New restaurant breathes life into an old, forgotten Birmingham building [Video]

The brick exterior of the 90-something-year-old Magnolia Point building on Birmingham’s Southside was hidden underneath fading yellow siding and a sloping mansard roof that stood out like a bad haircut.

Michael Mouron — who, as chairman emeritus of Capstone Real Estate Investments, has brought many old Birmingham buildings back to life – including the historic Greyhound Bus Terminal and the Federal Reserve Building – knew, however, there was a gem hiding underneath all those layers of makeup.

“It was just ugly,” Mouron says, sitting in one of the woven, cloth booths of what is now Magnolia Point seafood restaurant, a joint venture between his company and Birmingham’s Pihakis Restaurant Group. “But I had seen historical pictures . . . so when I got it under contract and peeled some of it back, sure enough, the brick was underneath.

“It was like a butterfly – first it’s a caterpillar and then it becomes a butterfly.”

That butterfly takes flight this week, when Magnolia Point seafood …