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The city of Mobile opened the Levon C. Manzie Neighborhood Resource Center in Midtown Monday, named for a late council president and aimed at bringing together diverse services to assist those in need.

“I truly hope and pray that this building will serve as a great catalyst for the other businesses that are about to come and will need that assistance, because that was what Levon was about, and that was helping and doing,” Jeanette Manzie, his mother said.

City council members, Mayor Sandy Stimpson, members of Manzie’s family and representatives from nonprofits were on hand for the opening of the center, which is at 110 N. Lafayette Street.

The center, one of the last projects Manzie was working on before his death in 2021, will bring several services together under one roof: staff from the city’s Neighborhood Development Department will be on hand to coordinate operations and the Office of Supplier Diversity, which will open a Small Business Center at the site to assist entrepreneurs in setting up a business or working with the city.

Staff from the nonprofit Aletheia House, a Birmingham-based organization that provides affordable housing and healthcare services, and Legal Services Alabama, a nonprofit law firm that provides free civil legal assistance to low-income Alabama residents, will also be located in the center.

Nonprofits can reserve the shared meeting spaces in the building, which was formerly a doctor’s office, said James Roberts, senior director of the city’s Neighborhood Development Department.

Manzie’s vision for the center was a place where nonprofits that provide critical services to city residents will be supported. Housing those services under one roof is not only more convenient for residents, but it will also increase collaboration and coordination between the organizations and the city, city officials said.

“The idea is for us all to come together so that we can provide more services in a more convenient manner,” Stimpson said Monday. “If you’re looking for these services, you come to one spot. You might say it’s a one-stop shop.”

Roberts says that the center was entirely funded through money from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. He says the center cost about $750,000 overall, primarily in purchasing the building and furnishings.

Aletheia House was established in 1972 and is one of the largest providers of affordable housing in Alabama, according to their website. The nonprofit is also developing Live Oak Trace, an affordable housing development for senior citizens on the northwest side of the city.

Legal Services Alabama provides legal services to income-eligible Alabamians in all 67 counties. It receives funding from the Legal Services Corporation, a national nonprofit that provides civil legal aid to low-income Americans. Guy Lescault, executive director of Legal Services Alabama, spoke at Monday’s ribbon-cutting ceremony.

“Once again, the city of Mobile is taking the lead, in creating a neighborhood resource center for the clients we serve,” Lescault said. “I only wish the other cities had the vision that Mobile does.”

Manzie was serving as council president at the time of his death at 38. He was elected to the city council in 2013, the youngest person ever elected to the council. He served on the Mobile County School Board from 2008-2013 and was the youngest person elected to the school board, at 25.

During his time on the council, he worked to repair the city’s infrastructure, replacing sidewalks, directing funds to road and drainage projects and revitalizing the city’s parks and recreation facilities. Manzie was also a pastor at St. Joseph’s Missionary Baptist Church in Prichard.