Birmingham Buisness Journal
By Stephanie Rebman – Editor-in-Chief, Birmingham Business Journal
Jul 18, 2022

Technology Innovation Center

The Magic City is home to a high concentration of construction companies, architecture firms and engineering companies that are shaping the look of the nation’s most creative structures – and in some cases, the world.

While many of those companies built giant enterprises and high-growth firms by working on projects abroad and elsewhere in the nation, there is a large concentration of new projects in the immediate metro area.

New developments and massive renovations are in the pipeline, and more announcements are always on the horizon. The city was dotted with cranes and other construction elements throughout the pandemic, indicating the health of the Birmingham construction industry. As some firms look at post-pandemic best practices, companies are restructuring and finding new ways to organize developments.

In other instances, area headliners are looking to relocate offices to the hottest new areas and need those spaces to reflect their culture and the potential they intend to fulfill in the coming years.

To recognize the transformative projects that are changing the face of the Magic City, the Birmingham Business Journal publishes its Building Birmingham Awards. The goal for this perennially popular special section is to highlight not just the projects that are shaping our economy, but the talented companies and people who are making them possible in Birmingham’s construction and design industries.

In this year’s Building Birmingham Awards, you’ll read about 18 projects that were selected for this year’s feature and hear about what nominators think makes each project notable. Whether they are impacting the community through groundbreaking ideas or simply by creating more opportunity in the areas where they’ve been built, we take a look at why they’re vital for the region.

Honorees were chosen based on their impact, their degree of difficulty and unique aspects of the projects, among many other factors.

The Information Technology Center:

Why this project matters: At 48 years old, UAB’s existing data center was undersized and inadequately configured to support the university’s computing needs. To ensure the school remains at the forefront of advancements in technologies, the university sought to relocate its existing data center and supporting offices to a new and modern location that could be designed to meet current needs and accommodate planned growth in computing capacity.The Technology Innovation Center (TIC) is a world-class facility meant to help facilitate collaboration and innovation across the city and beyond. It supports cutting-edge research across many disciplines and helps to attract top research talent. It also houses the fastest computer in Alabama, which is also among the fastest in the Southeast. The TIC utilizes an innovative solution as one of its means of back-up power. The Battery Energy Storage System is a Tesla Powerpack system that was used instead of a traditional generator.