STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY VICKII HOWELL

STALWART CITY CENTER PROMOTERS AND URBAN PIONEERS WHO BELIEVE DOWNTOWN BIRMINGHAM WOULD COME BACK TO LIFE NEVER WAVERED IN THEIR FAITH. EVEN SO, TODAY'S HOT LOFT CONDO MARKET HAS EVEN GOT THEM REELING WITH DELIGHT.

What do Adam Cohen, Damian Gilbert, and Leigh Ferguson have in common?

They all saw it coming, and they positioned themselves to take advantage of it. That is, the wave of loft condo mania sweeping over Downtown Birmingham. Their words seem almost prophetic now, a year after Birmingham View first spoke to developers and urban trend watchers about what was happening Downtown.

“Actually Birmingham is a little bit behind the curve. Our company develops more lofts outside the City of Birmingham,” Cohen said then of his developments in Chattanooga, Knoxville, TN, and Columbia, SC. There, they could charge much higher rental and sales prices.

“But Birmingham will get there and get there quickly,” Cohen predicted. “With the proposed new construction products coming to Birmingham, I truly think you’re going to see $180-190 per square foot in new construction projects coming on line, and they will sell.”

These days, many loft condos are easily selling for $200 per square foot and higher, but who’s counting?

The developers, the bankers, and the urban dwellers who love them, that’s who.

Last year, Cohen’s company began building Johnston Lofts; today they are complete and full of owners who paid from $95,000 to $195,000 to get in. Now Cohen has $4.5 million plans to turn the windowless Athens Building on Second Avenue North and 23rd Street into condos with balconies and glass on the front. Sales prices range from $154,000 to $355,000.

In 2003, mortgage banker Damian Gilbert saw the urban living trend and moved his Wells Fargo office to a space in Fix Play on First Avenue North, in the heart of the loft district. His mission: to make his group the mortgage company of choice for Downtown loft condo buyers.

“I knew that young people had this whole Seinfeld and Friends complex where they wanted to live downtown. Because Wells Fargo was doing this in other markets across the country, we had a heads up . . . we knew this would soon be a growing trend in Birmingham.”

Now, hardly a month goes by without breathless announcements of developers’ plans to turn yet another towering, vacant, and moldy Downtown hulk into loft condominiums. Some developers are so bold as to build condos from the ground up.

As soon as the projects are announced, phones of developers and their real estate agents ring off the hook with empty-nesters or young professionals who can hardly wait to get Downtown. Or, with investors looking to make money selling their reservations or their units to someone eager to pay more to own a piece of Downtown.

No less than 27 loft developments – both condominiums and apartments of various sizes – are under construction, on the drawing table or in discussions in Downtown Birmingham.

Consider it official. Birmingham’s City Center has finally come down with Loft Condo Fever, the sure indicator that the urban living trend sweeping across the country has finally hit the Magic City full force.

Next Page: Predictions Come True