The 600

Details:

  • Varden Capital Properties/Tellus Partners

  • Birmingham, AL

Highlights:

  • Conversion of vacant 29-story office tower into residential community
  • Extensive historic preservation, life-safety, and code compliance requirements
  • Creation of signature resident amenities, including a rooftop pool, fitness center, club room, and entertainment spaces

Description:

The 600 is the adaptive reuse of a landmark 29-story tower at 600 19th Street North in downtown Birmingham (the former AT&T/City Center “Birmingham Tower” built in 1971), converting an obsolete office high-rise into market-rate residential apartments. It is a historic tax-credit rehabilitation with TSW serving as Architect of Record, working hand-in-hand with Buckhaven Construction (the general contractor/developer group, led by Josh MacKenzie and John Alexander) and the ownership group tied to Varden Capital Properties/Tellus Partners.

TSW led the architectural vision and documentation for the full building conversion—reprogramming roughly two dozen floors of former office space into apartments, luxury units, and shared amenities, while navigating the demands of a historic structure. Beyond design, TSW acted as the technical hub of the project: coordinating a deep bench of consultants (Covalent Consulting for MEP, LBYD for structural, Cox Pools for the rooftop pool, and Heritage Consulting for historic-preservation/NPS review), steering the drawings through City of Birmingham plan review and permitting, and providing construction-phase support through to certificate of occupancy.

What makes The 600 compelling is its evolution and resilience. The project began as a straightforward office-to-mixed-use concept (with an early HUD/historic-credit financing package), then paused and came back “online” with a significantly reworked program—adding residential units on the lower floors (2 & 3), reconfiguring the upper-floor unit counts, and consolidating the 28th/29th-floor amenity levels (club room, fitness, game/movie rooms, and a signature rooftop pool) into a cohesive luxury offering. To keep momentum, TSW and Buckhaven strategically phased the work (building shell & floors 6–23, luxury floors 24–27, and the top-floor amenities), allowing permitting and construction to advance in parallel rather than restarting from scratch. The later chapters of the project centered on delivering the amenity spaces and rooftop pool, and closing out the historic-preservation and life-safety requirements needed for occupancy.