The Birmingham Crossplex

THE B I RMINGHAM CROSSPLEX Priceville, Alabama,” recounts Crossplex’s Marketing and Development Manager, Preston Kirk. “They would build a wooden track during the indoor track and field season, and the State of Alabama would host all the regular season high school track meets in this barn. After years of competition, the indoor track became dated and, eventually, obsolete, shutting down the sport of indoor track and field on the high school level in the state of Alabama for approximately eight years.” “A group of former coaches, parents and local track enthusiasts got together and started formulating this idea: an indoor track and an indoor pool,” Kirk continues. “This group pitched it to several places and the plan eventually ended up making its way to the mayor of Birmingham, at the time, Larry Langford, who was quite a visionary and did some things that really put Birmingham on the map. He said ‘Absolutely. Let’s do this.’” The city looked at different areas around town and settled on what was the old Alabama State Fairgrounds. Mayor Langford proposed a large-