Edited by moderation: A link to the previous thread: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=333283

I thought I would start the new thread myself the other one seems rather large.

Anyway I was driving by UofL today and noticed that the practice facility is really starting to take shape. It is amazing the transformation this area of town has gone through in the past ten years. Does anyone know anything about Cardinal Crossings it looks like they are rehabbing an old factory. When is construction suppossed to start?

I live right next to the UofL area and it is remarkable what has happened over there. I remember when it was just AAF and the dog food company. Now you have PJCS, Jim Patterson Stadium, YUM! Center, Central Plaza (Kroger), the lacrosse field, Cardinal Park, Soccer and Track Stadium, Trager Center, Trager Stadium, Ulmer Stadium, Ralph Wright Natatorium. Not to mention all the hotels that have spung up. It looks totaly different than it did just 10 year's ago.

About the Cardinal Crossings, I know the company "Field House' sold the property a while back and now its supposed to be called 'Cardnial Crossongs' but they havn't done much in a lone while. They removed the shrubs and cleaned it up a bit but thats about it.

Why did they sell it? They are still touting it on their website.

I think the company that owned it was going to name it “Fieldhouse Sports Lofts" and were doing a few of the same type projects next to other stadiums. It now will be called "Cardinal Crossings". I'm not %100 sure that it is a new company but I do remember hearing that. I could be (probably am) wrong.

It is a new compnay.....http://www.cardinalcrossings.com/cardinal/intro.html

I look for a lot more cool things to happen in and around UofL. There is a lot of land (mostly old industrial crap) for sale on Floyd.

Question: Have they "named" ya'lls new Arena yet? Any ideas of who will pony-up the cash for naming rights?

Not yet, they have stated that it is not imperative to have naming rights sold prior to building, enough funding is in place. The arena authority recently hired a company to help find a naming rights sponsor b/c they were having trouble on their own finding a $40 million sponsor.

When we last proposed an arena YUM showed a great deal of interest. I personally think UPS should pony up the cash and call it the HUB. I can't think of anything better. I have a feeling we may see some company come out of left field.

Thanks fore the info. I was just wondering. With Indy's new stadium, initially they called it 'Indiana Stadium,' but we all knew it would change. However, we got an "out of left field" company, Lucas Oil, which I think is a slap to local companies. RCA was a locally-based brand until the bolted for Mexico.

I think it would be great if UPS nameed it the "Hub." I like that. However, YUM! Arena does not sound good. Didn't they talk about calling the last proposal the "Bucket" because of KFC?

yes the bucket was an option at one point, and that would have been horible. The city needs to quit naming things after food.

Report supports green downtown arena


Louisville's downtown arena should be built with energy-saving features, setting the standard for "green" design among major sports facilities.

It should feature a transparent facade and avoid large, blank walls. It should also have a huge window with views of the Ohio River.

Those are among the guidelines for the arena included in a report issued today by the Downtown Development Corp., the city's lead agency on downtown issues.

"This is a major opportunity for Louisville to take arena design to a new level, to not just produce a good piece of sports architecture but also to create an outstanding piece of urban design that will become a symbol of this community's progress and its aspirations," Brooke Barzun, who coordinated the report, said in a statement.

Included was a review of how arenas in Tulsa, Okla.; Indianapolis; and Columbus, Ohio; blend into their downtowns.

It also suggests that Louisville's arena incorporate materials featured in nearby buildings, such as brick, cast iron and artistic glass. But it stops short of recommending which materials architect HOK Sport should use.

The arena is expected to cost $252 million, part of a $450 million entertainment complex with retail and restaurant tenants, a floodwall, parking garage and hotel. The University of Louisville's basketball teams would be the main tenants, but the facility would be designed to host events such as collegiate sports championships, ice shows and concerts.

it would be awesome to be able to see inside the arena from the kennedy bridge

I was across the river today....

GFS is building another location in Waterford Park South. That makes their 4th in the market. There is also another in line space availble to build 20,000 s.f. and 2 pads available.

River Falls' site plan also shows 4 rest. on the north side near Veteran's Pkwy, but I am sure that, the 2 pads at Waterfor South, and the pad at Waterdford are all hinged on the lack of a liquor license. Once they get approval more more in Clarksville I am sure those pads will go fast.

Anyone have any clue as to what is going on with Jeffersonville Town Center?

Check this out.....

Council Democrats set priorities

By Marcus Green
magreen@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal



Democrats on Louisville’s Metro Council want the city to revisit light rail.

The council’s 15-member majority caucus included light rail on its list of 2007 priorities released today, along with its top goal of increasing affordable housing.

“We need to move people in and out of our city’s core and the automobile is not the answer,” said Jim King, the council’s majority leader. He added that a rail line from downtown to the University of Louisville, the airport and other places “is a potential solution, and now is the time to address it.”

The top priority, the housing fund, recently got a boost when Mayor Jerry Abramson agreed to put up the first $1 million and asked the council to pass an ordinance creating a commission to oversee the fund and to set rules for its use. He said it could be used to subsidize home mortgages or as incentives for a developer to include affordable housing in a project.

“Most of us agree, this is the year to move forward with making affordable housing a priority,” King said at a news conference this morning.

The caucus also set these other priorities for 2007, in no particular order:

VPublic safety, including monitoring a controversial animal-control ordinance it passed last year and monitoring so-called "cruising" on Broadway Derby weekend.

VPublic health, including reviewing dangers from trains carrying hazard materials through Louisville and consider a ban on use of “transfat” in food preparation at local restaurants.

VEconomic development, continuing effort to convert abandoned industrial property known as “brownfields” into productive reuse.

VCultural issues, moving forward with plans to build three new regional libraries and on the City of Parks project.

For more on this story read tomorrow’s Courier-Journal.

Reporter Marcus Green can be reached at (502) 582-4675.

Reporter Sheldon Shafer contributed to this story.

Right as TARC thinks they have to shelf it, they bring it back up. This is great. They said that the reason it got put up was because of a lack of interests politically... Anne Northup was agaisnt LRT... Yarmuth is 100% for it...

I think that we are gaining the needed momentum, and I have heard more and more people around town bring up the need for commuter rail and why Louisville should be planning such a system.
The other thing I was thinking about is a thread Ian made in the US forum about sharing the rails. Plenty of cities around the country have freight and cummuter trains sharng the same lines. While a good amount of the line should be on the road for more frequent stops, I think to get the rail lins around town, trains could switch onto the existing rail we have. Hell, there is a line that runs DIRECTLY through UofL's campus and on down toward the airport. LRT is such a possibility its not even funny. We just need to get serious.

