Wil Jones remembers people being skeptical that anyone would visit a park in a largely abandoned industrial area along the railroad tracks that separate Birmingham’s north and south sides.

“There were a tremendous amount of naysayers,” recalled Jones, who was a videographer covering City Council meetings at the time and now is president of the neighborhood association for Five Points South, which includes the park. “They were like, ‘Nobody’s going to go to a big park there. That makes no sense.’ And of course, they were all proven wrong.”

Fifteen years after Railroad Park opened, it’s clear that people came. So did a minor-league baseball field — and lots of businesses.

City Councilor Crystal Smitherman, whose district includes the park, said its impact on economic development in the surrounding area is obvious.

“The evidence is all around the park in the form of big residential buildings, restaurants, entertainment spaces, none of which would be possible without the investments made at Railroad Park,” she said. “It’s an anchor for the surrounding area, which used to be an industrial blank space and now even bears the name ‘Parkside.’”

On Sunday, Railroad Park Foundation — the organization that operates the park and provides free exercise and cooking classes there — will celebrate the 19-acre green space’s 15^th birthday with a picnic from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. that will feature live music, children’s activities, food trucks and local art.

A Long Way From Then to Now

City Councilor Valerie Abbott, the only current council member who was serving when the city decided to purchase the property and build the park, remembers the space as a “big weedy, trashy piece of land,” surrounded by mostly vacant industrial buildings and warehouses.

“It was not attractive, and it wasn’t productive, and it wasn’t doing anything except being an eyesore,” Abbott said.

The park’s passage from concept to reality was a long one.

While the idea for a park along the Railroad Reservation — an area the U.S. government set aside for railroad company use in the 1800s — traces to the 1970s, things got moving in the early 1990s, when the city of Birmingham acquired the land for future park development. Between the mid-’90s and 2000, various interest groups suggested themes for the space, said Camille Spratling, executive director of the Railroad Park Foundation.

The project gained momentum when a group of Birmingham-area residents coalesced around the idea of both creating public green space and preserving the cultural heritage of the city’s Railroad District, Spratling said. The group incorporated as Friends of the Railroad District in 2000 and was renamed the Railroad Park Foundation in 2008. Through a public-private partnership with the city, the nonprofit has operated the park since it opened in September 2010.

A 2004 city center master plan update called for redevelopment of the proposed park land as a “seam” rather than a barrier between theater and business districts to the north and the University of Alabama at Birmingham and residential development to the south, Birmingham Weekly reported at the time.

A ¾-mile walking trail and other, shorter trails are main features of the park. Many walls and seating areas in the park are made from bricks and rail tracks discovered when the site was excavated, according to a City Parks Alliance case study on Railroad Park.

Thirty percent of the park is water, including man-made ponds, a wetlands area and streams. An interpretive sign at the park states that early drawings of Birmingham show the site was a low point that collected water, and the park design restores aspects of the original hydrology.

Park Set Off Economic Boom

Spratling said a 2019 Georgia Tech study reported that the park had driven more than half a billion dollars in new property value from private development. The same study found that tax revenue from projects completed and anticipated at that time was $2.5 million annually, and those projects generated approximately $2 million a year for the city’s school system, Spratling said.

“A significant portion of our property tax millage goes towards education,” said City Council President Darrell O’Quinn, whose district included Railroad Park until redistricting in 2022. “So it’s been great for our students as well.”

O’Quinn said that two or three years ago property values in the Parkside District had increased 200% compared to numbers before the park’s construction, and he believes the figure now is closer to 400% or 500%.

The park led to other big projects, most notably Regions Field, the minor league baseball stadium that’s home to the Birmingham Barons and opened in 2013.

“That never would have happened if the Railroad Park hadn’t been there to clean up that area and make it feel safe and attractive,” Abbott said. “Everybody wanted to be near the Railroad Park after it was built,” and she said that’s why a lot of warehouse space in the area has been turned into office space.

Trevor Sutton, vice president of economic development for the Birmingham Business Alliance, said Railroad Park is central to conversations about business recruitment to the downtown area.

