Click image to enlarge. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Birmingham Branch, is an early-twentieth-century neoclassical commercial structure with Art Deco influence by one of Alabama’s most renowned architectural firms. It sits in the heart of Birmingham’s banking and legal center. Although individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it has been vacant for several years and is now robbed of its original copper tiles and roofing. A redevelopment plan that capitalized on the 2014 Alabama Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credits lapsed in early April for lack of investors. Starwood Properties Trust, an out-of-state firm servicing the portfolio of a failed investment company, is entertaining a purchase proposal that would result in leveling the building for a parking lot. The Birmingham Design Review Board may be the next line of defense. Adaptive reuse, perhaps utilizing Alabama Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credits, is probably the most practical long-term preservation strategy to save this urban place in peril.
The Federal Reserve Bank building is the second oldest of the U.S. government structures in the city’s center. It and the old U.S. Post Office (1921, now the U. S. Courthouse), the Hugo Black U.S. Courthouse (1985), and the Attorney General’s Office (2002) are adjacent to the city’s revitalized historic theatre district. Although the bank lobby was altered in conjunction with the 1958-9 addition, it retains its original footprint and awaits restoration as the grand and gracious reception area redolent of the Roaring Twenties before the stock market crash and Great Depression, which it survived in style. Now a victim of the Great Recession, the Federal Reserve Bank could succumb to short-sighted economic interests unless city government and private enterprise rise to the occasion.
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