LOUISVILLE, Ky. — For decades, the Rhodia Chemical Plant has sat unused, gathering dust, and closed off to the community.
Now,Metro Louisville is working to transform the old plant into a mix-use development.
The property sits on 17 acres and Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg (D) said the people who live in this area deserve better.
Bruce Sherrod, 60, has called the Park Way Place apartments home for 11 years. Born and raised in Louisville, he has two adult children. He lives near the former chemical plant site and drives by it daily and says something must be done.
“For a better way of life for people,” Sherrod explained to Spectrum News 1. “More amenities, more opportunities. With that, I think people would thrive.”
City leaders also hope an old site across the street thrives again. From 1919 until the 1940s, the Jones-Dabney Company made lacquers, enamels and varnishes. Later, water-based epoxies and acrylics were made there.
The site has been empty since 1994. The soil at the site is contaminated and must be dealt with.
According to news release from the city, St. Louis-based O6 Environmental was chosen to remediate soil contamination at the site, and EnviroForensics was selected to oversee the removal of contaminated soil.
In 2020, Louisville Metro Government selected Re:land Group, an MBE Louisville-based social and civic impact development group, to redevelop the former Rhodia site. The Park Hill/Algonquin Community of Opportunity Advisory Board was then established in June 2022 by Re:land Group to ensure that a community-led process was put in place to understand and inform the cultural, social and economic needs of the neighborhoods and to create a much larger movement addressing quality of life imperatives beyond the site.
In 2022, Metro Council allocated $10 million in Federal American Rescue Plan money to pay for environmental remediation at the site. That work has to be done before any redevelopment.
Councilman Phillip Baker, who represents District 6 where the plant sits, said, “This is a new day. Our neighbors in Park Hill deserve just as much as every neighborhood because this is a new day. Park Hill deserves a great space. Park Hill deserves a clean space and again, Park Hill deserves a good place to live.”
The vision for the area is that this is transformed into a community-led mixed-use development. Spectrum News 1 asked Sherrod what he’d like to see at the site.
“Being that I’m on an environmental board, if they don’t do anything but clean it up, that’s a start. Do that first. Let’s clean it up.” Sherrod said.
Sherrod said he is ready to be the first one here with a sledgehammer and shovel to start turning dirt.
Greenberg said soil remediation work will begin as soon as possible. There is no word on how long that will take, but the mayor said they hope to start construction within the year.
The master planning process for the site started in May. It’s expected to be finished by year’s end.