Business View Magazine | April 2020

181 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE APRIL 2020 MONTGOMERY , ALABAMA Fountain and it connects to the State Capitol,” she relates. “And this little segment is one of the most historic in the country; it’s the last five–block leg of the Selma to Montgomery Voting Rights Trail.” The 54-mile-long, Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail was established by Congress in 1996 to commemorate the events, people, and route of the 1965 Voting Rights March in Alabama. “The Court Square fountain was one of the largest markets for enslaved people,” Cortell adds. “It also has the bank which housed the telegraph that gave the orders to fire on Ft. Sumter, which began the Civil War. And it also happens to be the bus stop where Rosa Parks got on the bus and started the historic Montgomery Bus Boycott. It’s all right there on Dexter Avenue in that very small block area, and that’s where this park is located.” The specific location of Lower Dexter Park is on the former site of the Montgomery Fair Department Store – 29 Dexter Avenue. “The store opened in 1909,” Cortell notes. “It was 146,000 square feet; a huge four-story building, with frontages on Court St., Monroe St., and Dexter revitalization and redevelopment occurring downtown. From Jan. 2014 - Dec. 2019, we had more than $195 million of private construction value in our downtown. The City of Montgomery is about 163 square miles, but downtown is only 1.9; so, we’re only one percent of the city. But downtown saw 15 percent of the $1.3 billion of permitted construction value. That’s not land; no soft costs; no professional services; no FF&E (furniture, fixtures, and equipment) – that’s just pure, self-reported construction values.” As the construction boom in Montgomery continues, Cortell says the city remains focused on creating public projects so that its citizens and visitors, and not just businesses, can participate in its revitalization. One major project that it took on, and an example of its commitment to best practices, was the establishment of the Lower Dexter Park, a small pocket park and memorial to civil rights activist, Rosa Parks, located on Dexter Avenue, a thoroughfare that Cortell calls Montgomery’s “grand boulevard.” “It starts at our historic, cast-iron, Court Square