The park has helped attract major businesses, he said, including the tech company Fetch Rewards, whose leaders saw the location near Railroad Park as a selling point. The digital health company Acclinate and other businesses in the Denham Building a couple blocks from the park chose the area largely because of the environment it created, Sutton said.

Other businesses and organizations attracted to the Parkside District include Good People Brewing, which moved to its current spot the same year Railroad Park opened, Monday Night Brewery + Kitchen, the Negro Southern League Museum, CR Endeavors, Hero Doughnuts, Tasty Town, The Fennec and Red Cat Coffee.

Residential growth also has been dramatic.

“There are at least three large residential buildings that are all located directly adjacent to the park,” Smitherman said. “I’d imagine there are several hundred residential units, if not over a thousand, that are a direct result of this anchor space.”

Jones said that part of the city wasn’t a residential area before the park was built, and apartment buildings and businesses on their ground floors are “very clearly a consequence of the two parks (Railroad Park and Regions Field) being there.”

Bill Mudd is owner of the B&A Warehouse building and a former manager of the business, an event venue that is one of few existing operations adjacent to the park that were there before the park opened. He said watching the area transform from a “dead zone” has been a wild ride.

Mudd and partners bought the B&A Warehouse building and rehabilitated it in the late 1990s. Mudd said he’s proud of saving the beautiful brick and wood-beam structure and thinks other historic buildings in the area have been renovated due to the park’s catalyzing effect.

“If you go downtown now you actually see people walking dogs and stuff, which you didn’t see before,” he said. “I’m sure the park probably had something to do with it. There’s a new generation of folks that don’t own cars and they want to live in an urban area, and they want to live where they work.”

Sutton said early- and mid-career professionals want to be near both green space and retail establishments.

That kind of downtown living experience wasn’t nearly as abundant before Railroad Park existed, O’Quinn said.

“For those folks who prefer apartment or condo living, Railroad Park is like their backyard,” O’Quinn said. “It’s even more than a backyard. It’s like a communal gathering space, where they can go out and visit with their neighbors and meet other people and get involved in some of the programming that’s provided there.”

Communal Gathering Spot

These quality-of-life benefits extend to people who live beyond the downtown area.

On a recent weekday afternoon, Derrickia Carter, a hospice nurse who lives in Hueytown, ate lunch at the park, fed fish and a turtle in one of the ponds and did some paperwork on her tablet computer. She said she enjoys the ambiance of the park.

“I love water, anything aquatic,” Carter said. “Everything is just beautifully placed. I’ve never seen this park look just thrown away. You can tell there’s a lot of detail that goes into keeping this place clean.”

Carter said she’s been visiting the park since it opened and often brings her kids — teenagers and a 1-year-old. “There’s a lot for everyone to do,” she said.

UAB student Katari Lucero recently moved to Birmingham from Huntsville and said Railroad Park is her favorite park in her new city, reminding her of parks in Miami, where some of her family lives.

“It’s relaxing and peaceful,” said Lucero, who was studying in the park.

Lauren Jones and John Albea, who both live on the east side of town, were having a picnic near the water’s edge. Jones works nearby at The Pawms Pet Resort and said she has lunch at the park almost every day.

Albea said he likes to watch the trains from a bridge on the elevated north side of the park and mentioned a radio art festival with a temporary broadcasting tower. “That was a cool day here,” he said.

Bella Rae and Shaunta French said they come to the park to feed the fish and watch birds. “I’ve noticed there’s a lot of beautiful different birds,” Rae said. “I see a new one every time I come.”

French had a guitar and said she plays a little music in the park. She said she attends dance classes at the park as often as possible. “They do have a lot of good activities,” she said.

Free exercise classes such as yoga, Zumba, line dancing, Pilates and senior fitness happen several days a week from April through October and are part of Railroad Park Foundation’s Get Healthy on the Railroad program.

“We all want to be healthy, but not all of us can afford a gym membership,” said Ronda Robinson, spokesperson for Railroad Park Foundation.

