By james art BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) – The Birmingham Budget and Finance Commission is recommending an additional $4.5 million for the new amphitheater project.
The committee spent about an hour discussing the proposal Monday afternoon.
Mayor Randall Woodfin and other project partners said the $4.5 million will provide infrastructure improvements around the old Carraway Hospital such as sidewalk and ramp improvements, along with street repaving and new lighting at 24th and 25th streets.
This is public access around the new amphitheatre it will be clean and well lit.
But there are concerns about pouring more money into an economic development project while Birmingham citizens are still struggling with infrastructure in their own neighborhoods.
“We’ve done a lot when we wanted to make Birmingham a destination and we’ve invested in that, so I know it’s going to be – you’ve got to spend money to make money,” Councilor Wardine Alexander said. “I have no problem with that. I just have to think about the people I represent.”
“You know I spent 23 years as a city councilman hearing, ‘We’re going to do these big economic development projects and it’s going to provide funding for the neighborhoods,'” said City Councilor Valerie Abbott. “But you know what? We never get very far in the neighborhoods.”
Abbott said they should have voted in favor of it because they committed to the project years ago.
“I voted for it because it was the right thing to do, but the even more right thing to do is start paying attention to our neighborhoods where we have this infrastructure that’s really in disrepair,” Abbott said.
After the Budget and Finance Committee votes on the additional funding, the matter will go before the full City Council for final approval.
Developers say they expect the amphitheater project to be completed in May 2025, with their first show in June 2025.
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