rtkenmore, on Sep 17 2009, 12:54 AM, said:
Two things... First, when you say Woodland Park are you referring to the fairly new community near McCalla that's actually located in Tuscaloosa County and not even in Jefferson?? I'm very familiar with that community and in this market you'd be hard pressed to get values in the upper $140's for those homes considering there has only been one sale in that community this entire year and it was i the mid $120's.
I'm talking about Woodland Park, which is neighborhood in the City of Birmingham and has an actual neighborhood association of the same name. It's the community surrounding Greensprings Avenue, and it's western boundary is 11th Court SW, eastern and southern boundary is the CSX tracks, and northern boundary is Greensprings and Dennison Avenue itself. The Heritage Town Center retail center and subdivision, where former Mayor Richard Arrington used to reside until he divorced his 2nd wife, is located in the Woodland Park neighborhood.
I don't know what "Woodland Park" in eastern Tuscaloosa County you are talking about, but the one I'm talking about has been in existence since the 1970's. It's a one of Birmingham's many middle-class neighborhoods with a growing number of young and college educated residents moving in although it doesn't make headlines like areas outside the city in the
Birmingham News real estate inserts. However, I have a friend (and his partner) that reside there and his very active in the neighborhood association, and I've seen for myself the area is nice, safe, and quiet area in the Birmingham and only 5 minutes from the City Center.
I have worked for the local government and had direct access to property assessment values for the individual properties in the region, and can reaffirm the values of individual residences in that specific neighborhood (in addition to that friend's confirmation of price).
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Second, you keep saying things as though Leeds & Grand River are some horrible distance from Birmingham. Grand River is located 15 miles from the downtown city core; it's closer to downtown Birmingham than Trace Crossing (and I'm not sure what Trace Crossing has to do with this at all anyway). And as I mentioned, Grand River is actually one of the closest new retail developments to the city core. Almost all of the recent retail developments are further from downtown Birmingham than Grand River and not to mention that Grand River will be less than 15 minutes (10 minutes even) from Trussville, about 15-20 minutes from areas on 280 via 119 and within 10-15 minutes for most all of Crestwood, Forest Park, Avondale, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Homewood, etc.
I never said that "some horrible distance" from Birmingham, I called what it is
sprawl when the existing infrastructure can't even handle the
sprawl that is already plaguing the region. Trace Crossing came into the mix because its example of another development similar to what Grand River is proposed to be (except for the retail), and its just another cookie-cutter development that is located more than 10 miles from the city core, IMHO. I'm not throwing any shade at the development, but it is what it is.
Like I said, we will have to agree to disagree on this because I'm just not all that excited over the continuation of the sprawl plaguing our region when there are major efforts at work right now to improve the transportation infrastructure at the moment. The ITP (In-Town Partnership) will be the beginning of some major that would help get the region off the ground when it comes to transportation infrastructure, mobility, and major revitalization of the urban core where we have some great and affordable areas to live as well.
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