expressed a desire to make some portions of Five Points South car-free at certain times of the month, perhaps in association with events, according to Fondren.

“So people are looking at Five Points as a kind of a model... for the rest of Birmingham in terms of walkability and bike-ability,” Fondren said.

Attendees expressed a desire to create “stronger connections,’ including “stronger transit connections,” between Five Points South, the UAB campus and Vulcan Park & Museum, Fondren said.

‘There was also a lot of agreement that Five Points could be stronger economically if it drew more business that catered to the UAB demographic,” he said.

Attendees at the July 31 meeting discussed Five Points in terms of its assets, issues (such as panhandling), “sacred cows” (such as the fountain and historic buildings) and – in breakout sessions – the area’s top issues and opportunities.

After the October meeting, the Alliance will begin creating a draft of the master plan and could have something to show the public as early as January, according to Fondren.

The draft “would represent the strategies the community has endorsed... and various initiatives that the Alliance believes are important,” Fondren said. “For example, how do we fill up the vacant spaces and bring as much life to Five Points as we can?”

For more about the meeting and the Alliance, go to fivepointsbham.com or facebook.com/5ptsbham.