Parking Construction Underway
We're building parking inside the building to accommodate tenants and mini-storage customers. There are also seven extra spaces to lease to loft residents or local businesses looking for secured parking. The lower floor will be split into two levels each with 6 spaces. There will be a concrete safety wall dividing the parking from the retail space. Cars will enter from the alley with doors secured by codes or wireless ID devices. Unfortunately some of the original windows will have to be removed, but they were mostly gone anyway so it's not much of a loss; on the other hand we'll be able to keep and incorporate the brick arches over the garage doors.
You don't think about Birmingham being so hilly when you're downtown, but the alley is about 6 feet higher than street level. The green door below is at alley level. This door originally entered into a small platform for loading and unloading. We took out that structure in order to put two ramps from the alley, one to the bottom floor and one to the second floor of the parking garage. Both parking floors are actually contained within the 1st floor of the building; the ceiling is 17 feet high, and we will have to lower the bottom floor slightly to make two complete floors within a floor.
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