The project is ambitious in scope as well as size. The site itself, in West Louisville, is larger than the infield of the Churchill Downs racetrack. Yet the neighborhood is worlds away from the roses and mint juleps of the Kentucky Derby. Although it’s a single-family residential area where houses have yards, it is also the most economically depressed part of the city. Reily estimates that 90 percent of neighborhood children receive free or subsidized school lunches, and the unemployment rate is the highest in the county.
Like urban farming initiatives in other cities, civic leaders are looking to the food hub for urban renewal. “I’ve heard estimates of up to 275 construction jobs for phase one, and 250 permanent jobs,” says Councilwoman Cheri Bryant Hamilton, whose district includes two of the three neighborhoods that border the food hub site. “But even one job would be positive in this environment.”
Outside of providing jobs, question remain about how to make such a large-scale venture “fit” into the community. Potential tenants, which include a commercial kitchen incubator and indoor hydroponics and aeroponics companies, have expressed interest in making their facilities accessible to the public.
But Valerie Magnuson, executive director of Louisville Grows, a nonprofit that maintains several community gardens and a grower’s co-op in West Louisville, is skeptical of the project as an outside initiative. “We’ll continue to hold them accountable, and see if they’re able to listen to the people in the neighborhood,” she says.
While the idea of a food hub may be relatively novel, Louisville itself has long been a hub for other kinds of commerce. Located at the falls of the Ohio River, the city was a busy shipping port into the 20th Century. Today it is the site of Worldport, UPS’s global air hub and central logistical operations. Louisville is also the headquarters of one of the world’s largest fast food companies: Yum! Brands, which operates KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell.
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