Loveman Village has begun pre-demolition work on the $80 million overhaul of the 500-unit public housing project.

Several partners on the project - the Housing Authority of the Birmingham District, the City of Birmingham and Hollyhand Development of Northport - held an event Wednesday morning to update the public on the status of the massive project. Pre-demolition work has begun, and Hollyhand's Vice President of Development Marcella Roberts said she expects demolition to begin in three to six months, depending on weather.

The new development won't remotely resemble the 500 existing barrack-style units in Birmingham's Titusville neighborhood. All of the units will be razed and replaced with lower-density units that look more like a neighborhood, a similar aesthetic to Tuxedo Village in Ensley. The new development will have 220 units -- 164 units on the existing site, and 120 units at another site.

"We work with our residents and we create a case management file, and connect them with services so that within five years they become self-sufficient," HABD President and CEO Michael Lundy said. "One of the things have got to do as a public housing service is we've got to break the cycle of generational poverty and generational public housing. We're doing that here in Loveman Village."

Birmingham City Council Member Sheila Tyson said each resident of Loveman Village has an individual case worker so that none are displaced as a result of the redevelopment.

"It's an individual thing. Each case is different, you just can't bundle them all together," Tyson said.

Lundy said most of the residents displaced by the first phase of redevelopment have been moved to other HABD communities, while a small number have moved within Loveman Village to the second phase. Lundy said a few families have opted to take vouchers, but none were required to.

"We're working with each family, and that's really the key difference between what we do and what other housing authorities do," Lundy said. "We actually provide the soft services so that each family can have a soft landing in the new communities they move to."