I don't know how I feel about this AT ALL... I was really hoping they would tare the building down. As it stands, its an awful reminder of where Beuchel used to be, and what its trying to shed: that horrible, dead, outdated, abandoned feeling. If they do some serious updating to the site, it might help, but its just not what is in the best interest of the area. The fact that there is that giant parking lot in the back bothers me as well. Not that it should be out front, but... I dunno. I hate everything about that set up.


Former Showcase property may be church site on Bardstown Road

A fast-growing Pentecostal church has reached a tentative agreement to buy the vacant former Showcase Cinemas on Bardstown Road, its pastor said.

"We're excited here," said David Boggs, pastor of New Vision Ministry Center. "It's going to be a great location."



Boggs said the church and the theater's owner, National Amusements, have agreed in principle to a price and are working out the details. He declined to disclose the price until the deal is final.

In a statement, National Amusements said, "We have not signed a deal with anyone for purchase of this property."

Boggs said he's optimistic the agreement will be reached and hopes the church can move to the site in the next three to four months.

Boggs said the church has outgrown its Okolona building as it has increased its weekly attendance from 100 to 1,200 in the past two years.

He said a theater would suit the church's concert-style worship services, with their use of lights, sound and screens.

The 20-acre theater property is assessed at $5.8 million.

Boggs said the church's plans include a sanctuary, youth and children's center, skate park, coffee shop and bookstore, with room to expand.

I don't know how I feel about this AT ALL... I was really hoping they would tare the building down. As it stands, its an awful reminder of where Beuchel used to be, and what its trying to shed: that horrible, dead, outdated, abandoned feeling. If they do some serious updating to the site, it might help, but its just not what is in the best interest of the area. The fact that there is that giant parking lot in the back bothers me as well. Not that it should be out front, but... I dunno. I hate everything about that set up.


Former Showcase property may be church site on Bardstown Road

A fast-growing Pentecostal church has reached a tentative agreement to buy the vacant former Showcase Cinemas on Bardstown Road, its pastor said.

"We're excited here," said David Boggs, pastor of New Vision Ministry Center. "It's going to be a great location."



Boggs said the church and the theater's owner, National Amusements, have agreed in principle to a price and are working out the details. He declined to disclose the price until the deal is final.

In a statement, National Amusements said, "We have not signed a deal with anyone for purchase of this property."

Boggs said he's optimistic the agreement will be reached and hopes the church can move to the site in the next three to four months.

Boggs said the church has outgrown its Okolona building as it has increased its weekly attendance from 100 to 1,200 in the past two years.

He said a theater would suit the church's concert-style worship services, with their use of lights, sound and screens.

The 20-acre theater property is assessed at $5.8 million.

Boggs said the church's plans include a sanctuary, youth and children's center, skate park, coffee shop and bookstore, with room to expand.

back in cincy many old buildings have been reused for churches, many of them are very contemporary. there was an old kmart i think off montgomery that became a pretty cool church, and many others,. i think thats a good use of the showcase building and i think if u tear it down now, ull regret loosing it in 30 years. its kinda like no one appreciated 1890's buildings in the 1930's. well i was reading the cj updates here and i noticed that a sale is pending on the hilliard lyons building, which i guess is near 4th street. anyone know anything about that? i wonder if thats part of the cordish retail thing everyone was talkin about?

Check out this additional info about condos in old louisville

http://louisville.bizjournals.com/louisville/stories/2007/03/05/story1.html?b=1173070800^1425796

Property sold at 231 East main (DT Louisville)

A friend told me he heard that this former ice building was sold and is going to be developed, supposedly, into 7 lofts....here's a pic of the building:

http://www.lca-inc.org/lca/properties/officeemaindetails.htm#231emain

I will seriously dance like this banana if we get light rail anytime soon:banana: :banana: :banana:

Old Henry Rd. - I think everyone on here has probably heard of Old Henry Crossing. Well, there is another large office/rest. development going directly north of it.

Old Henry Crossing straddles Old Henry Rd. This other development is contiguous to the northern part of Old Henry Crossing. Now I am not one for sprawl and ugly suburban development (although I do love development in general), but this will at least look nice. I have seen some renderings and site plans of both developments and they look very high end. That area is already sprawled to hell; this is almost like infill :) The plans show 3-4 banks, 4-5 rest., and smaller shopping center (100k-300k), and tons of office space. The way the site plan works leads me to believe that most of the rest. will be of the national casual variety. Starbucks was the only name (outisde of banks) listed.

SUPPOSEDLY, they are going to announce a big office tenant that will impress everyone (that is what I was told).

Anyway, I also heard that Baptist is supposed to break ground real soon on their property, which is across the Snyder from all this.

Another curiosity.....


There is a large plot of land (inlcding a few smaller parcels) on Taylorsville Rd. betweeen Hikes Point and Hurstbourne. I can EASILY see this being developed. It would be nice if it became a mini Norton Commons. Have a main street and some retail at the center.

Anyone know anything about this property????

http://s168.photobucket.com/albums/u175/CardTopper/?action=view&current=TaylorsvilleRd.jpg

Generally, the land on that stretch of Taylorsville hasn't been shifted or touched for a long time. The people who own that property live on it, I think. There are several homes with large properties along there, and it will be a while until we see them bought up by developers. I think a few of the homes are historical. There is a gorgeous home facing Taylorsville that was recently restored and renovated and Im pretty sure it likely dates back at least to the early 1900's.

Yes, Indianapolis also has a very high number of vacant/old big boxes that have been reused as Churches. This can be a good adaptive reuse in the right area. My only complaint is that if the area has a lot of retsaurants or bars, the church can oppose liquor license renewals or new restaurants.

As for light rail in Louisville, a line down I-65 would make great sense to the airport with stops at UoL. I think that every city in the region should be pushing for better and improved transit. This is one of the ways for the midwest to begin to seperate itsself from the south by expanding on our great urban centers.

However, I will mention, since I am working on Indy's system, the feds have made it very difficult to get any of the federal new starts program money. Indy had been sent back to the model demand draweing board twice. It was finally accepted and our ridership forecasts have also cleared the approvals. We will design and engineer 10% of the system this year and it looks like we will be doing a combined LRT and BRT system.

