Bacall Companies, the Birmingham-based investment outfit run by the Bacall brothers, has scooped up another marquee slice of downtown, this time the five-story building that rose where the Varsity Shop once stood. The purchase extends a recent streak of local deals and further tightens the grip of a few big players on office and retail space in Birmingham’s core. For downtown shoppers and smaller landlords, it is another sign that once-tiny parcels are getting folded into larger mixed-use plays.
Bacall Expands Downtown Footprint
According to Crain's Detroit Business, Bacall Companies has closed on the recently completed five-story mixed-use building that replaced the former Varsity Shop site in downtown Birmingham. The project is described as a street-level retail hub with upper floors designed for office or residential use, and the deal adds one more midrise to the firm’s growing stack of downtown holdings.
Portfolio Push
In its own marketing materials, Bacall Companies lays out a steady campaign of property pickups in the downtown district as part of a broader local expansion strategy. The firm highlights several recent acquisitions and says it is consolidating its operations in the city’s core. Bacall Companies points to deals spanning office, retail and hospitality properties throughout Birmingham.
Industry coverage previously spotlighted Bacall’s 2022 buy of the office and retail components of Birmingham Place, a move that helped cement the group as a major owner of mixed-use property downtown. That acquisition was detailed by CoStar when it closed.
From Varsity Shop to Five-Story
The corner parcel at 277 Pierce, where the Varsity Shop once operated at Pierce and E. Merrill, was tied up for years in a redevelopment push that called for a roughly 27,000-square-foot, five-story mixed-use building with retail on the ground floor and offices or residences above, according to city planning records. City of Birmingham planning documents show the project moved through standard site-plan reviews and conditions tied to downtown zoning before the new structure rose on the site.
What It Means for Downtown
Local observers say a wave of infill projects and the repackaging of once-modest parcels is steadily reshaping downtown Birmingham. Rising land values, and strong demand for walkable retail and boutique office space, are encouraging taller, mixed-use buildings where single-story shops used to sit. DBusiness has tracked how zoning rules and basic land economics are fueling that pattern along the Old Woodward corridor.
Terms of Bacall’s latest deal were not made public, according to Crain's Detroit Business. What is clear is that with another midrise now in its portfolio, Bacall is positioned to keep nudging downtown Birmingham’s retail and office mix in its direction in the months ahead.
