LOUISVILLE, Ky. — More affordable housing is on the way to the Russell neighborhood as city leaders announced the fourth and final phase of Beecher’s Terrace’s revitalization project is underway.
Mayor Craig Greenberg along with city leaders made the announcement during a groundbreaking on Tuesday.
The $213 million project will add 210 new mixed-income apartments and live-work units, featuring commercial businesses on the first floor buildings along Muhammad Ali Boulevard.
“It's time to continue the transformation in Russell, and all of the neighborhoods in west Louisville. It's time to find new and better ways to take on the related crises of homelessness and affordable housing,” Greenberg said. “We must use this as inspiration to address the challenges that we face at Parkway Place and Dosker Manor. We can transform those developments just like we did here.”
The former public housing site was built in the 1930’s running between Ninth Street, Muhammad Ali, West Jefferson Street and 12th Street.
The Beecher Terrace project was started in 2016 after the city leveraged a $29 million Choice Neighborhoods Implementation Grant it got from U.S. Housing and Urban Development with plans of turning distressed buildings into a thriving community where people could live, work and play.
"Families are going to be out there watching their children or just taking a walk around the neighborhood it's a very positive thing for the Russell community," said Jackie Floyd, a community organizer in the Russell neighborhood.
Much of the redevelopment of Beecher Terrace has been completed with 117 new apartments for seniors completed in 2021, 108 units in Feb. 2021 and 185 apartments in Oct. 2022.
“We began working with residents and our Choice Neighborhoods partners in 2015 to develop the vision for a redeveloped Beecher Terrace community,” Wavid Wray, deputy executive director, Louisville Metro Housing Authority, said in a statement. “So, today’s celebration not only marks the start of this long-awaited final phase of rental housing, but it demonstrates what we are able to accomplish when we work together.”
The revitalization is part of the “Reimagine 9th Street” project that will transform the area of Ninth Street from a “six-lane thoroughfare into a complete street” with pedestrian areas, bike facilities, bus lanes, greenspace and smart signals.
Current residents like Sharon Mickens Bumpers lived in Beecher Terrace in the late 1970's. She moved in the 80's and came back now living in the senior residence.
"It's a nice place for seniors to live it's a senior building that I live in and so it's really a nice place," Bumpers said.
Aireus Carr still remembers the landscape of the community from a few years back. Carr moved away when he was five and came back where he spends most of his time at the pool.
"I was just like they decorated the whole thing we didn't have no pool we didn't have none of that," said Carr.
Construction on phase four is expected to begin soon and wrapping up in 2025.
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