Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson’s administration is exploring a revised set of options for redeveloping the property that houses the aging Mobile Civic Center, as city officials respond to criticism over earlier proposals that left out an arena or event space. The new concepts, developed internally by the city, would allow for renovation of the decades-old facility rather than its demolition.
City representatives presented the updated plans to members of the Mobile City Council during a closed-door executive session, then met later the same day with leaders from the Church Street East neighborhood, the Mobile Area Mardi Gras Association and downtown restaurant owners to walk through the concepts and gather feedback.
Beyond renovating the arena, the plans carve out a smaller footprint that could still be offered to Cordish Companies for its open-air Live! entertainment district concept, while preserving space for retail and residential development that a private partner could build out separately.
A parking deck is also part of the framework, one designed with room to expand if the city eventually needs to accommodate passenger traffic from a larger cruise ship or a second ship docking downtown. Stimpson pointed to the existing deck at the Mobile, Alabama Cruise Terminal as a cautionary example, saying the city built it too small the first time.
“The existing parking deck should’ve been another floor higher,” Stimpson said. “Let’s not do something that’s going to hamstring us in the future because parking decks can pretty much pay for themselves. So what we’re more interested in is not hamstringing ourselves in the future because if any of this stuff works down here you would use the parking for that.”
The new framework would also separate the civic center’s theater from the arena and add a promenade intended to physically connect the property to other parts of downtown Mobile, according to Stimpson.
City officials have not settled on a total price tag for the project, and Stimpson said any work would likely happen in phases. The sequencing of those phases depends heavily on whether Cordish Companies remains interested in a scaled-down version of the Live! concept it originally pitched to the council. If that partnership does not come together, Stimpson said the city would start by renovating the arena on its own.
Cordish has not yet told the city how much public investment it would expect for the larger version of its Live! concept, though members of the mayor’s administration reportedly anticipate the figure will be substantial. City spokesperson George Talbot said Mobile expects to contribute the 22-acre Civic Center parcel itself as the bulk of its investment in any partnership with Cordish, with negotiations between the two sides still ongoing. As of the briefings this week, Cordish had not yet been informed of the city’s newest internal plan.
The proposal also leaves room for additional development if the Alabama Department of Transportation moves forward with reconfiguring how drivers access the George C. Wallace Tunnel. Should that project free up additional land near the site, Stimpson said it could be used for hotels or other buildings meant to capitalize on downtown tourism and help offset the cost of renovating the Civic Center.
The latest proposal marks just the newest twist in a redevelopment debate that has stretched on for more than four years. Most recently, the city had narrowed its list of potential developers down to a single finalist after a group led by Louisiana-based Stirling Properties withdrew from consideration. That group had been the only one among the finalists to include a stand-alone event center in its proposal.
The mayor’s office has faced sustained criticism from residents and council members since it first emerged that the Cordish-led plans, at least in their initial phases, did not include either an arena or a dedicated event center for the site.