LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The Louisville Metro Housing Authority is accepting names of hopeful residents for the new Beecher Terrace mixed-income community.
The $200 million revitalization project, made possible by private, public and Housing and Urban Development funding, includes tearing down the 81-year-old public housing complexes and rebuilding a brand new Beecher Terrace community. Construction started last year, and crews are in the middle of building the first two phases.
At this point, LMHA is starting to prepare for who will eventually move in. All Beecher Terrace residents were relocated before demolition and construction started, and now, those residents are being given the choice to reoccupy what will be the new complexes.
“They can choose between staying where they are,” said Lisa Osanka, the executive director for LMHA. “We’ve made them move once. We don’t want to make them move twice. But if they want to move back, either on-site or off-site, we invited them to participate in a lottery.”
Packets were mailed out previously to 600 families eligible to reoccupy. This week, 200 replied and entered the lottery. Current Beecher Terrace families can still get onto the waiting list, even if they did not participate in the lottery, but it will not be on a first-come first-served basis.
If you want to be added to the wait list, call your case manager at 502-384-0786.
Each time LMHA has updated a public housing neighborhood, the leaders have learned how to improve the next one. Osanka said a concern from residents last time was that existing residents wanted the opportunity to move back into the new units.
So LMHA made that a priority this time, giving Beecher Terrace residents the right to return. The department also made a one-for-one promise, meaning there will be a guaranteed unit for each unit that was demolished.
Before being demolished, Beecher Terrace had 758 apartments, so there will be 758 units available for those qualifying residents wanting to reoccupy. However, not all of the units will be in the new Beecher Terrace, which will have 640 apartments for a mixed-income community.
“Those replacement units will either be back on the site, which will be the mixed-income community, or they will be replaced off site in either the Russell neighborhood or in other areas of opportunity," Osanka said. "So that one-for-one replacement, whether that unit is on-site or off-site, is a commitment that we have made so there is no loss of housing in this development.”
For anyone who is not a current resident but is interested in living in Beecher Terrace, you can call the hotline to learn more: 502-694-6760
The following table shows how the units will be assigned in each phase:
The new Beecher Terrace will also include retail shops on the first floors of the complexes and an outdoor community space with a park. To see renderings and learn more about the project, click here.
The first two phases of construction were supposed to be wrapped up by the end of the year, but the pandemic may push that into 2021. LMHA plans to have the financing complete in June or July for the third phase, and after that, construction can start. All construction will be complete by the end of 2023, which is the HUD deadline.
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