Hey that is great news for Indy....I have read that financing light-rail is going to be a big problem for Louisville too....I'd love to see it happen

Generally, the land on that stretch of Taylorsville hasn't been shifted or touched for a long time. The people who own that property live on it, I think. There are several homes with large properties along there, and it will be a while until we see them bought up by developers. I think a few of the homes are historical. There is a gorgeous home facing Taylorsville that was recently restored and renovated and Im pretty sure it likely dates back at least to the early 1900's.


There aren't a lot of houses where I am talking. There is one really nice old house that they could easily incorporate. The rest that I see are about 5-7 60's-70's ranch homes that aren't historical at all.

i figured it was all owned (I am talking about the makority) by 1 or 2 older people who have had it forever. Eventually they will sell/will it to someone who will make a boatload. It is just too centrally located. I just hope they do it right.

Old Henry Rd. - I think everyone on here has probably heard of Old Henry Crossing. Well, there is another large office/rest. development going directly north of it.

Old Henry Crossing straddles Old Henry Rd. This other development is contiguous to the northern part of Old Henry Crossing. Now I am not one for sprawl and ugly suburban development (although I do love development in general), but this will at least look nice. I have seen some renderings and site plans of both developments and they look very high end. That area is already sprawled to hell; this is almost like infill :) The plans show 3-4 banks, 4-5 rest., and smaller shopping center (100k-300k), and tons of office space. The way the site plan works leads me to believe that most of the rest. will be of the national casual variety. Starbucks was the only name (outisde of banks) listed.

SUPPOSEDLY, they are going to announce a big office tenant that will impress everyone (that is what I was told).

Anyway, I also heard that Baptist is supposed to break ground real soon on their property, which is across the Snyder from all this.

i havent had an opportunity to explore out that way yet but that will be next on my agenda. i looked on a map and it seems to be mostly residential around there?

well speaking of suburbs i was reading business fist at work and i saw a bunch of changes are in works at mall st matts. looks like a bunch of the limited brand stores are flip flopping and expanding, it seems confusing. also that mall will get a sephora, l'occitane, white house black market. oxmoor will get a justice and a larger vicky secret? the article mentioned the dillard move but didnt offer any more info other than at the end of the article that says the old dillards building maye be "opened up" to make a "streetscape" scene visible from shelbyville road. could be corroboration of the rumor i saw on here? anyways i really think they need a saks over there, im gonna have to drive home soon to shop there lol.

It will be interesting to see Louisville's population in the 2010 with news like this.....

Louisville-area job growth revised up for '05 and '06
U.S. unemployment rate fell to 4.5% in February

From Staff and Wire Dispatches



Revised estimates show the Louisville area added 10,200 more jobs than originally thought in 2005 and 2006 -- an upward revision of more than 50 percent, the Federal Reserve said yesterday.

The new numbers show the Louisville area's employment grew steadily for the past three years.



"Although employment growth tapered off during the second half of the year, 2006 looks to have been somewhat better for the Louisville-Jefferson County metro area than for the country as a whole," Fed economists Michael R. Pakko and Howard J. Wall said in their report.

The new numbers show total nonfarm employment in the 12-county metro area, which includes Southern Indiana, rose by 6,600 jobs in 2005 instead of 4,400 and by 11,900 jobs last year instead of 6,600.

Much of the 2006 revision came from a 6,700-job improvement in manufacturing. Originally, the Louisville area was thought to have lost 4,400 manufacturing jobs last year, but the new data shows 2,300 jobs were added.

The revisions come out as the state reported a slight increase in Kentucky's unemployment rate in January to 5.6 percent from 5.4 percent in December. Despite the higher unemployment rate, the state added 2,000 jobs in January, the Office of Employment and Training reported.

In January 2006, the state's unemployment rate was 6 percent.

Kentucky's leisure and hospitality sector went up the most of any job category with 2,100 more jobs in January. Kentucky's manufacturing sector recorded 1,200 fewer jobs in January than December, the state reported.

Also yesterday, the government reported that the national unemployment rate dipped to 4.5 percent and that workers got larger paychecks in February.

Employers -- both private companies and the government -- added 97,000 jobs in February, the fewest in two years. Severe winter weather was blamed for much of the slower job growth.

The drop in the unemployment rate from 4.6 percent in January came as people left the work force in February. Economists said bad weather made it difficult for people to get out and look for jobs. Taking those factors into account, February's jobless rate, the lowest since December, still should ease any fears that the economy could be headed for a worse-than-anticipated slowdown in growth, analysts said.

Workers' wages grew briskly, another sign that the job market is in fundamentally good shape, analysts said.

Average hourly earnings jumped to $17.16 in February, from $16.49 a year earlier. That represented a solid 4.1 percent increase over the last 12 months.

"Because unemployment is low, workers have more negotiating power and are getting higher wages," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com. "It is becoming a worker's market, particularly for highly skilled and educated workers."

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

I DO NOT KNOW IF WE HAVE TALKED ABOUT THIS ON HERE BUT APPLE COMPUTER WILL OPEN ITS FIRST KENTCKY STORE THIS YEAR AT OXMOOR CENTER ACCORDING TO http://www.ifoapplestore.com/stores/chronology.html AND Monster.com. THIS IS GOOD NEWS AND THIS SHOWS FINALLY OXMOOR IS CHANGING TO MORE UPSCALE.. L'Occitane and Sephora will also open this year as stated in many other post.

Well, that is good news for shopping at Oxmoor Center - but Apple Stores are in nearly every city our size, and in tons of cities even smaller than us. It's odd that it even took this long to get them in.

read the downtown arena design guidlines...veery interestng
http://www.louisvilleky.gov/NR/rdonlyres/C35FCD97-98BC-43A3-A824-AB9D6CA103FD/0/arena_executive_summary.pdf

http://www.louisvilleky.gov/NR/rdonlyres/0DF9EF7C-85B5-4078-B38B-E0EAF1242F2F/0/arena_final_report.pdf

From what I gathered in Bizjournals' article about the switches, renovations, and new store openings at MSM, here is what will take place:

-Express Men and Women will move to the space currently occupied by Victoria's Secret, and a neighboring space formerly occupied by 5-7-9. They will consolidate from two seperate stores into one store of over 7,000 square feet.

