HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge announced this morning that Birmingham had received a $50 million federal grant that the city plans to use to kickstart a $294 million investment in the Graymont, Smithfield and College Hills neighborhoods, providing 1,000 subsidized, affordable and market-value homes to replace the 900 units of the aging Smithfield Court.

Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin said that when he first ran for mayor, he campaigned door to door in those neighborhoods, and the Smithfield Choice plan addresses their concerns.

“Since my first day in office my number one priority has been neighborhood revitalization,” Woodfin said. “It was our choice to make every one of our neighborhoods great places to live.”

Smithfield Court, which dates to 1937, is one of the nation’s oldest public housing communities. It will gradually be demolished and replaced with mixed-use housing under the plan.

The City of Birmingham submitted a grant application to the U.S. Department of Housing and Development’s CHOICE Neighborhood program. Officials said they planned to use the $50 million grant for revitalization efforts in the historic Smithfield community.

The plan calls for moving the Smithfield Library from its current location on Center Street on the south side of Eighth Avenue West to a nearby location on the opposite side of Eighth and Center streets where it would be part of a “social innovation center” on the ground floor of a three-story, mixed-use housing complex on the street corner.

The Birmingham City Council approved re-zoning for the plan on June 20 despite complaints from some residents about the planned library relocation.

See also: Smithfield Library will move as part of plan to build 1,000 new housing units