The Salvation Army will soon renovate an abandoned segregated hospital where hundreds of black children were born from the 1930s through the 1960s.

The former Slossfield Community Center will be purchased by the Salvation Army from the City of Birmingham in mid-June for about $250,000, said Salvation Army Major Roger Glick.

"We're excited," Glick said. "This is a historic piece of property in Birmingham."

The former community center will be renovated at an estimated cost of $9 million to expand the new Salvation Army City of Hope that opened last fall just off Finley Boulevard in North Birmingham.

The Slossfield Health Center and its maternity ward opened as part of the Slossfield Community Center on July 1, 1939. It became a health clinic where black physicians were authorized to treat black patients, many of them workers at ACIPCO, McWane Corp. and other industrial employers in the city.

The City of Birmingham on Tuesday approved vacating a city street that runs through the Slossfield Community Center property, a segment of 25th Court North.

"That paves the way forward to move to closing on the property," Glick said.

The Slossfield Community Center's complex of one-level buildings, abandoned and dilapidated since the 1970s, will be renovated to include a multi-purpose auditorium that can seat 200 for worship services and other activities, Glick said.

It will also be open for senior citizens and have activities for youth including a fine arts program, he said. "Those are all the kinds of things we're dreaming about," Glick said.

The renovated community center would expand the current 4.1-acre City of Hope campus that was created with the $23 million renovation of and additions to the former Lewis Elementary School building, 2015 26th Avenue North. The former Lewis School is the centerpiece of the campus located just north of Finley Boulevard on the east side of Interstate 65 at the Finley Boulevard exit.

"It's going to be a tremendous addition to the Lewis School Project," Glick said. "Once the general public sees what is happening here, they're going to be excited."

Since the fall of 2017, the Salvation Army's emergency shelters have been operating at the new City of Hope.

"The facility has been great," Glick said. "It's safe. It's clean. Everyone is delighted."

The first floor emergency shelter includes 56 beds for men and 52 beds for women.

Upper floors include transitional housing for longer-term residents.

"We'll always serve suffering humanity," Glick said.