The foundation also provides free healthy cooking classes monthly, and the first 100 attendees receive a bag of free produce to recreate dishes at home. “It’s a really popular class,” Robinson said.

Railroad Park Foundation can offer free programming because it leverages its nonprofit status to raise money through grants and donations. For example, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama sponsors the exercise and cooking classes, Robinson said, adding that foundation fundraising also pays for park maintenance.

In addition to exercising, socializing and relaxing, the approximately 500,000 people who visit the park each year also come to attend events large and small, public and private, she said. The park hosts concerts, fundraisers and community events, it’s the setting for personal events, and parts of the park can be reserved for private events.

Smitherman said the park fosters community, conversation and connection, which is why it has become known as “Birmingham’s front lawn.”

“One of the most beautiful things about the park is it’s a place where no matter your walk of life, people are welcome there,” O’Quinn said. “It’s a beacon of diversity, and people are there, regardless of socioeconomic status, equally enjoying the greenspace, exercising, socializing and taking part in the programming.”

A Blueprint for Future Investment

City and business leaders said witnessing Railroad Park’s development has taught them lessons that inform choices today.

Abbott said one key takeaway was that hiring a renowned landscape architect to design the project was worth the price. Akiko Ono with Tom Leader Studio, a California landscape design firm, was hired to design Railroad Park.

“A lot of people said, ‘Why don’t you just get some local person?’” Abbott recalled. “But they wanted to get someone who really knew what they were doing and had done successful parks all over the nation.”

The park also illustrated the value of public-private partnerships, Abbott said. “It was lots of people coming together to make it happen,” she said.

But others were skeptical, as Jones noted. O’Quinn remembers that, too. Before Railroad Park’s development, many people were doubtful about what the city could accomplish, he said, but the park changed that attitude.

“It created an optimism about the city in general and inspired hope that we could do big things,” O’Quinn said.

Smitherman said city leaders now understand that investing in green spaces pays dividends for decades, often in unexpected ways such as business growth.

Vision Still Evolving

While Railroad Park has vastly altered a significant swath of the city, the full vision it fits into has yet to be achieved.

Economic growth has not been equal on both sides of the seam planners hoped the park would create between the north and south sides of the city.

“There’s a stark contrast between how Railroad Park has impacted south of the railroad tracks versus north,” O’Quinn said, with much less development on the north side.

The reasons include infrastructure challenges, vacant spaces and the way investments build upon one another, O’Quinn said.

Alagasco – now Spire – locating an operations center on the north side of the park in 2015 was a positive step, he said.

“But there’s a critical mass that’s required for these things to really build, and vacant, unactivated spaces are often a barrier to investment further out,” he said.

A lag in redevelopment of the Powell Avenue Steam Plant has been an impediment to growth on the north side, but that could change soon, O’Quinn said, since KultureCity has acquired the space and plans to implement ideas that will add to the park’s amenities. Renovation of Birmingham’s first electrical power plant is expected to begin in the third quarter of next year, he said.

O’Quinn said converting 14th Street from a one-way to a two-way all the way to Rev. Abraham Woods Boulevard, a move he’s advocating, also could stimulate investment to the north.

Planners intended Railroad Park to be part of a linear greenway that would traverse much of the downtown area and connect with other greenways and green spaces in the region. These green spaces are also mechanisms for linking districts within the city, Sutton said.

Railroad Park and Rotary Trail, which starts near the east side of the park and extends to Avondale, are part of the Red Rock Trail System, specifically its Jones Valley Corridor. The system is a network of trails, parks, bike lanes and sidewalks meant to connect communities in Jefferson County. So far, 129 miles of the 750-mile plan have been completed.

Smitherman said the city has been investing in the trail system for years and that Railroad Park is part of the “central spine” of a 36-mile loop that will eventually connect neighborhoods across the city via a walking trail. The city recently acquired land in West End that follows a dormant rail line and will join this portion of the trail, she said.

“I’m excited to see that progress continue because it will be a huge asset for connecting even more residents to downtown,” Smitherman said.

Find more information about Railroad Park’s 15^th anniversary celebration.