National steel company puts headquarters near Vestavia Hills

For four years, Ralph Parrish drove by a piece of vacant property at 2101 Old Columbiana Road.

When he realized he needed to move the offices for his company, North Alabama Fabricating Company (NAFCO), from north Birmingham to a new home, he realized the property would be a perfect spot for the steel fabrication business.

The property, which will be called the Steel Ridge Center, is a stone’s throw away from Vestavia Hills city limits but sits in Jefferson County. NAFCO is a nationally recognized steel company and has offices in Chicago and plants in several Alabama cities. In addition to many other projects, the company has performed the steel work at both Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa and the new Protective Stadium in Birmingham, which will soon host the UAB football team.

Parrish is a second-generation owner, and his children are also involved in the family business. While his business previously was in north Birmingham, Parrish is a longtime resident of Vestavia.

NAFCO will be on the fourth floor of the building and take up about 10,000 square feet. Another 2½ floors and roughly 24,000 square feet are available for leasing through Cushman & Wakefield/EGS Commercial Real Estate. While no other tenants have been announced yet, those who do move into the building will be working in a “high-end” building, said Brad Jones, senior vice president at EGS.

The second floor will be all glass, and NAFCO is featuring a good bit of exposed steel. Metal panels on the outside will give a warm feeling to those working in the building, and the group tried to use as much of the natural terrain that surrounds the property as possible, Parrish said.

“It was a complicated site,” Parrish said. “It was a lot of site prep to try and maintain the natural area as much as possible.”

The group left some boulders and trees to give the building a more natural feel, Parrish said. Jones said he hopes it will lead to other businesses wanting to locate in the building and said he hopes to have it leased in six to 10 months.

While the business won’t be in Vestavia, Parrish said his team, during construction, alleviated the flooding issues that are common around the site, which will help nearby Vestavia residents who drive on those roads. The group also built more than the required number of parking spaces and conducted a traffic study that showed there would be no major impact on traffic in the area, Parrish said.

The plan was for Parrish and NAFCO to move into the building in early March, but the timing was still uncertain.

For more information on NAFCO, visit nafcofab.com.