Business View Magazine | April 2020

184 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE APRIL 2020 Lower Dexter Pocket Park Victorian style and the 1929 Kress Building, a neo-classical building. So, we have this block that’s an eclectic mix of architectural styles that are seemingly disparate, but they end up displaying the broad range that happened here on Dexter Avenue and make up what Montgomery is today.” The re-building of the historic façade and Lower Dexter Park cost the city nearly $700,000 for its planning, design, and execution. And it was a collaborative project from the outset. In addition to working with local architects, engineers, contractors, and city staff, the team included local historians, the Rosa Parks Museum, Alabama State Archives, the Downtown Business Association, the Downtown Neighborhood Association, and community volunteers. In addition to providing a new public space, on each side of the park, there has been renewed renovation. Next door at 25 Dexter Avenue, $600,000 has been invested in three apartment units and an antique store that opens into the park, and on the other side, at the Kress Building at 39 Dexter Avenue, $19 million has been invested in 33 residential units and more than 30,000 square feet of commercial space. The project, which was designed by Chambless King Architects and constructed by Liberty Construction, has also raised the bar for public space design in the state and beyond, having won the Alabama APA’s Franklin M. Setzer Outstanding Urban Design Award in 2018. Not only does Lower Dexter Park keep the rhythm and scale of architecture along the street, it allows Montgomery to re-interpret its own history, celebrating the story and role of Rosa Parks in a way that directly shapes people’s experience of the city, its civic life, and contemporary culture. The Park has already helped spur new civic events such as the Lower Dexter Cruise-Ins - a first Friday street party with classic and muscle cars, food trucks, and music. As the park continues to evolve, as its native grasses and perennial plants mature, public art added, and more events take place, Lower Dexter Park place will define a new era in Alabama history in which people come together to share the city’s present and its dreams of the future.