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New Beecher Terrace

Louisville, KY

Spurred by committed residents, community stakeholders, and local government agencies, the previously disinvested Russell neighborhood in West Louisville is being transformed into a new mixed-income, sustainable, walkable, and amenity-rich community.

The effort received a $30 million Federal Choice Neighborhood Initiative implementation grant in 2016 and is supported by $200 million in additional public and private investment in the neighborhood. The project received an additional $5 million in Choice funds in 2019.

One of Louisville’s earliest and most desirable neighborhoods, Russell was devastated by the impacts of flooding, creation of the deficient Beecher Terrace public housing development in the 1940s, and misguided 1960s urban renewal efforts. Today, however, signs of change are everywhere.

Approximately $190 million is being invested to demolish and redevelop the Beecher Terrace public housing site into a 640-unit, sustainable, amenity-rich, mixed-income community, with 620 mixed-income rental and 20 homeownership units. An additional 442 replacement units will be created in Russell and other parts of the city through Louisville Metro Housing Authority’s (LMHA) new Project Based Voucher program.

The housing plan is financed through a public-private partnership between McCormack Baron Salazar, LMHA, Louisville Metro Government, Kentucky Housing Corporation, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and other partners. The partnership also leveraged low-income housing tax credits, private mortgage debt, local and state funding and philanthropic sources.

Urban Strategies, Inc., will manage a $4 million effort to connect the lowest income residents with supportive services utilizing public sector stakeholders and service partners. Beecher Terrace households relocated during construction have lifetime preference for returning to the new site.

The neighborhood plan focuses around five Critical Community Improvements that will: help make Russell a healthier, and more connected community; increase its retail and commercial offerings; decrease the number of vacant properties in the neighborhood; and, strengthen its key commercial corridors.