-Victoria's Secret will move to where Express and Bath & Body Works are currently. This will make it over 15,000 square feet. The current Express Men store, however, will remain vacant.

-Bath & Body Works will move to the space next to Abercrombie & Fitch. I'm assuming Bizjournals is referring to the space which is currently occupied by Shoe Sensation. This, in turn, will augment the Bath & Body Works store from 1,675 square feet to over 6,000.

-JCPenney will be renovating (if only it could renovate into a Neiman Marcus or Saks Fifth Avenue haha). This should be completed by October 15.

-Dillard's will move the men's store from the north side of the mall to the former Lord & Taylor store. This should be done by May or June. As stated earlier, plans are being tossed around to refit the soon-to-be former Dillard's space as a streetscape. Hello, Lucky Brand Jeans?

-White House|Black Market opened today in MSM, making it the second Louisville store.

-While not mentioned in the article, I figured I'd point out that Journey's is moving across the hall next to Hollister. Urban Behavior, located next to the current Journey's, has closed and now has drywall in front of it. Do I smell a nice store taking over these two parcels?

Oxmoor Center is also undergoing many changes:

-The space once occupied by The Sweet Factory has now been vacated and is about ready to have L'Occitane take its place.

-Caché is being renovated.

-Justice is opening, presumably, with the neighboring Victoria's Secret, which is currently undergoing a renovation. So I'd say disregard anything on GGP's lease plan for Oxmoor which mentions Vanity shops being located there.

-Sephora is opening next to Gap Kids in the Macy's wing sometime this spring. However, I thought that Louisville Stoneware was supposed to take the entire space which used to be occupied by Petite Sophisticate and Casual Corner. The new Sephora appears to only take up half of this space.


From what I've seen at Kenwood Towne Centre, a streetscape set-up for the former Dillard's spot could be promising. It gave Cincy its first Restoration Hardware, West Elm, Maggiano's Little Italy, Williams-Sonoma Home, and Cheesecake Factory.

Whew! I was beginning to get nervous:

Museum Plaza gets state aid
Bill will provide $130 million
By Joseph Gerth
jgerth@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal

FRANKFORT, Ky. -- The Museum Plaza project for downtown Louisville cleared a major hurdle yesterday when the General Assembly passed legislation authorizing the use of $130 million in state and local tax revenue for road, floodwall and other improvements in connection with the $465 million project.

"Museum Plaza will be built," said Craig Greenberg, a member of the project's development team, which was waiting for approval of the legislation as the last piece of the economic puzzle for the 62-story riverfront structure at Seventh Street and River Road in Louisville. "We will definitely have shovels in the ground later this year."

Final passage came after the Senate Appropriations and Revenue Committee made changes in House Bill 549 to allow such tax benefits for similar large-scale projects throughout the state.

The bill passed the Senate 35-1. The House approved Senate changes 85-11. And Jodi Whitaker, spokeswoman for Gov. Ernie Fletcher, said he will sign the bill.

"I'm tickled to death," said House Speaker Pro Tem Larry Clark, the Louisville Democrat who shepherded the bill through the House. "It's the biggest project that will ever be built in Jefferson County using private and public money. I'm just glad it's done."

Saying the bill would help people in Kentucky "build buildings that can be seen from the moon," Senate President David Williams urged passage of the legislation in the Republican-controlled Senate.

"This is a great day for the Kentucky Senate and a great day for business," said Senate Democratic Floor Leader Ed Worley, who worked with Williams and others over the weekend to hammer out a final version of the bill.

Greenberg said Museum Plaza's developers supported the changes in the legislation, saying that they will provide the $130 million in improvements that developers needed to move forward with the project.

Museum Plaza will have condominiums, office space, retail shops, a Westin hotel and an art museum on an island almost midway up the towers.

The bill had originally been written to allow breaks on just two projects -- Museum Plaza and Ovation, a $1 billion mixed-use development in Newport.

As passed yesterday, however, the bill will create a mechanism for offering financial incentives for developers of other projects of different sizes around the state.

It will allow one level of tax breaks for the local development of vacant land and brownfields, another level of incentives for projects greater than $10 million, and a third level for projects in blighted areas.

The biggest breaks will come for those who develop "signature" projects that include at least $200 million in private investment. The financing plan will allow developers to be refunded state and local property taxes, income taxes and sales taxes generated by the project.

In Louisville, for the Museum Plaza development, it would also allow $22 million in hotel room tax revenue from the Westin hotel to go toward paying for the infrastructure.

The new financing plan caps the amount of tax revenue that can be rebated to the developers at the cost of the public infrastructure improvements. In the past, they have been able to reclaim a percentage of the development's cost.

Greenberg said that won't make a difference to Museum Plaza developers, who had sought only enough money to pay for rerouting River Road, moving the floodwall, building a public park and making a few other public improvements.

The developers are footing the entire cost of building the towers, he said.

Under the legislation, a state commission would first have to approve the use of state funds for the "signature" projects. The bill limits the amount of retail establishments allowed in the projects -- a move designed to block such funding for shopping centers.

Williams said the legislation would allow any community across the state to partake in the same level of state help if it can lure projects the size of the Louisville and Northern Kentucky projects.

Under the bill, developers would have to foot the bill for the public infrastructure improvements and would then be rebated up to 80 percent of tax revenues generated at the site. They would have 30 years to recoup the costs.

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070313/NEWS01/703130433/1008/NEWS01

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=316119

you shoulda posted it in there:)

read the downtown arena design guidlines...veery interestng
http://www.louisvilleky.gov/NR/rdonlyres/C35FCD97-98BC-43A3-A824-AB9D6CA103FD/0/arena_executive_summary.pdf

http://www.louisvilleky.gov/NR/rdonlyres/0DF9EF7C-85B5-4078-B38B-E0EAF1242F2F/0/arena_final_report.pdf

So from reading this it seems to be like the arena might incorporate a lot of glass and stone. If they do this right, the arena will become another icon of the city. I always thought it would be cool if they built it to resemble a rose (run for the roses), with a really contemporary design, but with some architectural elements of old main street. Had some artisans work on windows, which would feature a red tint. Perhaps Churchill Downs would by naming rights. That’s my two cents on it.

