LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WHAS11) -- It's been more than a year since it was first announced, but on March 14, city and company leaders officially broke ground at the new Passport headquarters site on 18th and Broadway.
While the groundbreaking was to celebrate the future headquarters of Passport, it was also to celebrate the future of West Louisville. The hope is that Passport and other companies bringing their business to the West End will lead to a revitalization for the community.
“Eighteenth and Broadway is the new heart of Louisville,” Councilwoman Barbra Sexton-Smith said.
The ground is still mostly empty, save for some trash and the birds, but the intersection of West Broadway and 18th Street will be looking a lot different in the coming months.
"The initial investment here will be over $100 million in the first project, which is by far the largest single investment in this community in decades,” Passport CEO Mark Carter said.
That investment is the new Passport Health and Well-Being Campus, a project that has been in the works for 16 months.
"We're coming into this community with the spirit of being a good neighbor, just like everybody else would want to move into a new community and want to become part of it,” Carter said.
"You have some people who wait to see what others are going to do, and so for an institution like Passport to say, 'Look, West Louisville is the place to be,' then I think others will follow Passport's example,” Reverend Kevin Cosby.
Passport's project is just one of the $800 million worth of projects going on in West Louisville. Others like the new YMCA and the track and field facility at Heritage West are also investing in the area.
"With the Y, with this, with our first bus rapid transit, this will be one of the hot commercial nodes in our city. This is what winning looks like,” Mayor Greg Fischer said.
As crews get ready to work on the 337,000-square foot, four-story building, city leaders want them to know they're not just creating a building—they're creating a new identity for West Louisville.
"Take a lot of pictures now because the West Louisville that will emerge in five years is not the West Louisville that we presently see or have come to know,” Rev. Cosby said.
Passport officials say the construction project will take about two years, and they are expected to open their new headquarters in early 2020.
They say through the process they have also worked closely with the leaders of West Louisville, making sure this project would meet the needs of both the company and those who they will be calling neighbors.
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