The city of Memphis is among the finalists for a federal grant worth up to $30 million that would fund the demolition and redevelopment of Foote Homes, the city’s last large public housing development.

The city got word Tuesday, July 14, from U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen that it is one of nine cities competing for the Choice Neighborhoods grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The city of Memphis is a finalist for up to $30 million in federal funding that would allow the city to demolish the Foote Homes public housing development, the last of the city’s large housing projects still standing.

(Daily News File/Andrew J. Breig)

HUD officials are expected to make a decision in September.

Choice Neighborhoods is the successor program to the HOPE VI program that started in 1998 and funded the demolition and rebuilding of all of the city’s other major public housing projects with the exception of Lauderdale Courts, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.

All of those other housing developments, including Lauderdale Courts, have been converted to mixed-use, mixed-income developments.

Memphis Mayor A C Wharton Jr.’s administration applied last year for a Choice Neighborhoods grant but didn’t make the list, prompting Wharton and Cohen to review the application for resubmission this year.

The federal funding for the Foote Homes demolition and redevelopment is considered essential to the ambitious South City plan, which began during Mayor Willie Herenton’s administration under the name Triangle Noir and continued under the Heritage Trail moniker earlier in Wharton’s tenure.

South City is a larger redevelopment effort that incorporates historic sites as well as housing and retail development in the Downtown area south of FedExForum into South Memphis.

The redevelopment of the Cleaborn Homes public housing project as Cleaborn Pointe at Heritage Landing – on the east side of Lauderdale Street across from Foote Homes – is part of the South City plan. Phases of Cleaborn Pointe already are completed more phases are underway.

The other Choice Neighborhoods finalists are: Atlanta; Boston; Milwaukee, Wis.; Camden, N.J.; Sacramento, Calif.; Kansas City, Mo.; Renton, Wash.; and Baltimore.