Jeffboat Site Garners $20 Million Lilly Grant

The Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC) has announced the approval of a $20 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. to support the redevelopment of the historic Jeffboat waterfront site in Jeffersonville, Ind.

The grant marks a significant milestone in reestablishing the waterfront as a vital economic engine for the area.

“We are grateful to Gov. Mike Braun and the IEDC team for their continued support of this redevelopment project,” said George Piccioni, vice president of business development at ACBL. “The Lilly Endowment grant, combined with the READI grant from Our Southern Indiana RDA, is the result of more than four years of planning, investment and due diligence by ACBL and its stakeholders.”

The next phase of the project will focus on preparing the site for future development in coordination with The Wheatley Group and Thrive Companies.

“We couldn’t be more excited about this project and the opportunity to invest in the state of Indiana,” said Steve Bollinger, principal and executive vice president of development at Thrive Companies. “The welcome we’ve received from the local level all the way up to the state has been something truly special. We’re eager to start shaping the site and bringing it to life, together with ACBL and the city of Jeffersonville.”

Piccioni added, “ACBL is very thankful to Lilly Endowment Inc. for the grant funding and their commitment to improving communities across Indiana. We also want to thank Jeffersonville Mayor Mike Moore and Economic and Redevelopment Director Rob Waiz for their leadership and support in shaping the future of this site.”

American Commercial Barge Line is a leader in marine transportation, delivering safe, reliable and innovative transportation solutions across America’s inland waterways. For decades, the Jeffersonville shipyard was the largest inland shipyard in the United States. With a history stretching back almost 200 years, the site originated in 1834 as the Howard Shipyards, a premier steamboat builder. It was later known as Jeffboat after World War II, when it became the largest inland shipbuilding operation in the country building towboats and barges. The original Howard Shipyard was incorporated into Jeffboat during WWII, when both facilities were used by the Navy for war production, primarily LSTs and submarine chasers. After the war, American Barge Line, which acquired the site in 1938, owned the merged facility and focused on barges and towboats until operations ceased in 2018.

According to Our Southern Indiana, the proposed future use of the site will include a “mixed-use lifestyle center” that will combine multi- and single-family residential units with retail shopping, riverfront dining, office space and entertainment venues. The site would also offer waterfront park space, walking paths and an extension of the Ohio River Greenway. The park portion of the development will come first and is estimated to cost about $38 million. The mixed-use development would follow. Total project cost for the Jeffboat site is estimated at $184.5 million, according to the Our Southern Indiana project page.

Thrive Companies is a vertically integrated real estate developer that designs and builds large-scale, mixed-use communities. The Wheatley Group is an Indiana-based advisory firm specializing in the conception, planning, and implementation of economic development and real estate initiatives.