The word “urban” pertains to things associated with cities. In the past several decades, it was a code word associated with ethnicity and lower socio-economic classes. However, urban today has as much to do with a mindset as it does class and geography.

STORY BYVICKII HOWELL, PHOTOGRAPHY BY WES FRASER AND VICKII HOWELL

Virginia Rekoff has been cool long before anyone here associated that word with living in Downtown Birmingham.

She and her husband were among the very first people to live in the City Center 16 years ago. The City had just changed zoning laws, allowing people to live on second floors in former warehouses and commercial spaces, something that was avant-garde then.

Virginia Rekoff lives in the space she and her husband converted 16 years ago. Former Congressman Ben Erdreich is building a new loft next door.

The couple had lived near New York City and in cities such as Minneapolis and Houston, where city living was chic, but not cheap. Upon arriving here, they decided to live in a Vestavia Hills apartment until they could find a place Downtown.

“We had always wanted to have a loft in a downtown, and this was the first place we lived where we could afford one,” Rekoff said. “Also, the last one of our children was in college.”

They found a perfect spot on Second Avenue North, a 25-foot wide, two-story building. They were financially well off, and put down half the money to buy the property. But they couldn’t get a mortgage for the other half because none of the banks had financed a loft then.

So the Rekoffs did most of the renovation work themselves. “We put two years of our lives into this building. It was really hard,” she says of all the permitting issues and bureaucratic red-tape they endured. “We didn’t do it as an investment, but as it turned out, that may be the case. We just wanted to live Downtown.”

Now, about 50 loft apartment and condominium buildings dot the City Center and Midtown, from high-rise and mid-rise historic buildings to smaller owner-occupied buildings. More than two dozen loft developments are underway or planned for Downtown, so hundreds of others are coming.

“It’s night and day,” Rekoff, now a widow, says about the difference between the Downtown residential scene two decades ago and today.

“It’s a wonderful thing. I love all the new people coming in. I tell them, ‘I’ve been waiting for you for so long. Thank you for coming!’ I’m a senior citizen,” the 75-year-old urbanite says with a laugh. “I love all the young kids and all, but now we have people over 30 and 35. And some of my friends over 50 have moved Downtown, and it’s so wonderful.”

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