The Birmingham City Council on Tuesday approved a $265,000 agreement to lease 5,688 square feet in a building to be constructed on the site of the former Ramsay-McCormack building in Ensley.

The agreement is with Ensley District Developers, the firm that has undertaken a $20 million redevelopment of the site — and gotten about $10 million in incentives from the city. 

Coreata’ Houser, interim director of the Department of Innovation and Economic Opportunity, told the council on Tuesday that the space will house a police substation and other city services that have yet to be determined.

Houser added that the city would plan to conduct community engagement activities to see what is needed in the area.

When council members asked for a timeline on the project, city attorney Nicole King advised that they go into executive session to discuss pending litigation.

“I don’t really want to go into executive session,” Councilor Hunter Williams said. “I feel that the public actually has a right to know these things, to be quite frank.”

“But it is in litigation,” Council President Wardine Alexander said.

After a brief executive session, the council approved the agreement, with Williams voting no.

The history of the project has been complicated.

Built in 1929, the 10-story Ramsay-McCormack tower had been empty since 1986. In 2009, attorney Antonio Spurling sued the city, seeking for the building to either be demolished or restored. Though he dropped the suit after the city pledged $900,000 toward restoration efforts, he sued again in 2012, claiming that those efforts had never materialized.

Former Mayor William Bell in 2016 announced plans for a $40 million renovation, after which the building would have served as headquarters for Birmingham’s municipal court, police department and fire department. But a judge ordered the building demolished. That same year, a judge ordered the city to destroy the building by April 28, 2017.

After Randall Woodfin came into office, he nixed Bell’s plans for the site, and the city put out a request for proposals from developers. In 2019, officials approved the current redevelopment project with Ensley District Developers and in 2021 demolished the building.

One candidate in this year’s mayoral race, Brian K. Rice, made objections to the project, with its delays and city investment, one on the main planks in his platform.