Carraway Star development includes building new houses in Norwood

Carraway Star development includes building new houses in Norwood

The Star at Uptown master plan for developing the former Carraway hospital campus includes single-family houses that will be built north of the abandoned medical center.

The Birmingham City Council voted Tuesday to rezone the area for single-family housing, clearing the way for houses to be built.

The plan calls for 44 single-family homes to be built on 44 lots north of the hospital between 25th Street and Carraway Boulevard, said Marianne McGehee, assistant project manager for Corporate Realty.

“We will sell the property to a homebuilder and they will most likely charge market rate for the homes,” McGehee said.

The houses will be one-story and two-story homes.

“Thanks, Corporate Realty, for taking interest in Norwood,” said City Council member LaTonya Tate, who grew up in the neighborhood and attended the now abandoned McArthur Elementary School at the corner of 25th Street and 17th Avenue North.

The homes will be built at the north end of the Carraway property from 17th through 25th Avenue, said Brian Wolfe, chief development officer for Corporate Realty. Wolfe said construction on the homes could begin in 2023.

Corporate Realty plans to turn the former hospital campus into a multi-use development complete with office, retail, entertainment, hotel and residential space.

That includes a planned 9,000-seat amphitheatre that will be managed by Live Nation, which currently manages the Oak Mountain Amphitheatre in Pelham. If Birmingham’s plans for funding the amphitheatre go through, Live Nation plans to shutter Oak Mountain Amphitheatre and begin booking concerts for the downtown Birmingham venue when it is completed.

Demolition is underway on the 50-acre campus of the former hospital where the amphitheatre would be.

The four parking decks on the campus will not be torn down and are planned for use for parking for the future development including the planned Star amphitheatre, Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin said Tuesday.

Woodfin supports the amphitheatre project and plans to submit his funding proposal to the City Council in coming weeks, he said. Funding would also need to be approved by the Jefferson County Commission, which will also vote on it in coming weeks, said Commissioner Joe Knight.

Knight, a member of the Greater Birmingham Convention and Visitors Burea board of directors, was among the board members who voted Monday in favor of funding the amphitheatre project in Birmingham.

The Birmingham City Council voted in 2020 to re-zone the former Carraway Methodist Medical Center campus, setting in motion a redevelopment that has been years in coming.

The Birmingham City Council on Dec. 29, 2020, approved a $13 million incentive package for the redevelopment of the former Carraway Methodist Medical Center site.

The Star development is several blocks north of Top Golf and Protective Stadium along Carraway Boulevard.

Carraway hospital closed in 2006, and the campus continued operating as Physicians Medical Center until closing in 2008.