LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – The West End Opportunity Partnership is taking steps to buy the NIA Center in the Parkland neighborhood and lease the property to Goodwill Industries of Kentucky.
The partnership, a nonprofit corporation created by the General Assembly to spend tax revenue in Louisville’s western neighborhoods, would set aside $2.1 million for the purchase.
If approved, the partnership would lease the site to Goodwill for $1 a year for 99 years. Goodwill and co-developer Woda Cooper Companies would build 76 units of affordable housing on the three-acre site that abuts Goodwill’s Opportunity Campus.
The apartments would be “stable affordable housing to individuals who have progressed through workforce entry and personal development programs, including those impacted by poverty, addiction and the justice system,” partnership consultant Travis Foxx said.
But the plan to buy the land for Goodwill was met with resistance Tuesday, when the partnership’s finance committee voted 2-2 on a motion to recommend the purchase. With the deadlock, the proposal moves to the full board at a special meeting planned for Thursday.
TARC, the city’s transit agency, owns the NIA Center building at 2900 W. Broadway and approved selling it to Goodwill in late May. That announcement startled tenants who run businesses there and say they’ll now have to move.
The finance committee vote came after a lengthy discussion about the merits of the potential purchase.
The West End Opportunity Partnership's finance committee meets on June 10, 2025 (WDRB photo)
Laura Douglas, the partnership’s president and CEO, said the project aligns with the organization’s purpose. “This is not us giving away money,” Douglas, who did not have a vote, told the committee.
“This is us acquiring an asset,” she said, “and it's us responding to a need that people in the neighborhood have identified that they want.”
The Parkland neighborhood representative on the board, Sharon Allen, did not attend Tuesday’s meeting but is “enthusiastically in support of this project,” Douglas said.
Portland neighborhood representative Mike Neagle raised a number of concerns about the plan, noting that the partnership has been discussing “sustainability” in recent months.
Neagle argued that the $2.1 million investment represents “taking 8% of our remaining money, tying it up in a property for 99 years.”
He cited Goodwill Industries of Kentucky’s latest Form 990 filed with the IRS that shows net income of $15.4 million on revenues of nearly $128 million in 2023. “I don't see any reason a bank wouldn't, you know, approve a mortgage,” or that Goodwill couldn’t finance the acquisition with traditional sources, Neagle said.
Goodwill declined to comment when asked Tuesday why it’s not buying the building. Spokesman Kyle Williams said in a text message that the nonprofit organization is waiting until “the vote is finalized” to provide more information.
In an interview after the meeting, Douglas said tax credits that would help Goodwill finance the project can’t be used for land acquisition. “So there was an opportunity for us to step up to partner with Goodwill and to address that need,” she said.
West End Opportunity Partnership CEO Laura Douglas. (WDRB Image) Feb. 1, 2024
Deputy Mayor David James, who represents the mayor’s office on the board, and William Summers V, who represents Republic Bank, voted in favor of the land purchase. Neagle and University of Louisville representative Douglas Craddock Jr. voted against.
Several tenants of the NIA Center attended Tuesday’s meeting. Shaun Spencer, owner of My HUB Print Center, said afterwards that the deal essentially uses taxpayer money to displace the existing businesses.
“I think the proposal is a land grab,” she said. “I think the proposal doesn't take into account, really, the community, nor the tenants that are in the building.”
TARC has agreed to let tenants stay in the NIA Center without paying rent through November. Goodwill has offered to aid in those tenants' relocation, Foxx, the consultant, said.
Spencer is among a group of west end residents that has sued to stop the tax increment financing district, claiming it violates the Kentucky Constitution.
The lawsuit seeks to have legislation that created the public subsidy program in 2021 declared unconstitutional and be stopped immediately. It is pending in Jefferson Circuit Court.
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