A $35 million plan to redevelop one of Louisville’s oldest and poorest neighborhoods is threatened by the coronavirus outbreak.

By Keith Schneider

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Until the coronavirus pandemic, Gill Holland spent six years and $35 million constructing new residences and renovating 19th- and 20th-century warehouses in Portland, a historic neighborhood on the Ohio River that is Louisville’s oldest and one of its poorest.

Mr. Holland’s Portland Investment Initiative had bought more than 60 properties and filled them with businesses and residents new to the racially diverse neighborhood, where roughly 10,000 people live.

The project, the largest real estate investment in Portland in at least a century, is awakening civic energy that has been dormant for decades.

But its momentum is threatened by the coronavirus outbreak. Gov. Andy Beshear closed sit-down service in Kentucky restaurants and bars on March 16, and issued a separate closure order for other businesses nine days later.

Store and restaurant owners whom Mr. Holland attracted to Portland said they were nervous their businesses might not survive. As a fog of economic insecurity settles over the project, Mr. Holland is confronting the same financial impediments and social anxiety challenging real estate developers across the country.

Nearly 40 percent of construction projects have been suspended or canceled, according to a national survey by the Associated General Contractors of America, an industry trade group. Thousands of industry workers have been laid off.

In Louisville, Mr. Holland has renovated 241,000 square feet of empty brick warehouses, most built in the 19th century, for commercial space. Big tenants include the University of Louisville’s Archaeology Laboratory and master of fine arts program, and a Mercedes-Benz auto technician training center. More than a dozen smaller businesses have settled into renovated warehouses, including the headquarters for Heine Brothers’ Coffee, a locally owned chain.

Farm to Fork, a popular cafe and catering business, operates in a renovated firehouse built in 1903. Before the closure order, the company employed nine people; it now operates with two employees selling meals delivered directly to customers.

The favorable lease that Farm to Fork’s owner, Sherry Hurley, negotiated with Mr. Holland gives her the right to buy the building for $225,000, terms she is determined to meet. “I have personally and professionally made a big investment in Portland,” Ms. Hurley said. “I am committed to weathering the Covid-19 storm.”

Source: Read Full Article