About Us
Louisville’s older buildings and neighborhoods contribute to our city’s identity, unique character, and rich diversity. They are models of healthy, sustainable development. They contain a mix of housing types for residents of all ages and incomes, provide space for start-up businesses and new restaurants, and offer human-scaled streets that encourage walking and biking.
We know that reusing rather than demolishing older buildings is a powerful economic catalyst and we have seen how well-designed new buildings that replace vacant land and surface parking lots can help knit our neighborhoods back together. We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to harness the power of the built environment to create a healthier and more sustainable city for future generations.
a healthy community
Vital Sites is a new voice in this era of asset-based development in Louisville. Vital Sites is a resource for financial assistance, technical expertise, and policy solutions to encourage investment in vacant, undervalued, and endangered properties in Metro Louisville.
With the leadership of a strong, dedicated board and a professional staff, this organization will:
- Demonstrate building reuse as a sustainable development strategy
- Support neighborhood revitalization
- Leverage capital through catalytic real estate development projects
- Strengthen sustainable patterns of growth and investment
- Diversify opportunities for development and reuse
- Reinvigorate the local economy through creative, adaptive reuse and appropriate infill new construction
Experience in other cities, ranging from Cincinnati to Galveston, shows how an organization focused on tangible, creative building reuse projects can spur additional investment and community revitalization. Now is the time for this kind of organization in Louisville. Thousands of buildings and hundreds of acres remain vacant across the city. With the support of the Louisville community, we can help re-purpose these sites and structures and create a healthier, more sustainable, and more vibrant city of the future.