LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — City leaders unveiled plans this week to redevelop one of Louisville's oldest public housing complexes into a mixed-income, mixed-use community over the next several years.
The Louisville Metro Housing Authority is planning massive upgrades Parkway Place, including more for children to do in their free time and steps to curb violence that has made residents there feel less and less safe in recent years.
Janie Sullivan enjoys sitting on the porch of her apartment at Parkway Place and riding her chair around the area. She dreams of giving her grandchildren a safe place to grow up.
But over the past four years there, she's grown more on edge due to persistent violence.
"I don't feel safe at all. I don't," Sullivan said Thursday. "Night or day, I don't."
Opened in October 1943 as a segregated complex for white wartime workers to live, Parkway Place now has 58 "barrack-style" buildings and sits 17% vacant.
"People can't wait for a safer neighborhood," said Elizabeth Strojan, executive director of LMHA. "People can't wait for better housing."
The plans call for:
- 590 rental units and 37 lots for single-family or duplex housing
- 6,000 square feet of non-residential space
- 707 off-street paring spots
Parkway Place opened in October 1943.
After a triple shooting at the complex in March, maintenance staff put up plywood in the area and scrubbing away blood, hoping to make residents neighborhood feel safe again. A LMHA spokesperson said people are breaking into empty apartments in the complex, turning them into a "breeding ground" for crime.
"We don't come outside because of how much shooting there is up here," Karla Lee, who has lived in the Parkway Place Apartments for five years, said after another deadly shooting there.
Lee said the sound of gunfire is so frequent that her family reacts instinctively.
"We still flinch," she said. "We flinch and get on the floor when we're in the house and hear the gunshots. I make my babies lay on the ground."
LMHA said it's doing everything it can to restore order, including lease enforcement, better lighting and partnering closely with the Louisville Metro Police Department and the Office of Violence Prevention.
"We're partnering with the Resident Council and Resident Ambassadors to help residents take more ownership," Strojan said.
While extra safety precautions are already in place, the other steps will take years. The proposed design shows space for seniors, townhomes, an exercise park and a community center.
LMHA said it won't raise rent prices for these new units.
"We have a mission to fulfill, which is housing for the lowest--income Louisvillians," Strojan said.
LMHA said residents won't start to move out for the first phase of this plan for at least a year.
"But we will do so in a phased approach to minimize displacement," Strojan said. "Ideally, we'd like to move some folks down to the southern tip of the property so that we can begin demolition."
First, staff members will work to raise funding.
"Right now, the funding is aspirational," Strojan said. "We will be bugging our partners until we get that. But we always have and we always will."
To read the full Parkway Place Community Action Plan, see below:
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