Officials Join To Celebrate Groundbreaking For Riverport Landings

Business leaders and elected officials join the development partners in breaking ground on one of the city’s newest and largest intergenerational communities – Riverport Landings.  This intergenerational community will be home to families, senior citizens, single parent families and young adult foster alumni enrolled in FSH’s educational program. Situated on a 36-acre site, Riverport Landings includes various retail services and residents of Riverport Landings will have access to a 2.5 acre community park and other shared amenities conveniently located on a shared site.
“I want to congratulate the development team—LDG, Marian, the funders and many more—who have pushed this project forward,” Mayor Greg Fischer said. “This tremendous asset to southwest Louisville will provide stable housing for seniors and families, while spurring commercial development along Cane Run Road, and establishing a community center and a park that will be excellent resources for those living in these units and in the surrounding neighborhoods. I am especially pleased to see private-sector investment in affordable housing, and the recognition that safe and reliable housing leads to more productivity and security for all members of the family. I look forward to seeing this investment progress and returning once it is complete.”
Riverport Landings is a joint venture between Marian Development and LDG Development—two of the nation’s largest developers of affordable housing.  Combined, the companies have provided more than 9,000 affordable housing units for seniors, students and families in various cities across the country.  Riverport Landings will include three types of affordable housing developments: Riverport Senior Living—a 108 unit senior property; Riverport Family Apartments—a 240 unit affordable family property and Riverport Scholar House—a 64 unit community for low-income single parent families and young adult foster alumni enrolled in FSH’s educational program.  The development will also include a community park, retail space and other amenities that residents from all three properties will be able to access.
The need for more affordable housing in Louisville and throughout our country is well documented and is essential to attracting and retaining the diverse workforce needed for communities to grow,” said Jacob Brown, Chris Dischinger and Mark Lechner, principals for Marian Development and LDG Development.   “The addition of Riverport Landings to southwest Louisville not only fills a need for more housing choice, but allows a nationally recognized non-profit—Family Scholar House— to fulfill its mission to end the cycle of poverty and transform our community by empowering families and youth to succeed in education and achieve lifelong self-sufficiency.”

Cathe Dykstra, Chief Possibility Officer and President and CEO of FSH, agrees. “Partnerships with high quality developers like Marian and LDG drive the expansion of physical sites to fulfill the needs of our families and young adults.  We are not a housing program.  We are an educational program with a housing component.  Our partners allow Family Scholar House to focus on its mission and the housing component helps disadvantaged single parent families and young adult foster alumni transition from poverty and homelessness to financial independence and gratitude.  Access to stable, affordable housing means these families and young adults can focus on graduating from college and looking forward to a future that includes self-sufficiency, home ownership and success.”

Funding for this $71,000,000 development was secured through Tax-Exempt Bonds, 4% Low Income Housing Tax Credits, and HOME and AHTF funds provided by Kentucky Housing Corporation, traditional construction and capital loans provided by RedStone Tax Exempt Funding, PNC Bank and U.S. Bank, Louisville Metro Government’s HOME and Louisville CARES programs, FSH’s capital fundraising which includes grants from James Graham Brown Foundation and Frank and Paula Harshaw, and capital contributions from The Ezekiel Foundation.  Edwin King, Executive Director of Kentucky Housing Corporation (KHC) believes the mix of funding being used for this project demonstrates the support and need for this type of development within the area.

“KHC wants to engage in innovative solutions to problems related to housing.  Part of the solution is leveraging partnerships and resources to achieve this goal and produce impactful outcomes.  This mix of funding and partnerships allowed partners to increase the scope of this development and produce a greater number of affordable housing units while adding intrinsic community value to the project by including a community park, retail services and a community service facility.”

Construction of Riverport Landings is underway and is expected to be complete by January 2019.