Offering an eclectic mix of urban sophistication and leisurely activities, the Uptown Birmingham District is a bustling area known for its entertainment, dining and shopping options, featuring diverse restaurants and boutiques. Uptown is a district that anchors the northern end of downtown. Adjacent to the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex (BJCC) in downtown Birmingham, Uptown boasts modern architecture, green spaces and attractions like The Alabama Sports Hall of Fame, Topgolf, Protective Stadium and City Walk.

“These assets are critical to Birmingham’s tourism industry and its ability to attract major concerts and events for our city,” says David Fleming, CEO at REV Birmingham. REV is a place-based revitalization and economic development nonprofit that is working to make the city of Birmingham a more vibrant place.

Uptown is where the fun happens, and Birmingham pride can be seen in full effect. From supporting your favorite team at the new Protective Stadium to watching world-famous musicians at the renovated Legacy Arena, Uptown is known for prime entertainment. In 2015, the Birmingham City Council voted to allow the Uptown district, including the BJCC, to become the city’s first “entertainment district” with visitors allowed to carry drinks outside. These venue investments have helped stimulate new interest in the Birmingham market and aided in bringing high value events to the region. Key successes include the return of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament in 2023 and hosting the NCAA Women’s Basketball Regionals in 2025.

According to the Birmingham Business Alliance, Uptown has been experiencing significant growth. The Alliance was created to enhance job creation, community development, talent recruitment and tourism in the seven central Alabama counties of the Birmingham metro, also known as the Greater Birmingham Region.

As Birmingham focuses on creating Vibrancy Gaps to create congruent vibrancy throughout its nine distinct districts, the city’s Uptown district has experienced over $1 billion in recent investments. “All of this makes Uptown an important part of Birmingham‘s economic vitality and attractiveness,” notes Fleming. “However, the investment that has transformed Uptown in the public’s view is the addition of CityWalk.”

City Walk BHAM transformed the space under the city’s interstate into a vibrant “third space” for residents and visitors. A 31-acre public space developed underneath the reconstructed I-59/20 bridges, City Walk features a dog park, amphitheater, and other performance spaces, pickleball courts, playground area as well as space for fitness and food trucks. It’s also home to a skate park, the largest in the southeast and fifth largest in the U.S.

The Uptown District features eight dining options ranging from fine dining to a unique and modern coffee shop with cocktails in the evening hours. Currently under construction for the Uptown District is a 9,384-seat amphitheater just north of the current campus footprint. Set to open in 2025, the amphitheater will host a full concert line-up in the spring, summer and early fall enhancing the year-round excitement that is Uptown. The amphitheater will anchor The Star at Uptown, a mix-used development valued at around $300 million, featuring residential, retail, office, hotel and entertainment components.

The Uptown district was identified as one of the top six initiative areas to focus on in Birmingham’s most recent City Center Master Plan. This work, alongside development plans from the BJCC, is advancing the economic growth of Uptown. New restaurants in the area, upgrades to beautification and landscaping as well as to meeting facilities are keeping Uptown competitive and an attractive place for arts, entertainment and recreation. The district is intentionally well-planned and managed so the experience is user-friendly and can support many major events and attractions going on at the same time. With 3.3 million visitors to Uptown in 2023, Uptown visitors made up 9.5% of all visits to Downtown Birmingham.

Fleming adds, “The future for Uptown is bright as the landscaping and facilities refresh at the core of the district will make it a more attractive and appealing place. New restaurants coming will also encourage people to linger longer in Uptown and increase the vibrancy of place.”

A coalition of rights groups led by the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP filed a lawsuit Friday challenging four provisions of Alabama Senate Bill 1, Act No. 2024-33 (“SB 1”), which criminalizes absentee ballot assistance. The case is in the Southern Division of the Northern District of Alabama.

Two of the challenged provisions were the Payment Provisions and the Gift Provisions. The filing says that the Payment Provision “makes it ‘unlawful for a third party to knowingly receive a payment,’ or ‘knowingly pay…a third party,’ to ‘distribute, order, request, collect, prefill, complete, obtain, or deliver a voter’s absentee ballot application.’ The Gift Provision “makes it ‘unlawful for a third party to knowingly receive…a gift,’ or ‘knowingly…provide a gift,’ to a ‘third party’ to ‘distribute, order, request, collect, prefill, complete, obtain, or deliver a voter’s absentee ballot application.” Both the Payment and Gift Provisions carry a Class B or C felony penalty.

Other challenged provisions include the Prefilling Provision and the Submission Provision. The filing says that the Prefilling Restriction “makes it ‘unlawful for any person to knowingly distribute an absentee ballot application to a voter that is prefilled with the voter’s name or any other information required on the application form.” The Submission Provision “makes it ‘unlawful for an individual to submit a completed absentee ballot application to the absentee election manager other than his or her own application,’ unless that person is seeking emergency medical treatment within five days before an election.” Both the Payment and Prefiling Provision carry a Class A misdemeanor penalty.

Ballot harvesting was the primary motive behind SB 1. Ballot harvesting is the practice and laws that allow third parties to collect and submit absentee ballots. Laws vary state by state, with some states allowing ballot harvesting by specific persons, some allowing a person chosen by the voter to return their ballot, some states unspecified on who may return ballots, and one state, Alabama, that allows only the voter to return their ballot.

According to the Legal Defense Fund, SB 1 would prohibit “non-partisan civil rights, voting rights, and disability rights organizations” from assisting voters with their absentee ballots for the November General Election. Absentee ballots are especially significant for groups such as “senior citizen voters, incarcerated voters, voters with disabilities, and low-literacy voters.”According to the Alabama Secretary of State, there were 305,663 absentee votes cast in the 2020 General Election, making up 13.1% of the total votes cast.

The lawsuit challenges SB 1 on the grounds of criminalizing constitutionally protected speech and expression, and for being too vague in its language. The current language of SB 1 would make it a crime “to provide a postage stamp to a neighbor distributing absentee ballot applications, or for a grandmother to show her appreciation for her grandchild’s assistance in completing or delivering her absentee ballot application by giving them gas money or a token gift like a pie.”

Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act prohibits the enactment of new voting procedures until the procedures have been determined to have “neither discriminatory purpose or effect.”

Alabama is among the states with the most rigid absentee ballot process. State law lays out 8 situations for which a person is eligible for an absentee ballot, including if the person expects to be away from their residence on election day, if the person has a physical illness that would prevent them from voting in person, if the person is a student, if the person is a member of the military or a military dependent, if the person is an election officer or pollworker, and if the person is a family caregiver, or if the person is incarcerated but not yet convicted of a “felony involving moral turpitude.”

Once a person meets one of these criteria, they must receive an absentee ballot application, fill it out, including a copy of their photo identification, and either deliver it in person or physically place it in a mail box. Brookings has given Alabama a grading of F for their absentee ballot procedures.

After singing SB 1 into law, Governor Kay Ivey said “we are committed to ensuring our elections are free and fair…Under my watch, there will be no funny business in Alabama elections.”

Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton questioned the bill, saying “I think this is a national Republican issue. I think the state is jumping on something…Ballot harvesting is not an issue in this state.”