About Central Midtown
Central Midtown is a community of people and organizations sharing space, ideas, creativity, and a commitment to making Mobile a better place for everyone.
Located in the historic home of Central Presbyterian Church in Midtown Mobile, Central Midtown has grown into a vibrant community hub bringing together artists, nonprofits, small businesses, counselors, community organizations, neighbors, and people simply looking for a place to belong.
Today, more than 50 artists, organizations, nonprofits, and small businesses call Central Midtown home. Throughout the building you’ll find artist studios, galleries, counseling offices, coworking and meeting spaces, community organizations, gardens, worship space, and places for people to gather and create.
Central Midtown is also home to Love All Pantry, one of the largest food-assistance programs in the Mobile area, where hundreds of families receive food each week with dignity and respect.
But Central Midtown is more than a building filled with organizations.
We believe something important happens when people who might otherwise never meet begin sharing the same space. Artists meet nonprofit leaders. Volunteers meet neighbors. People starting something new find people who can help. Organizations collaborate instead of working alone. Relationships form, ideas grow, and community happens.
That is what we are trying to create at Central Midtown:
A place where people share space, share resources, build relationships, and work together toward a more creative, compassionate, inclusive, and just community.
Our Story
Central Midtown didn’t begin with a plan to create a community center. It grew out of a simple conviction: a building should be used to serve its community.
For generations, Central Presbyterian Church has stood at the corner of Dauphin and Ann Streets in the heart of Midtown Mobile. As the congregation changed over the years, it began opening more and more of its building to people and organizations doing important work in the community.
That spirit of sharing space has deep roots. In the 1980s, during the height of the AIDS crisis, Central welcomed what would become AIDS Alabama South into the building at a time when people living with HIV and AIDS often faced fear, rejection, and isolation. Later, Central provided space for Family Promise, supporting families experiencing homelessness.
From Shared Space to Shared Community
A new chapter began in 2015 when an artist approached Central about renting unused classroom space as a studio. One artist became several. Word spread.
Soon, spaces that had once sat empty were becoming studios, offices, meeting rooms, and places where people were creating new organizations and new relationships.
Something unexpected began happening. People weren’t simply renting rooms in the same building—they were becoming a community.
Artists collaborated with one another. Nonprofits shared ideas and resources. People crossed paths in hallways and discovered ways they could work together. Community events brought neighbors into the building. The old church building was becoming something new without losing the values that had shaped it.
Becoming Central Midtown
As this community grew, it became clear that it needed an identity of its own. The name Central Midtown emerged to describe the larger community growing within and around Central Presbyterian Church.
Today, Central Midtown is home to more than 50 artists, nonprofits, organizations, counselors, entrepreneurs, and small businesses. The building includes artist studios, galleries, coworking and meeting spaces, community gardens, worship space, and places for neighbors to gather.
It is also home to Love All Pantry, where hundreds of families receive groceries each week and volunteers work together to address food insecurity through a model grounded in dignity, respect, and mutual aid.
Central Midtown continues to evolve. New artists arrive. Organizations grow. Exhibitions open. Markets bring neighbors together. Community groups find places to meet. Partnerships develop because two people happened to encounter each other in the hallway.
After all these years, perhaps the most important thing we’ve learned is this:
Community isn’t something you build for people. It’s something people build with one another.
Central Midtown simply tries to make room for that to happen.
The People Behind Central Midtown
Chris Bullock
Pastor & Central Midtown Community Director
Chris Bullock has served as pastor of Central Presbyterian Church since 2009 and helps guide the evolving community that has become Central Midtown.
His work centers on a simple idea: buildings and institutions should serve the communities around them. Over the years, that has meant helping open Central’s historic building to artists, nonprofits, counselors, entrepreneurs, community organizations, and neighbors looking for a place to create, connect, and belong.
Chris also serves as president of Loaves & Fish Community Ministries, the nonprofit that supports Love All Pantry, and has spent more than 25 years working with food-assistance programs along the Gulf Coast.
At Central Midtown, Chris works to create opportunities for people and organizations who might not otherwise encounter one another to share space, resources, ideas, and relationships.
He believes some of the strongest communities emerge not when one organization tries to do everything, but when people make room for one another and discover what they can build together.
Betty Anderson
Receptionist & Community Connector
Betty Anderson is often the first person you’ll meet when you walk through the doors of Central Midtown. As our receptionist, Betty welcomes visitors, connects people with the artists and organizations who call Central Midtown home, and helps keep our busy community running day to day.
Betty also coordinates Central Midtown’s Second Saturday Vendors Market, where local vendors, entrepreneurs, cooks, artists, and neighbors come together each month. The market grew out of Betty’s work at the front desk and her desire to create more opportunities for people in the community.
For Betty, Central Midtown is about helping people. She believes this is a community where everyone should be welcomed and no one should be turned away.
Her warmth, humor, and genuine love of people help make Central Midtown feel like a community rather than simply a building.