I just had a question for you all, do you really like shopping that much? I mean I haven't heard of half the stores you all talk about. I understand that retail is an important part of a city as a whole, especially when it comes to its image and so on, but anytime retail is mentioned you all get really excited, or atleast it seems that way. Don't get me wrong I'm not saying it's a bad thing or anything, just curious.

I just had a question for you all, do you really like shopping that much? I mean I haven't heard of half the stores you all talk about. I understand that retail is an important part of a city as a whole, especially when it comes to its image and so on, but anytime retail is mentioned you all get really excited, or atleast it seems that way. Don't get me wrong I'm not saying it's a bad thing or anything, just curious.

Well when we here of new retail we get exited because it is almost a comparison to other cities. For example, Louisville just got it's second White House | Black Market. Now we can look and see how many cities our size can say they have 2 of them. Note: that was just an example. Now it is also exiting to see more upscale retail because it puts us on par with other cities such as Nashville (green hills); and Indianapolis (Keystone).... It will take a while but its all coming together. So overall its not that big of a deal, but it is almost like it shows a cities status. Correct me if im wrong.

We should have 3 White House - Black Market stores soon, well, at least I hope. Their logo is shown in the flyer for Jeffersonville Towne Center. So WHEN they actually built it there will be 3.

About how many square feet is a typical Restoration Hardware?

By the way, I was told that the CURRENT spot for Louisville Stoneware IS their permanent location.

I have noticed that Sephora is doing some work (at least it looks that way) on the outside of their space. Hopefully they will have an outside facade similar to Pottery Barn Kids and Z Gallery.

read the downtown arena design guidlines...veery interestng
http://www.louisvilleky.gov/NR/rdonlyres/C35FCD97-98BC-43A3-A824-AB9D6CA103FD/0/arena_executive_summary.pdf

http://www.louisvilleky.gov/NR/rdonlyres/0DF9EF7C-85B5-4078-B38B-E0EAF

1242F2F/0/arena_final_report.pdf

Love to know what you like or dislike about this report ... of find "interesting."

Love to know what you like or dislike about this report ... of find "interesting."



huh?

Fourth Street Live is getting two new tenants to fill spaces left empty by the eviction of three nightclubs last month.

Angel's Rock Bar and Tengo Sed Cantina will go where Palm Bar and Parrot Beach were located on the second level of Fourth Street Live.

Another club called Red Cheetah, located on the first level, also was evicted by Fourth Street Live developer Cordish Co. All three evicted clubs were owned by New Jersey-based Headliners Entertainment Group, which filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last month.

Cordish previously announced that a new high-end nightclub called Hotel would fill Red Cheetah' spot. Hotel is a new concept of East Coast Saloons, which also created the concept for the national McFadden's Restaurant and Saloon chain.

The other new tenants, Angel's Rock Bar and Tengo Sed Cantina, are owned by FSL Entertainment LLC and operated by Jerry Watson.

Angel's Rock Bar will occupy about 7,000 square feet, and it will feature a stage for live music and a 20-foot video wall. Watson has a similar club concept called Rocbar in Houston, Texas.

Tengo Sed Cantina will occupy 5,000 square feet and will feature Mexican food and an outdoor deck overlooking Fourth Street.

All three new tenants are expected to open by May, in time for the Kentucky Derby. http://www.bizjournals.com/louisville/stories/2007/03/12/daily18.html?jst=b_ln_hl

Good news about 4th Street, It really helps put a young, vibrant face on Louisville and DT for Derby. For a while, the celebs coming to Derby were, for the most part, not young, and it set the event up as being more directed at older demographics. Luckily, with Louisville now offering a more club-oriented night-life, I think it can and is changing to appeal to a younger demographic, in addition to the more mateur folks.

Good news for UofL. The bio-medical center breaks ground next month.
http://cmsimg.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=B2&Date=20070313&Category=ZONE02&ArtNo=703140422&Ref=AR&Profile=1008&MaxW=500&title=1

Went to see Kiss Me Kate at Trinity and noticed the progress on the Eclipse Bank HQ. I didn't realize how much it would do for that intersection being wedged on that odd little lot. Its going to really help make the St Matthew central area seem more like a tiny DT; more significant than just a few shops lined on a busy road.
I went ahead and snapped some shots with my phone:

http://i111.photobucket.com/albums/n127/WeezerChips/031407_16301.jpg

http://i111.photobucket.com/albums/n127/WeezerChips/031407_16291.jpg

I love downtown St. Matthews.

well more good news for downtown, it just keeps coming. i have to say louisville is really impressing me. anyways i was reading business first today at work which has become a weekly ritual and i saw that a local partnership has bought the kentucky home life building. it was built in 1913 and is 19 floors. they plan on converting 17 floors into office condos and the top 2 floors will be 8 residential penthouse condos that will sell for around 500k. they plan to invest 10-12 million and said they bought it because they just "wanted to be part of the revitalization of downtown." ans they said they were impressed with downtown. they plan to restore all common areas to their original grandeur as well, plus lease 7,000 sf of ground level retail. the building is currently 65% leased to office tenants, mostly law firms, and these firms will be given first option to buy units. creative alliance is the biggest tenant on the first two floors.
what i thought was funny is that they mentioned that office units would start at 159k for 1,600 sf. now, i am not sure if that is for a shell space or what but compared to most residential units downtown thats a steal. most 1600 sf residential units downtown start at 300-400k. i would actually like to buy one of those office units for 159k and spend maybe 50k with private contractors to build the inside out to my tastes, i mean u could really do a lot with something like that. i may have to look into it. :banana:

that is really encouraging about the kentucky home life building development!!!

huh?

I think your quote was "veerry interesting" (or something like that). What do you find so interesting about it?

Todd Blue plans $50 million retail, office project on West Main Street
Business First of Louisville

In the early 1900s, the 100 block of West Main Street was home to distillers and wholesalers and earned the moniker Whiskey Row.

More than 100 years later, the block -- now mostly derelict -- is about to be redeveloped as a mixed-use project with retail and restaurant space, offices and a parking garage.

Local developer Todd Blue, president and CEO of Cobalt Ventures LLC, plans a $50 million development called Iron Quarter for the site, which is bounded by First, Main, Second and Washington streets.

Iron Quarter, which takes its name from the cast-iron building facades prevalent in the block, will include a 12- to 14-story office tower with 110,000 square feet; a 20,000-square-foot retail center featuring upscale boutique stores, restaurants, cafes and coffee shops; and a two-level, 500-space parking garage with access from First or Main streets. The office tower is being engineered for as many as 23 stories, if demand dictates, according to the developer.

