A groundbreaking ceremony in Bridgeport on Wednesday served as the official kickoff of a project to guarantee the future of the city's history Mary and Eliza Freeman Houses.

"I don't think it's sunk in yet - I mean, I know it's happening," said Maisa Tisdale, the president and CEO of the Mary and Eliza Freeman Center, who helped saved the houses from being destroyed in 2008, and has been working towards this day ever since. "I have a feeling tonight I'm going to do a lot of crying and smiling and laughing."

The two houses are the last remaining buildings from "Little Liberia," a neighborhood of escaped slaves and free people of color that started in Bridgeport in 1831.

"Without the houses, people won't remember the history," Tisdale said.

Thanks to some federal money, Tisdale and her team were able to begin the work to not just preserve the buildings - but renovate them into something she estimates will eventually draw 20,000 people a year.

"I want people to know that if this community could prosper in a time when so much was against them, that really nothing should stop us now," she said.

When everything is done, Mary's house will be a museum that has been restored to look the same way it did when the sisters lived there.

Meanwhile Eliza's house, which is what the groundbreaking was technically for, will be what is called a "climate resiliency center" - serving as a central hub for communication and coordination during local natural disasters like flooding, while also acting as a place for education for the coastal community.

"There's such a close connection between saving a culture and actually saving the place around historic sites, where people actually lived," said Tisdale. "We realized that to save the history, we had to take a close look at climate."

Tisdale says how quickly things get done depends on how much money they raise, but she is hoping to have Eliza's house finished by 2027.