Jesse Chambers
topgolf exec mark foster 11-29-16
Topgolf executive Mark Foster after the Birmingham City Council approved financial incentives for a Topgolf facility at the BJCC.
Topgolf – a high-tech indoor driving range with luxury amenities – is coming to Birmingham, with a 65,000-square-foot facility to be built just east of the BJCC.
Plans for the Topgolf location – which were first announced in August – were given final approval by the Birmingham City Council at its Nov. 29 meeting.
Members voted to approve about $1.5 million in financial incentives for the project.
They also approved some zoning changes on the parcel that the BJCC will lease to Topgolf, between 11th and 12th Avenues North and 24th and 26th Streets North near the Uptown entertainment district.
According to the council resolution passed today, Topgolf is a “golf entertainment complex” that will offer a state-of-the art driving range, restaurant, bar, lounges, corporate meeting space, family game area and approximately four and one-half acres of driving range “outfield.”
Topgolf is a big boost for the area, according to Tad Snider, BJCC executive director.
“The addition of Topgolf into Uptown and the restaurants that are already there and the Westin Hotel, it just adds a synergy to what has already been developed,” he said today at city hall after the council vote.
Sinder called Topgolf a “top-tier amenity” that will help the BJCC draw meetings and conventions. In addition, Topgolf is expected to draw about 500,000 visitors per year and will boost “consistent day-in, day-out foot traffic” at the BJCC, Snider said.
This will be one of the first Topgolf facilities – there are currently about 30 locations in the United States – to be located on an urban site, according to Mark Foster, Topgolf’s manager of real estate development. “We’re very, very excited,” he said after the vote.
Foster said the facility will feature “first-class amenities,” including its own chef, and will have 102 hitting bays on three levels.
The facility is expected to generate about 450 jobs, all of which will be local hires, according to Foster.
Topgolf sees the Magic City as a very attractive market, according to Foster. “Birmingham is a very strong city,” he said. “We see a lot of business in downtown Birmingham. The population is growing. The airport was just rated very highly. Also we like the location right off the highways.”
“We really believe in downtown,” Foster said, citing the new restaurants in Uptown and the BJCC’s expansion plans.
The facility “will bring a lot of foot traffic to downtown Birmingham and will help not only the local economy and the local businesses but also the neighborhoods,” Foster said.
Under the agreement that the council approved today, the city will provide financial incentives of up to $1.5 million to Topgolf payable over up to eight years in annual installments, each equal to 30 percent of the sales tax revenue generated by the project and not to exceed $228,000 annually.
Construction could begin the next couple of months, with completion in 2017, according to Foster.