Properties formerly owned by Jim Walters
Blue bought nine of the 13 buildings in the block in February from holding companies managed by developer and architect Jim Walters. He paid about $4.7 million for the properties, according to information on the Jefferson County Clerk's Web site.

For Blue, who has invested millions of dollars in developing commercial and residential properties in the East Main and East Market street corridors, Iron Quarter represents his biggest project to date.

The developer said he was prompted to take on the effort by the city's plans for a $450 million multipurpose arena and hotel on the waterfront at Second and Main streets. Blue is a member of the Louisville Arena Authority Inc., the entity overseeing development of the project.

"But for the arena, I would not be doing this project," he said.

Blue has no partners in the Iron Quarter venture but has tapped Walters' architectural firm, Bravura Corp., to handle design duties for the development.
Walters, who built the Waterfront Park Place residential condominium tower at Floyd and Witherspoon streets, began acquiring buildings in the West Main Street block in 1996. He considered several redevelopment scenarios for the site over the years but never brought one to fruition.

"It's a pivotal block, and it's well located," Walters said.

Blue seeks local, state support. Blue said he is working with several commercial lenders to arrange conventional financing for his project. He added that he also is in talks with local and state government officials for assistance.

He declined to be more specific on what form that assistance might take.

Details of Iron Quarter are expected to be released at a 10 a.m. news conference on Thursday, March 22. Louisville Metro Mayor Jerry Abramson and Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher are expected to attend.

In an e-mail response to Business First questions, Abramson said it is too early to know for certain whether Blue will need city or government incentives.

But Abramson said city officials will work with the developer to ensure that the project is built and successful.

Building facades to remain
If he is able to get city and state support, Blue said, he hopes to begin work on the Iron Quarter project in December.

Initial work would include demolition of the building interiors. The structures' facades would remain.

A contractor is expected to be chosen in a few weeks

Blue hopes to have Iron Quarter completed in spring 2010, several months before the city's new arena is slated to open.

Because of its proximity to the planned arena, Iron Quarter is considered a "sports-anchored" development, Blue said. Such projects are springing up across the country.

Blue described his project as "pedestrian-based" and "a portal" to other urban developments, including Fourth Street Live, Louisville Slugger Field and Waterfront Park. He also believes that Iron Quarter will complement the coming arena and Museum Plaza, the $380 million mixed-use development planned for Seventh Street and River Road.

"This is not just another building," Blue said. "This is a district. This is a new brand for this community."

Leases pending with unidentified companies
The developer said discussions are under way with several potential tenants, which he declined to identify.

Leases are pending, he said. Retailers are expected to be "lifestyle" oriented, offering high-end merchandise, such as clothing, jewelry, furniture, home decor, art and accessories.

Stores will front Main and Washington streets. There likely won't be anchor department stores, Blue said, and the development won't be dominated by bars and restaurants, although some are expected.

"We are going to bring stores that aren't currently in Louisville," he said. "There is (currently) no shopping downtown."

In his e-mail, Abramson said the coming project will be welcomed by residents of newly constructed lofts, condos and apartments in the city's core and surrounding neighborhoods. "Iron Quarter will bring much-needed retail shopping to downtown."

VERY EXCITING!!! I always thought this block is a lynch-pin between the eastern (residential) and western (commercial) parts to downtown. I expect this to be one hell of a development. This is wonderful!

This is absolutely great news!!!! I have been waiting for something to be announced at this site since the arena was approved. I am also glad to see Todd Blue at the helm. As for the office building, I really hope the demand is there for 22-23 stories not 12-14 but I am extremely excited to hear about this. Can't wait for Thursday.....

Amen. I think it is an ambitious and potentially-risky development, but good for Todd for giving it a go. It is, indeed, a critical block for many reasons.

If the building is tall enough it could fill in the gap nicely btw waterfront place and the rest of downtown.

I drove past there a few day's ago thinking that it looked pretty bad. Glad to see that block get a new lease on life!!

Thanks for posting those Murphy I tried but failed miserably!

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h29/bptm092475/bildeer.jpg
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h29/bptm092475/bilde-5.jpg

^^^^

that looks amazing

SO I DONT KNOW ANYBODY IN LOUISVILLE THAT ISNT WAITING FOR 2010.. SO MANY THINGS IN ALL PARTS OF LOUISVILLE SHOULD BE COMPLETED.

All I can say is wow.

that's whiskey row right?

Yup

so are they making the street smaller
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h29/bptm092475/bilde-5.jpg
or is this washington street in the back?

so are they making the street smaller
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h29/bptm092475/bilde-5.jpg
or is this washington street in the back?

Looks like washington st to me. That looks like a awful lot of infill there. :banana:

oh, i just read the article. how tall are the towers?

oh, i just read the article. how tall are the towers?

it says like 12-14 i think.. but then it says 23 stories. By 2010 we will most likely be able to support 23 stories or more, i would think.

:banana: :banana:
This is fantastic news!!! I walked that block on Washington and Main just a few weeks ago and this is totally primed for such a development....it looks like the ripple effect from the arena has BEGUN!!!! What great news for Louisville!!! Hopefully we can see this expansion continued!

i just happen to have some pics of this area

http://www.pbase.com/abdulsharif/image/30784948/original.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/abdulsharif/image/30784949.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/abdulsharif/image/30784950.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/abdulsharif/image/30784951.jpg

http://upload.pbase.com/image/34688374/original.jpg

Very nice rendering. You guys keep on getting cool projects!

Whoa.. The Iron Quarter..
I like that name. This development is VERY nice. Its great to see projects like this one, Zirmed Gateway, and Museum Plaza that show strength in the DT office market, and not just the DT residential sector. This is going to help keep the momentum rolling, even as residential developments may start slowing down.

Soulbrotha's pics of the current status of the block really show what a transition it is going to make once IronQuarter is finished.

