Ascend Five Points South offers pet-friendly off-campus student apartments in Birmingham, AL, near UAB.

All across the United States, college cities and towns are being enhanced with mixed-use projects that have material economic impacts on the districts, communities, and neighborhoods in which they reside.

With the advent of innovation districts, and revitalized neighborhood commercial and entertainment districts comes new jobs and opportunities, increases in property values, and corresponding increases in property tax collections.

BLOC Global Real Estate Markets Group, the commercial real estate brokerage division of BLOC Global Group, plays a major role in influencing redevelopment by working with its clients to identify and assemble sites for major development projects in college cities and towns throughout the southeast United States.

In the real estate development arena, real estate developers and their transaction advisors are the creatives who work as visionaries to find opportunities that oftentimes no one else sees. BLOC Real Estate, along with its client OPUS Development Company, did just that in conceptualizing the collegiate lifestyle mixed-use development, Ascend Five Points. OPUS was able to revolutionize the student housing market in Birmingham, just steps from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), with the development of this 17 story high rise building. “We saw a void in the market and brought OPUS to the table to fill that void. That’s the beauty of what we do,” says Herschell Hamilton, BLOC Global CEO.

The Opus Group, a firm from Minneapolis, Minnesota, has a national student housing platform dedicated to bring transformative collegiate lifestyle development to the markets they serve. The Opus Group, a family of commercial real estate development and design/build companies has a history dating back to the 1950s.

UAB is a tier 1 research institution and academic medical center that employs about 23,000 people and has over 20,000 students. As a major economic engine, it is the largest single site employer in the State of Alabama and was named ‘America’s Best Large Employer’ – Forbes 2021.

BLOC helped OPUS to identify and assemble the site to accommodate the 17 floor highrise, boasting panoramic views of the city in the Five Point South neighborhood which is centrally located in the historic commercial district, which lies at the southeastern edge of UAB’s campus.

In recent years, there have been major development and redevelopment projects throughout downtown Birmingham. With a now trendy vibe, the Five Points neighborhood has plenty of contemporary restaurants, shops and bars. Most students and young professionals in this area prefer to be in close proximity to everything which gives them the option to walk. This development was able to serve a need in the community as this building is now home to approximately 500 students, who will provide an economic injection into Five Points South.

BLOC is a strong proponent for engaging residents, neighborhood leaders, and neighborhood stakeholders before undertaking any major project. Historic residents are important constituents and should be proactively engaged to get their thoughts on the fate and impacts of such projects.

Hamilton hopes that this is the first of many high-rise projects in the vicinity of UAB and this development further validates the capacity of the marketplace to support a project of this scale. Hamilton envisions that Ascend will continue the cascade in activity as development in downtown Birmingham continues.