LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Goodwill Industries announced a major step forward for its new $50 million Opportunity Center for Louisville’s West End with a helping hand from the city and the James Graham Brown Foundation.
The project received a big boost with a $1 million donation from the James Graham Brown Foundation. The Louisville Metro Council also unanimously voted to amend the 2024 city budget to include a $5 million allocation from the Office if Housing and Community Development.
The 125,000 square-foot facility is currently under construction in West Louisville’s Parkland neighborhood and is slated to open in early 2024.
According to Goodwill, the comprehensive resource center will serve approximately 50,000 individuals each year with a collection of social services and programs offered by Goodwill and many of its partners that will be co-located in the facility.
Some of its partners include Big Brothers/Big Sisters, Volunteers of America, KentuckianaWorks, Park Community Credit Union, Legal Aid Society, Kentucky College of Barbering, the YMCA and the University of Louisville School of Dentistry.
Through its partnerships, Goodwill’s Opportunity Center will provide career coaching, job training, youth mentoring, financial literacy training, second-chance banking, soft-skills training, expungement services, free drop-in child care, dental services and free grooming services.
Goodwill’s Opportunity Center is ultimately expected to produce an annual economic impact of $18.7 million in West Louisville, which is a majority African American community where the median household income is $21,000.
“The campus we’re building in West Louisville is the largest and most expensive mission-related investment we’ve made in our 100-year history in Kentucky,” said Amy Luttrell, president and CEO of Goodwill Industries of Kentucky.
“Once it goes up, and the people see what’s possible, this will create more opportunity for the people of West Louisville,” said Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg, D-Louisville.
Last year, Goodwill launched a fundraising campaign to help cover the cost of building the $50 million facility. Other major donors include PNC Bank, the Gheens Foundation, the Jewish Heritage Fund, Truist Bank, First Financial Bank and Norton Healthcare.
On the same 20-acre property, Norton Healthcare has started construction of its 90,000 square-foot hospital, which will be the first full-service medical facility in West Louisville in over 150 years. Together, the two projects represent a combined investment of over $100 million in the area.
In addition to the West Louisville Opportunity Center, Goodwill has plans to build and sustain 10 other Opportunity Centers throughout Kentucky, with two more planned for Louisville and centers in Bowling Green, Corbin, Elizabethtown, Lexington, Morehead, Paducah, Pikeville and Somerset.
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