Parks board presses for bathroom access, raises concerns about 42-foot parking encroachment for new senior/community center

The Birmingham Parks and Recreation Board on April 1 urged city project leads to secure public bathroom access in a proposed senior/community center and raised objections to a parking layout that would move a lot roughly 42 feet into Saint James Park.

Board members and parks staff spent more than an hour reviewing schematic “test-fit” plans that show how a three-level center — with the gym and pool partially below grade and community spaces above — would sit beside the park. Scott Lewinsky, director of public services, described the design work as a step to “explore adjacencies and noise” and to show how rooms, entries and parking would be arranged.

The board’s central concern was loss of green space. Several members said they would accept reduced park turf only if the city-obtained tradeoffs were meaningful to park users — in particular, an accessible public restroom in the new building that the public could use without an onerous check-in process. “If we’re willing to give up parking lot space because then that’s one less thing that the parks has to pay for and maintain,” a parks board member said, urging staff to press for restroom access, but board discussion repeatedly emphasized that the parks department did not want to surrender parkland without direct benefit to the park.

Board members and staff outlined specific impacts and tradeoffs under consideration. The recommended parking plan would move the proposed lot about 42 feet south compared with the current lot line; staff noted that shift both increases the number of spaces by roughly 27 and puts parts of the new lot closer to the park’s playing field and to existing drainage infrastructure. Carrie Laird, parks and recreation manager, and Brad McNabb, parks foreman, flagged drainage and field-grade concerns: existing storm drains and a southwest drain cluster fall close to the play area and could conflict with a relocated field if the field is shifted south.

Parks staff said the city engineering team has already placed drain tie-ins in the park’s southwest corner in anticipation of future upgrades, and that moving the field or the lot would require careful coordination so that play areas and drainage points are not compromised. Staff also raised scheduling and funding questions: the center design work is advancing toward a schematic review on April 16 and could move to a bond referendum later in the year; any construction timing and whether park improvements would be included in bond language remain to be decided.

Board members suggested possible negotiables that would make traded parkland acceptable: guaranteed, easily accessible public restrooms in the building (distinct from locker/changing rooms), maintenance commitments for impacted park areas, shared use agreements for parking during peak times (including potential short-term arrangements with nearby institutional lots), and design concessions that limit the building’s visual impact on the neighborhood. Several members also urged staff to check the city’s master plan language and to return recommended talking points the Parks Board can communicate to the City Commission as schematic designs are refined.

Staff said the YMCA would operate the pool and would run most programming, but that the facility is intended to serve multiple community groups and to reserve some community hours. The pool was described in the meeting as a five-lane facility with diving blocks, accessible ramp entry and a lift; length and lane configurations are being finalized with aquatic consultants.

The board asked staff to return with more specific notes for negotiation — for example, where restrooms would be sited relative to the main entry and whether park users could enter without membership checks — and to flag items the Parks Board can insist on if the board is being asked to accept parkland loss. No formal action or vote was taken on the Saint James schematic at the April 1 meeting; members asked staff to include the board’s concerns in upcoming schematic reviews and to communicate the board’s preferred tradeoffs to the City Commission.

Ending

Staff indicated the project remains in schematic design and that an April 16 schematic-design review meeting is scheduled. The Parks Board asked staff to prepare a short list of “must-have” park benefits (bathroom access, maintenance commitments, parking management and coordinated construction sequencing) to present at the next meeting so the board can formally convey its position to the City Commission during the design phase.