Goodwill Industries of Kentucky's “opportunity campus” will include Goodwill’s new headquarters, a new Norton Healthcare hospital and career and social service agencies.
The development was first announced in September of 2020. It will be located at 28th Street and West Broadway on a 20-acre site. It's set to be a $100 million investment in the area from Goodwill and its project partners.
When deciding where to locate the campus, Goodwill looked to areas in the city where their presence was lacking. The company’s research identified south and west Louisville.
“Our goal is to fill gaps and level the playing field so that every Kentuckian in poverty has an equal opportunity to escape it,” Goodwill Industries of Kentucky CEO Amy Luttrell said.
Beyond that, she said she wants to inspire other businesses to invest in the historically underfunded area.
“It has been our hope and our belief that our investment and our presence would be a catalyst for other investments,” Luttrell said.
Goodwill isn’t the first to invest in the area in recent years. The Louisville Urban League Sports and Learning Complex opened in February 2021, The Village on West Jefferson Street opened in July 2021 and the YMCA at 18th and West Broadway opened in 2019. All of these facilities have partnerships with Norton Healthcare.
Luttrell said she hopes the new Goodwill campus will be “a community of support.”
“To surround a person who wants a different life but who hasn’t been able to make it happen because they haven’t been able to access all the resources that they need to break through the barriers that they face,” Luttrell said.
To find out what resources were lacking in this area, Goodwill staff asked the community what they needed.
Answers included career support, social services, mental health services, banking opportunities, dining options and physical health services.
Goodwill Industries of Kentucky COO Rena Sharpe said the organization will offer “barrier removal services” including:
- Housing
- Transportation
- Criminal record expungement
- A chapel
- Personal and professional development—including job certifications
There will also be community spaces located on the campus.
“We will have a training center that will be available and free to the community and other nonprofits for events,” Sharpe said. “As well as a business center available to the community with computers, copier, fax and Wi-Fi.”
Norton Healthcare joined as a partner in the “opportunity campus,” and committed to building a $70 million health care center.
Services will include pediatric and adult primary care offices, an emergency room, specialty services, diagnostics and 20 beds for in-patient procedures.
“We’re gonna provide quality care across the entire community,” Norton Healthcare CEO Russell Cox said.
Cox highlighted the city’s health disparities across the lines of race and geography.
Residents living in west Louisville have a lower life expectancy than their counterparts in the East End. They have higher rates of cancer, strokes and heart disease.
“That’s something we all have to face and address,” Cox said.
According to Cox, this will be the first new hospital built west of 9th Street since 1845. The U.S. Marine Hospital closed 1933.
Cox also announced that Norton has partnered with Simmons College of Kentucky and other historically Black colleges and universities across the country to attract more Black students to the health care field.
“Our goal is to develop a pipeline of providers who are prepared to care for our community that look like our community,” Cox said.
Cox said the hospital will create around 100 new jobs.
Funding for the campus will include $30 million from Goodwill Industries, $7 million from Norton Healthcare to buy the land for the hospital, various tax credits and a capital fundraising campaign led by Goodwill Industries.
