Donate today to help Birmingham stay informed.
The former Trinity Medical Center was founded in 1922 in the West End before the facility was moved to a 1 million-square-foot facility at 52nd Street and Montclair Road in 1968. It operated there until relocating to U.S. 280 in 2015 under the name Grandview Medical Center.
In the 11 years since the hospital was vacated, redevelopment of the property has ground to a halt, but things are back on the move now.
The local neighborhood group voted last week — 41 to 1 in favor with one abstention — to recommend approval of the zoning request to allow Redeemer Community Church to move its facility from Avondale to the Montclair property. Previous votes on the plan had been far more divided.
“I think the biggest thing was that they had felt burned by prior development,” said Randall Minor, an attorney at Maynard Nexsen representing the church. Minor explained that residents feared a bait-and-switch scenario where a different project would be built instead of the promised church. To address these concerns, the church is currently focused on constructing a single building that houses all of its facilities, though plans may change.
“They don’t have a plan to build a middle school. It’s about trusting the neighborhood —the neighborhood is trusting (Redeemer Community Church). If there is a school at some point on this site, I think we’ve built up credibility where we can come in the future … . Other than that, everyone has gotten what they wanted.”
This is not the first time residents have been told the property would be revitalized. Several redevelopment plans have come and gone.
A 2018 mixed-use proposal by Berman Enterprises failed, but in 2020, Birmingham Metro LLC purchased the site for a $200 million master plan, Arbor Terrace. A portion of the land was sold to Tynes Development to build The Station at Crestline Heights apartments, and the core hospital buildings were sold to Redeemer church in 2025.
This latest project has been stalled as the applicant works to resolve qualified conditions with the Crestwood South Neighborhood Association. Q Conditions are zoning tools municipalities use to place long- and short-term restrictions on a property’s development.
Technically, a rezoning is not required for Redeemer to move in. The land is zoned for mixed-use and health and institutional uses, and the rezoning would change that to a general commercial zoning. But the current zoning would mandate the applicant construct all buildings along a public road, or it would have to go through a cumbersome variance application process.
“It would put more work on (the city) in the future,” said Kimberly Speorl, zoning administrator.
The city’s Planning and Zoning Committee discussed the rezoning request Tuesday and sent it to the City Council to be considered next Tuesday, along with the council’s review of of the Southern Area Framework Plan. While this amendment would modify the proposal being presented to the council without necessarily changing its core substance, the immediate priority is resolving the timing of both items.
