A Birmingham neighborhood association has voted overwhelmingly to recommend approval of a rezoning request that would let Redeemer Community Church build a new headquarters on the long-dormant former Trinity Medical Center site on Montclair Road, sending the matter to the Birmingham City Council for a vote next week.
The Crestwood South Neighborhood Association voted 41-1, with one abstention, to support the zoning request allowing the Avondale-based congregation to relocate to the Montclair property, according to a report from BirminghamWatch. The strong show of support comes after years of failed redevelopment attempts left neighbors wary of empty promises for the 75-acre campus. Randall Minor, an attorney at Maynard Nexsen representing the church, said residents had feared a bait-and-switch scenario in which a different project would ultimately replace the promised church.
A Hospital Site Vacant for Over a Decade
The property has a long institutional history. Founded in Birmingham's West End in 1922, the hospital relocated in 1968 to a one-million-square-foot facility at 52nd Street and Montclair Road, operating there as a 447-bed acute care regional hospital on a 75-acre campus, according to BirminghamWatch's reporting and background detailed by Bhamwiki. The hospital, known by then as Trinity Medical Center, officially vacated the Montclair Road facility on October 10, 2015, with 35 ambulances helping move patients to its new 372-bed campus on U.S. Highway 280 and the move expected to finish by day's end, per Grandview Health, and the hospital was renamed Grandview Medical Center. The Montclair Road site has sat mostly vacant in the 11 years since.
That vacancy hasn't been for lack of trying. Berman Enterprises proposed a mixed-use redevelopment in 2018 that failed to advance, per the BirminghamWatch report. Birmingham Metro LLC then purchased the site in 2020 for what became the Arbor Terrace master plan, envisioned at $200 million, and the same developer separately announced a 75-acre concept called Crestline Heights that March, designed to include more than 300,000 square feet of renovated space, 1,700 parking spaces, and five building pads for commercial and residential use, according to details from developer Broad Metro. Birmingham Metro LLC later sold a portion of the land to Tynes Development, which planned to build what became The Station at Crestline Heights apartments.
Church Closed $15.22 Million Deal in February
Redeemer bought the core hospital buildings in 2025 and closed on the broader acquisition in February 2026, purchasing the entire remaining campus, more than 25 acres, for $15.22 million, according to the Birmingham Business Journal. The congregation plans to redevelop the site.
Redeemer Community Church was established in 2008 as a house church and currently holds services at 4002 4th Avenue South in Avondale, inside a sanctuary built in 1914 that originally housed South Avondale Baptist Church, according to the church's own site. The congregation's ties to the Montclair Road property predate the purchase by years: during the COVID-19 pandemic, Redeemer held open-air Sunday services on the parking deck of the then-vacant campus while it was still owned by Broad Metro, the developer has written.
Neighbors Wanted Assurance, Not Just a Church
Much of the neighborhood scrutiny centered on what the church is — and isn't — planning to build. BirminghamWatch reports Redeemer is currently focused on constructing a single building to house all of its facilities, though the church may change those plans down the line. The congregation has no plan to build a middle school on the site, per the same report, but Minor said the church has built up enough neighborhood trust that it could return in the future if a school were ever proposed.
The zoning mechanics at play are also notable. The site is currently zoned for mixed-use and health and institutional uses, and the rezoning request would shift that to general commercial, according to BirminghamWatch's account. Current zoning requires the applicant to construct all buildings along a public road; absent that, the applicant would need to pursue a separate variance application. Kimberly Speorl, the city's zoning administrator, said the existing zoning would create more work for the city down the road, per the outlet's reporting.
Council Vote Set for Next Week
The city's planning and zoning committee discussed the rezoning request on October 13 and voted to send it to the full city council for consideration. The council is scheduled to take up the request on October 20, the same day it is set to review the Southern Area Framework Plan, a broader planning document that could bear on how the site's rezoning is handled. A proposed amendment under discussion would modify the proposal presented to the council without necessarily changing its core substance, BirminghamWatch reports, and resolving the timing between the rezoning request and the framework plan review has become the immediate priority ahead of the vote.
The hospital campus's fragmented ownership has already produced legal friction elsewhere on the property. In July 2025, the Alabama Supreme Court reviewed real estate litigation between 790 Montclair, LLC and The Station at Crestline Heights over alleged violations of a 2018 reciprocal easement agreement covering shared access drives and sidewalks, according to Justia Law. The Station at Crestline Heights, built on a portion of the original hospital grounds at 5102 Station Drive, already offers luxury apartment rentals adjacent to Mountain Brook. Meanwhile, Grandview Medical Center's move to U.S. 280 has reshaped the regional hospital map over the past decade: annual inpatient admissions there grew from 11,523 in 2015 to more than 29,000 by 2024, according to Grandview Health.
