City explores entertainment district for Cahaba Heights

A second entertainment district in Vestavia Hills, this one in Cahaba Heights, is being explored by the City Council with possible action coming later this summer.

City Manager Jeff Downes said via email that the city is in “the exploratory stage as far as the limits of the district” for Cahaba Heights. There is no scheduled action right now, but he anticipates the council considering the issue within the coming months.

Vestavia Hills established its first entertainment district in Rocky Ridge in 2015, and the city is allowed up to three such districts by the state. Within an entertainment district’s limits, people can drink alcoholic beverages from open containers in cups provided by licensed restaurants or bars. The designation lends itself to music, markets and other entertainment events, especially in the evenings.

City Councilman George Pierce said the council is looking into an entertainment district because merchants in Cahaba Heights approached them.

Pierce said if Cahaba Heights gets this district, the city would have to set constraints on the times it can be in operation, just as they did with Rocky Ridge. The city would also need to ensure residents living near the district limits wouldn’t be impacted by noise from events. 

Cahaba Heights isn’t as geographically easy as Rocky Ridge to set limits to the district, Pierce said, which makes it harder to determine the boundaries.

“The Rocky Ridge area was easy. It was so centralized,” Pierce said.

Katherine McRee, owner of the Lili Pad in Cahaba Heights, is one of the merchants who supports an entertainment district in her area.

“I have been a proponent of it ever since the Rocky Ridge one had come out,” she said. “I haven’t heard anyone in the Heights Village that is upset about it or doesn’t want it.”

McRee said she thinks bringing the “vibe” of an entertainment district to the area could help Cahaba Heights compete with downtown Birmingham and other commercial areas over the mountain for shoppers’ time and wallets.

“The vibe that Cahaba Heights is kind of developing into … [is a] kind of artsy, bohemian type of feel, and this just adds, I guess, to the desire to bring more people to the area,” McRee said.

Becky Satterfield, who owns Satterfield’s and El Zun Zun in Cahaba Heights, supports the entertainment district as a way to highlight what’s new and fun in the area, so families think of it as an entertainment option.

“I think it will help establish the revitalization that’s going on in Cahaba Heights,” Satterfield said. “So that people will recognize, you know, the new developments there and the new laws that encourage families to come and dine and visit these businesses, these restaurants.”

El Zun Zun, she said, seems like a natural fit for an entertainment district, as patrons could eat and enjoy drinks while visiting the neighboring Leaf & Petal garden shop. However, Satterfield said she doesn’t want alcohol to be the most prominent attractor of the potential district.

“I don’t want it to be misconstrued like it’s a real party district,” she said. “That’s not what it’s all about.”

Though open containers are part of the entertainment district, McRee said she envisions the atmosphere being leisurely and family-friendly, not wild. She said she’d like to have the district in place in time for Deck the Heights in November, as well as the possibility of new events.

When Rocky Ridge started its first series of events making use of the entertainment district, First Fridays, in summer 2016, McRee said she attended and talked with Rocky Ridge merchants.

Based on watching the events at Rocky Ridge, she felt Cahaba Heights could learn some lessons in how to create events for its own district, including restricting the events only to Cahaba Heights vendors and not being bound to a monthly scheduled event.

Robin Morgan of Morgan Properties, who was part of the organizing committee for Rocky Ridge First Fridays, said the event dwindled out after its second season in part because Rocky Ridge merchants didn’t want to compete with outside vendors for business.

“I could never convince them that larger crowds meant more customers and potential customers, not to mention the excitement that it created,” Morgan said, adding that the loss of a “festival atmosphere” meant the events lost some crowd appeal, in his view.

This year, Morgan said, Rocky Ridge will be holding a series of concerts called Rock the Ridge at restaurants within the entertainment district. The dates for those events have not yet been determined.

Pierce said Downes has been communicating with Cahaba Heights merchants as to when to bring consideration of the new entertainment district before the City Council. 

While he did not have a prediction for the outcome, Pierce said the council is always open to talk about any idea that “gives the merchants, hopefully, the opportunity to increase their business.”