City Walk, a Birmingham public space created to move the Magic City forward, is facing funding challenges.
City Walk is a popular downtown Birmingham hub for community members and visitors from all over the world. With its trails connecting visitors to local businesses, civil rights centers, art and entertainment, the space is a safe place for community members to relax, learn and play.
Tad Snider, executive director of the Birmingham Jefferson Civic Center Authority (BJCC), said filling City Walk’s funding gap is crucial to advancing the city.
“It’s a valuable community asset that has been built and developed…It’s not going away,” Snider told AL.com. “We’ve been working the last few months with the Department of Transportation on how this thing is ultimately going to be sustained and funded the way it needs to be to be the community asset that it is.”
The funding gap
While City Walk was built by the Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT), the BJCC now manages and operates the area, keeping the sidewalks clean, the greenery pruned and the lights on.
It costs about $2 million a year to manage and operate City Walk. That money goes toward:
- Insurance: $234,000
- Utilities: $329,000
- Detention pond and fountain maintenance: $58,000
- Landscape maintenance: $204,000
- Security: $590,000
- Custodial services: $90,000
- Skate park management and insurance: $340,000
City Walk has made more than $400,000 in operating revenue each year from events and parking. According to Snider, City Walk is left with a $1.6 million operating deficit.
“It just doesn’t cover all the costs. So that’s what we’ve got to figure out,” Snider said.
He added that funding shortages are common for a space like City Walk.
“Having a shortfall is not uncommon for public spaces. Parks rarely generate enough revenue to cover the costs of upkeep, and finding the funding streams to cover the expense is a frequent challenge for local and state governments,” the BJCC said in a statement.
The contract with ALDOT states that the operator, the BJCC, is not required to fund the operating deficit for City Walk.
ALDOT referred AL.com to the BJCC, but offered no further comment on the City Walk project.
“Part of our agreement with the Department of Transportation was, we will manage it for you. We will operate it for you. We will keep it clean, we’ll keep it secure, but we can’t pay for it,” Snider said.
“The consultant report showed that there are revenue opportunities, but most public spaces around the country always require some type of sustaining support from an organization. They don’t generate enough revenue on their own to pay for themselves.”
How City Walk came to be
In 2014, ALDOT initiated a project to replace the aging and heavily used Interstate 59/20 bridges that run through Birmingham’s Central Business District, a project that involved a complete closure of the interstate for a year.
City Walk became a community-wide effort after the Federal Highway Administration urged ALDOT, as part of the rebuild, to make the space under the interstate a social hub that served the community instead of potentially dividing it.
With local residents giving feedback about what they wanted to see done to the area under the bridge, ALDOT transformed the space into a more than $30 million hub for residents and visitors.
A 31-acre space covering 10 city blocks, City Walk opened in time for the 2022 World Games and has since become a hub for civil rights activists, artists, skateboarders, pickleball players and dog moms, among others.
One of the prominent elements of City Walk, the skate park, cost $3 million to build and covers 57,000 square feet, making it the fifth largest skate facility in the United States according to reports.
City Walk also has a rotating exhibit of artwork from local artists.
Willie Williams, Jr. hold an accompanying portrait from “Trinity.” (Shauna Stuart for AL.com)
Willie Williams, a 28-year-old Birmingham artist, said his sculptures “The Village” and “Hope and Dream” at City Walk represent community, heritage and ancestral pride.
Williams said having his art on display in the heart of the city he grew up in means a lot to him.
He said he often goes to City Walk art events to support his friends. Sometimes he walks the trails and talks to visitors about his sculptures.
“It’s humbling to have that honor, but also have that space at City Walk to be able to show my light through my art…It’s a nice way of being celebrated as a living artist,” Williams said.
With benches cut from Alabama timber and plaques molded from iron, City Walk has become a piece of the fabric of Birmingham, supporters said.
Today, City Walk hosts art shows, recreational sports clinics, social mixers and community events like Holi Festival, NCAA Fan Fest, car shows and Athletes Village for the World Police and Fire Games that bring residents together year-round.
“People feel safe there. It’s enjoyable for everyone. It’s clean, it’s safe, and it’s comfortable,” Snider said. “It’s quite spectacular.”
In 2023, City Walk won a design award. Birmingham’s Barge Design Solutions, which was commissioned to design the space, was presented the “Grand Award” from the American Council of Engineering Companies of Alabama for its master plan design of City Walk.
In the first and second quarter of 2024, more than 270,000 people visited City Walk, one of the most visited landmarks in Birmingham, according to a REV Birmingham report.
But funding remains a barrier for City Walk’s continued success.
What’s next for City Walk
Snider said that by the holiday season, the BJCC hopes to incorporate philanthropic financial support to fill City Walk’s funding gap.
“We are still kind of putting pieces together, but what we’re gonna do is work through a way to be able to accept donations and sponsorships…Under the framework of the agreement that we initially had with ALDOT, there wasn’t a legal way to do that, but we’re both focused on getting that worked out, because we know it’s a key piece of the puzzle going forward,” Snider said.
“It takes a while for spaces like this to develop their identity and kind of find their footing, I think it’s just part of a natural cycle of a large public space…If we keep working it, if we keep focused on what we need to develop City Walk in another five years, we’ll begin to have even greater success and that’s an exciting thing to be on the front end of.”
