Plans are in place to build a new middle school on a long-vacant lot in west Louisville where Passport Health, the state’s first Medicaid managed care company, once wanted to build its headquarters.
The news was celebrated at a press conference Friday by state and local officials and representatives of Louisville’s Black neighborhoods, who have long lobbied for development of the 20-acre site at 18th.Number And Broadway.
Molina Healthcare plans to donate the site it acquires in 2022 for about $7 million. Buy a passportThe company halted construction of its headquarters due to financial difficulties caused by changes in state Medicaid policy.
Speaking at the ceremony, which was attended by Governor Andy Beshear and Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg, Superintendent Marty Pollio said the school will be the first new middle school built in Jefferson County in 90 years.
“We thought this would be the perfect location for a new middle school in West Louisville,” Pollio said. “We never dreamed they would donate this land to us.”
Ryan Sadler, president of the company, now renamed Passport by Molina Healthcare, said the decision came after several years of consultations with community groups to determine the best use for the site.
“We’re all here today for West Louisville,” he said.
Sadler said Molina plans to open a “one-stop” health and wellness center on the site to serve local residents.
Molina, a Fortune 500 company headquartered in Long Beach, Calif., serves approximately 296,000 Medicaid enrollees in Kentucky and is the second-largest of six managed care companies (MCOs) that oversee health care services for Medicaid enrollees. The company is the largest Medicaid MCO for patients in West Louisville.
Pollio also made a surprise announcement: “JCPS will explore locating a new headquarters at the West Broadway site to replace an aging building in southeast Jefferson County,” he said.
But the first step will be to begin construction on what he described as a “state-of-the-art” middle school. Dr. J. Blaine Hudson The middle school tentatively opened last year on the site of the former elementary school. The new building is scheduled to open in 2026 and will be named for Hudson, a longtime Louisville scholar, educator and Black activist who died in 2013.
Development of the land has long been sought by local leaders as a source of jobs and economic growth for historically underserved West Louisville.
The building, which had been vacant for 20 years, was a symbol of hope for black community leaders who had been excited about Passport’s plans to relocate its headquarters there, but they grew increasingly anxious when the company’s financial problems halted construction.
Passport had proposed building its headquarters and health and wellness facility on the 18th.Number It made it onto Broadway, Stop construction Amid a revenue shortfall in 2019, the state government blamed Medicaid rate cuts implemented by the administration of former Gov. Matt Bevin.
Bevin, a Republican and critic of Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act, had proposed limiting benefits and restructuring the way his administration pays MCOs. Passport, Louisville’s largest provider, Unfairly reduced Reimbursement for health claims.
The Bevin administration at the time denied that the rate cuts were unfair to passports.
Beshear, a Democrat who defeated Bevin in the 2019 gubernatorial race, addressed the controversy in his comments Friday.
“A little over six years ago, the previous governor halted $100 million in construction on this building,” said Gov. Beshear, now in his second term, “and promised me that if I was elected, I would develop this property.”
Among the crowd was a former member of King Solomon Missionary Baptist Church, located near the scene. Prayer Delegation to Frankfort to support the Passport Project;
Beshear spoke directly to Elliott, a well-known pastor in West Louisville.
“Pastor Elliott, I remember looking at you and saying, ‘West Louisville deserves better,'” Beshear said, and Elliott nodded.
Other speakers also expressed enthusiasm about plans for the site.
Jefferson County School Board Chairman Corey Shull called Friday “a great day to be alive.”
“We are incredibly grateful for this day,” Hudson Schools Principal Jeronda Majors added.
Passport faced bankruptcy in 2019 after failing to renew its state contract. Sale to MolinaThe company successfully bid for Medicaid programs in Kentucky.
Kentucky’s $1.5 billion-a-year Medicaid program, which serves about 900,000 low-income and disabled people and about 600,000 children, is mostly funded by the federal government.
Passport was founded in 1997 as a nonprofit company designed as a pilot project to rein in soaring Medicaid costs in the Louisville area, and officials hoped to expand the model statewide. It was Kentucky’s first Medicaid MCO.
But efforts to set up similar organizations in other parts of the state failed, and in 2011 the state began outsourcing Medicaid operations to Passport and out-of-state for-profit companies.
On Friday, against the backdrop of rusting steel beams at the old Passport site, officials were ready to look to the future.
“I congratulate everyone involved,” Beshear said. “I look forward to the grand opening of this great project.”
