MSD cuts ribbon on new headquarters in west Louisville and wants to ‘be part of something bigger’ | WDRB News

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — The Louisville Metropolitan Sewer District on Tuesday held a ribbon-cutting ceremony at its new headquarters at 16th and Hill streets in the Park Hill neighborhood, an area that residents said was a hotbed of crime and violence.

MSD is relocating from its downtown location at Seventh and West Liberty streets, where employees have worked for more than 40 years. Executive director Tony Parrott said the agency needed more space and would become an anchor tenant in the Park Hill redevelopment, taking over the site that was once home to Brown & Williamson and more recently Clariant.

“Coming to Park Hill allows us to be part of something bigger than MSD,” he said Tuesday.

Bruce Sherrod, who has lived in the Park Hill neighborhood long enough to see the good, the bad and the ugly, said times may be changing.

“This is one of the districts that has been neglected and forgotten,” he said. “…a lot of shooting.”

Despite this checkered past, Sherrod praised MSD for taking a chance on his neighborhood.

“MSD has been a community stakeholder so far – that’s huge,” he said. “It takes courage… to move to a neighborhood where there was so much negativity.”

The new headquarters is 130,000 square feet spread over five floors. Parrott said MSD purchased the space for $5 million, an amount that was offset by the sale of the current facility and location and that is not tied to the 6.9% interest rate increase that takes effect in August.

“It will be a financial loss for us, so it will have no impact on payers,” he said.

MSD plans to transfer employees by the end of the year.

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