Check out these two large renderings of the site from louisville.gov's website::

http://www.louisvilleky.gov/Mayor/News/2007/03-20-07-ironquarter.htm

Also, the guy who is doign this project, Todd Blue, has a company website:: check out this site:

http://www.cobaltventures.com/home.html

--If you look at the Riverfront properties part of the site....it seems that Blue has a plan to really connect East and west DT.....Just imagine another tower next to the ballpark!!!! that's something I am waiting for

http://www.louisvilleky.gov/NR/rdonlyres/859B93CE-FF1D-4B06-8EDE-E146806261F5/0/ironMainStreetlg.jpg

wow, thats outrages.

i was actually considering moving to Cincinnati a few years ago, now i don't think i'm going anywhere.

looks like they're keeping the old facades.

http://www.pbase.com/abdulsharif/image/30785496.jpg

Oh gosh! If you had moved to Cincy, I'd be very sad. I thrive on your photos. =]

This development is very nice. I'm really hoping the tower is at least 20 stories, but even if its 12, that will still do a lot because directly next to it will be the arena hotel. Its def going to help reach the skyline to Waterfront Park Place.

are they fetting rid of the humana building next to the bridge? because its not in the ironquarter rendering.

Yeah. That is the building that is being imploded for the arena. Its pretty ugly, so I say rip that sucker down.

Wow, that Iron Quarter rendering looks great. Very, very impressive.

This is an awesome project, I can't say how glad I am to see this block finally getting developed. I hope there is the demand for 23 stories, this will tie in Waterfront Park Place with the rest of downtown if you consider the tower that is being constructed along with the arena. Things keep getting better in downtown, maybe this is the boom we have been hoping for.

Where did you find the larger render?

http://www.louisvilleky.gov/Mayor/News/2007/03-20-07-ironquarter.htm


here is the rear...is that an apple store?
http://www.louisvilleky.gov/NR/rdonlyres/9661D78A-8C2C-4482-B564-A38D380642FF/0/ironWashStreetlg.jpg

maybe this is the boom we have been hoping for.

RiverPark Place
Museum Plaza
DT Arena / Hotel
Zirmed Towers
Fourth Street Live expansion
The Iron Quarter
New DT Bridge (with a nice, distinct design)
Big 4 Bridge


Those are all the major projects. Combine that with the tons of infill and small projects, I'd feel confident in calling it a boom. Maybe not compared to Chicago or Miami, but we are easily running with cities like Indy in terms of development..

i think in the year 2011 they should have the peagusus parade on main street and not broadway :) lol

I hope that by 2011, Broadway will have been improved to where it is just as urban and cool as Main street. As it stands, WAY too many surface lots.

soulbrotha---it looks like an apple store tome....aren't we getting one in the mall soon though???

I doubt they have a bunch of retail leases signed yet - stuff like that will all be announced later in the game.

wow, thats outrages.

i was actually considering moving to Cincinnati a few years ago, now i don't think i'm going anywhere.

well, i just moved here from cincy and let me tell u louisville is ahead of cincy in most every aspect of city development, from controlling sprawl, to restoring the riverfront, to rebuilding downtown. cincy has more of everything but it has more problems along with it. i mean, i never would have thought that before, but after a few months here i can say that with certainty. if louisville had an nfl team, its current rate of downtown development would remind me of nashville. of course nashville is quite ahead but louisville is taking all the right steps to be a big tourist draw like that. cincy is doing nice stuff but just seems kinda stagnant sometimes, and i have to say im still so bitter nky took much of our disney land type development. louisivlle was smart for building 4sl before indiana did. i mean, i hate fourth street and disney land type hokey stuff but ignorant tourists and suburbanites wont spend money in ur downtown unless you have stuff like that. plus, its good for people like me in my 20s to go have a martini on saturday if for only the women it brings.
well, i am a bit skeptical of this development. first, i really dont like to see any part of an old building torn down, even if they save the facade. also, i dont think 120,000 is a enough retail, and i wonder how it would do without a major anchor. if he is really planning on doing upscale (I know its just a pic but it looks like apple and puma in the pic), i think he needs a major anchor and really needs to shoot more for the 300,000 sf range, or maybe closer in size to the summit. also, is this site in close enough walking distance to most the major hotels? remember fat tourists and conventioneers and suburban people dont like to walk more than a block. i mean, louisville is doing such great things i am just going to start and demand the best. well still good news, that is really the only unsightly block left downtown, except of course some of that ugly surface parking :) i douubt we would see retail tenants signed for a couple years but i was wondering, what would u guys like to see and think would work? would u rather have local boutiques like some of those ones like clodhoppers and blink in the vogue center or would u rather have places like urban outfitters, lucky jeans, and chipotle? i think those are the types of midlevel lifestyle retail entities that dont exist in the area that would work there, but id like to see it closer to 4th street and the big hotels.
well i just made out another suggestion of a store from that big pic soulbrotha put up. the signage looks dead up like crate and barrel. i mean, i dont recall stores like this entering a new market with a downtown store, but i think those types of things would work anywhere bc i know i for one and some friends drive to indy to shop there. but notice crate and barrel didnt even open in downtown indy. well, am i reading too much into the renderings, bc it sure looks like that signage lol

^^
It is near enough to the other major hotels, I think, but most importantly, it is going to be right next to the arena, and what is on top of the arena? A new major hotel. I think that everyone is expecting the big retail to be near 4SL, so this guy is going to put in the sorts of stores that will get people looking around before and after games, and then small stores that will get people wandering in from Waterfront Park. He's probly not shooting for any sort of mall-type atmosphere with that amount of retail space.
I don't personally know what I'd like to see in the space though. On the one hand, its a great location for some retail to directly serve the new DT population, and a nice interior decorating store would be nice; an Apple store, things of that nature, but then if you want to serve more the convention and game crowd, I would say clothing and game stores maybe, but then I would say that I would rather see that sort of retail over in the 4SL development.
So basically, I have no idea what to think.

OK HERE IS WHAT I THINK COULD WORK/DREAM OF DOWNTOWN:

IF AN ANCHOR BECOMES POSSIBLE (Neiman Marcus)
- Aldo Accessories
- Anthropologie
- Arden B.
- A|X Armani Exchange
- Cole Hann
- Crate & Barrel/Restoration Hardwear
- Chipotle
- Disney Store
- Deisel
- Delia*s
- Fossil(possibly though not really upscale)
- MAC Cosmetics
- PUMA
- Tommy Bahama
- Urban Outfitters

& others.. i just cant think of all of them currently. I would also like to note that I think 4SL should also be the major key retail sector.

