Southgate Center
The Southgate Center or Southgate Shopping Mall was a planned major redevelopment of Homewood's Rosedale neighborhood. It was proposed by the Southgate Corp. of Chattanooga, Tennessee to take advantage of "urban renewal" funds offered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Opposition to the plan from homeowners in Rosedale, as well as a competing proposal to develop a Mountain City Shopping Center on Shades Creek Parkway, led to the abandonment of the project.
Plans for the $25–35 million project were presented to the Homewood City Council and Homewood Housing Authority during an "informal meeting" on January 4, 1960. Architect John Davis Jr of Warren, Knight & Davis showed a scheme which included an office park, a motel, a parking complex, and "a retail-commercial area in the form of an ultra-modern shopping center with air-conditioned mall." Another factor in the development was the connection of U.S. Highway 280 to U.S. Highway 31.
The developers proposed to relocate Rosedale's 545 households, 189 of which owned their homes, into a block of apartments to be built north of the shopping center, behind the office tower, and adjacent to the Rosedale School and Rosedale Recreation Center, which would not be demolished. If surveyors from the Jefferson County Health Department, hired by the Housing Authority, were able to determine that a certain percentage of homes in Rosedale were "substandard", then the Authority could condemn the district as a "slum area," and recommend to the City Council that be rezoned.
References
- Wiley, James (January 5, 1960) "Southgate Plans Shown To Council." Birmingham Post-Herald - via Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections