The Reimagine 9th Street Project is having its official kick-off Thursday, Feb. 22 at Louisville Central Community Center (1300 W. Muhammad Ali Blvd.) beginning at 4:30 p.m.
The project will reconfigure Ninth Street/Roy Wilkins Ave. with the aim of eliminating “physical and psychological barriers that the ‘Ninth Street divide’ creates between Louisville's Central Business District and the West End neighborhoods.”
In an effort to improve the comfort and mobility of the area, the proposed upgrades and improvements for are:
- Reduce the number and width of lanes
- Convert one-way traffic to two-way (with a two-way left turn lane) on Muhammad Ali Boulevard and Chestnut Street/River Park Drive,
- Eliminate negative offset left-turn lanes
- Adequately dimensioned turn bays
- Traffic signal upgrades
- Expanded fiber throughout the corridor
- Protected/permissive left turn signals
- Sidewalk expanded up to 20-feet wide
- Curb extensions, pedestrian refuge islands, pedestrian scale lighting, crosswalk visibility enhancements
- Tabled intersections, protected bike lanes, improved signage,
- Bus shelters, kiosks with real-time bus information, dedicated bus lanes, bus bulbs
- Increased tree canopy, bioswales, and improved storm drainage
Suffice to say, a lot will be happening in this space, and it's long overdue.
Pedestrians in Louisville, particularly Black pedestrians, are at a greater risk than others. This reconstruction of the Ninth Street area seeks to address this and other transportation issues.
The proposed $24.6M budget has been given a boost with the RAISE grant from the U.S. Government which helps aid local governments in revamping critical transportation infrastructure.
According to the Office of Planning director Michael King all the funds for the project are accounted for and, according to reports, construction is scheduled to begin in the latter half of 2025.
"As we convert Muhammad Ali and Chestnut back from one-way to two-way, it will provide better connectivity through there,” King told LEO. “So while this won't be the silver bullet to fix all, I think it will be a part of the equation that'll really, really help with the reinvestment and providing some opportunities for folks over there.”
Several members of the project team have said that the project hopes to stimulate the economy of the neighborhood. LEO asked what other businesses were potentially in the works to support that economic growth. No plans for additional businesses are in the works just yet.
“With the RAISE grant, and the project we're talking about, that's just for the infrastructure.That's just redoing 9th street corridor,” said Michael King. “Part of the process, when we did the original sort of conceptual design for this — it was completed back in 2016 — talked about some, some open spaces and potential community gardens and things like that. A lot of those details behind what those could be will get hammered out.
So while there's not specific plans with this process to do any kind of supportive grocery stores or anything like that — through the process with some of those open spaces, the sort of things we could hear from the public. It'd be great if this would become set up as a farmer's market a couple times a week or a food truck place or, or whatever that might be.
Through the sort of reallocation of some of this space, I think there will be opportunities to do some of those things.”
With the revamp of 9th Street coming on the heels of the Beecher Terrace project, it would seem that other apartments in the area deserve to get a facelift to coincide with sprucing up the area but the funds for that would be a separate endeavor. The Reimagine 9th Street project is, again, just about the street.
“We hope by investing in this infrastructure it stimulates some renovations and things like that along the corridor,” King said.
There are developments happening nearby. The old Greyhound Bus Station between 7th and 8th streets is getting some attention to allocate that area into housing.
Though construction is set to begin in the latter half of 2025, a company for that construction has not been named.
“Basically sort of the whole process is, we completed the conceptual design for the corridor back in 2016. Then ever since then we've been going after these federal funds, which in 2022 we were fortunate enough to be able to receive,” King said.
“At this point of the process, what we're doing is sort of finalizing the conceptual design and getting it to construction and engineering renderings to where it's those really kinda hard concrete plans of what will become of the corridor.
From that point we would put it out to bid for construction. We have to follow a lot of different federal regulations but we are exploring some opportunities to sort of utilize this as an opportunity to promote a kind of a local workforce initiative.”
A local workforce initiative could mean jobs for those in the Russell neighborhood.
As Ninth Street is a major thoroughfare in the city, this effort is a welcome one and it will provide a nice multi-use space for the Upper Russell community; it remains to be seen how this change will most directly impact the area."
The opening for the space is set for 2027.
