Tonight, the old Trinity hospital campus sits empty. It has a new home in Grandview Medical Center on Highway 280.
But what does the future hold for the facility? The old campus is 20 acres, with more than 900,000 square feet of redevelopment space. The plan is to give these buildings new life.
Grandview President and CEO Keith Granger knows this site is an asset to the Birmingham area.
“I think it will be all about finding the right player who will take that site (and) give it the opportunity to have new life,” Granger said. He says they are working with Graham & Company commercial real estate to determine what will be the best use for the campus. “It’s likely it will be a multi-use campus. It would be unlikely that a single party would be able to take an use all the facilities.”
Walter Brown of Graham & Company believes there are no shortage of options for redevelopment of the 20 acre campus. “Anything from schools, to mixed use, whether it’s condominiums or apartments, or potentially senior housing, is also a possibility,” Brown explained. “We don’t think it’s going to be just one thing. We think it needs to be subdivided and carved out for multiple type purposes.”
Just about everything on the campus can be re-purposed, except the hospital building. Brown says this campus is all about location, location, location. “The location is excellent, we think it will be a demand for redeveloping it. We’re not quite sure what the purpose will be.”
In March of 2014, Momentum — a technology business — left Hoover and relocated to Trinity’s campus. Brown believes there is plenty of incentive for more businesses to move on to the old campus.
The City of Birmingham’s economic development team is working with Graham & Company to seek out other potential businesses and companies. Right now there is no active plan for the future of the Trinity campus. However, the hope is to have a plan for the campus by the middle of next year.