(you could throw in some other stores such as Banana Republic; The Gap; Abercrombie & Fitch, ect.. that are repeats and this could really work out well)

** i also wouldnt be surprised to see our next PF Changs or Cheesecake Factory downtown in the next 3 yrs...(nothing to write home about but still..lol)

I JUST REALIZED IN THE FIRST RENDERING IT APPEARS AS THOUGH IT SAYS CRATE & BARREL ON THE SIDE OF THE BUILDING IN RED & THE FRONT OF THE BUILDING(right side)

for some reason i'm dying for their to be a movie theater downtown. since broadway cinemas closed, i really think a movie theater would be nice somewhere in this area..

for some reason i'm dying for their to be a movie theater downtown. since broadway cinemas closed, i really think a movie theater would be nice somewhere in this area..

I wouldnt worry. I think a movie theatre will come soon enough. Probably in and around 4th street. Who knows though.

Don't read too much into the way the signs look. When renderings are drawn the developer will sometimes have them drawn to look like certain retailers. This peaks interest (as can be seen in this thread) and gets everyone excited. I hope all of these stores happen, but don't just assume it because some signs / facades look similar.

I think by the time this is built they will be going for the 20+ stories. Class A vacanies is already below 10%, which means it is time to build. There isn't a major office development outside of MP announced right now (I know about Zirmed, but most of that space is already taken and Zirmed will not be vacating Class A). That is 3-4 years out and we need more class A TODAY! By then I would think it will be REALLY tight.

It will be nice to have the Arena hotel at about 20 stories followed by this.


Now, another one of my lofty dreams.....The Humana Waterside Building is so boxy and blah. However, I think it can be saved and brought up to speed to fit is and really complement the skyline. I wish they would add something (I don't know what) to the outside to break up the boringness of the design. Then, add another 10-20 stories on top in a triangular design. So you would have this large sloping roof. It would be kind of neat and dress it up a lot and then you would have a continuous link when viewing from IN.

Right now it stops witht he LG&E building. It will be continued with the arena hotel (15-20 stoies), Iron Quarter (hopefully 23), CardTopper's Humana Waterside dream (20-30), and Waterfront Park Place (23), then the Blue's parking lot........(I am sure within 10 years there will be a LARGE tower there.)

By the way, I was just looking at Google Earth and noticed a few surface lots directly across Main from Iron Quarter. I am sure this will get developed soon as well.

I think this development, although a spin off of the arena project, will really serve the downtown residence much more that 4SL. To me, 4SL will always be the entertainment / visitor place for downtown. The Iron Quarter will dress up the eastern part of downtown, where a lot of residential development is happening. I don't view this a late night scene. To me, this part will be busy during the day and evening, with the night crowd still being on 4th Street.

BTW, any ex-Louisvillian that comes back to visit in 2010 will not recognize downtown. That is so exciting.

Iron mid-rise is cool. I like the design, the way they work with the curtain wall and framework and glass. This is going to be great to see at night.

Base building: I see two facade treatments shown for Washington Street. This is the make-or-break part or the design. I prefer the more "busy" treatment as it will activate the streetscape more. The less busy the more blocky and dead it will look.

Great proposal. Whiskey row has so much potential. BUT, did I read the article correctly, only 20,000 SF of commercial/retail space? If so, that isn't very much, at all. Considering the average Aldi Grocery Store is only 20,000 SF (I know this because the Town I work for has a proposal for an Aldi). I wouldn't count on too many retail shops if that is the size. Hopefully this will have great interest and the amount will be increased.

Great proposal. Whiskey row has so much potential. BUT, did I read the article correctly, only 20,000 SF of commercial/retail space? If so, that isn't very much, at all. Considering the average Aldi Grocery Store is only 20,000 SF (I know this because the Town I work for has a proposal for an Aldi). I wouldn't count on too many retail shops if that is the size. Hopefully this will have great interest and the amount will be increased.

I read that but I beleive they left out a 1(20,000) making it 120,000 sqft. I believe i saw the 120,000 in the business first or courier journal..idk which one.

120,000 sf is the correct number.

Great proposal. Whiskey row has so much potential. BUT, did I read the article correctly, only 20,000 SF of commercial/retail space? If so, that isn't very much, at all. Considering the average Aldi Grocery Store is only 20,000 SF (I know this because the Town I work for has a proposal for an Aldi). I wouldn't count on too many retail shops if that is the size. Hopefully this will have great interest and the amount will be increased.

well no, 120,000 sf is the actual amount of retail space included. thats a typo from the paper i guess lol. out of curiosity, how many sf is circle center in indy? i was thinking this develpment really needs 300,000 sf to give it all the mall type national retailers needed downtown. i think iron quarter will give lville some nice retail downtown but i think this retail is more geared towards residents in the east main/market loft district. well i think and hope that the major downtown retail development annoucnement is coming soon right by the marriott, and i think it is from what ive heard on these boards and what i read the mayor say.

A project doesn't need to have over 300,000 sf to attract tenants and make it a great retail strip. Take, for example, 730 N. Michigan Ave. in Chicago (don't ask how I stumbled upon this). It was developed in 1997, and contains 220,000 sf of retail, which includes American Girl Place, Banana Republic, CompUSA, Polo Ralph Lauren, Pottery Barn, and Tiffany & Co. Sure, there are many more stores in the area, but this center didn't need 150,000 of filler shops to make it what it is.

I got the following pictures of 730 N. Michigan from the website of its architect The Thomas J. Klutznick Company:

http://tjkcompany.com/tjkco/images/730lrg.jpg

http://tjkcompany.com/tjkco/images/730tif.jpg

http://tjkcompany.com/tjkco/images/730br.jpg

Bolenmeister::: why do you think that new retail development will be right by the Marriott????

hey this project should be really great for Butchertown and it seems to be going up this spring!!! here's the article::

Butchertown
Planning panel praises plan for condominiums

By Bill Pike
bpike@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal

Comments by the Louisville Metro Planning Commission were short and to the point during a recent review of a condominium project proposed in Butchertown.

"It's nice-looking," Rich Carlson said. "A welcome addition."



"It's exactly what Cornerstone 2020 is all about," chairman Sue Ernst said, referring to the metro development guide. "It's perfect reuse of a property."

Making a motion that the commission recommend its approval, Susan Hamilton praised the project because, among other reasons, it would provide a new type of housing in the area and would reuse historic buildings.

The commission then unanimously voted to recommend a zoning change the project needs. Sycamore Station LLC, led by David Buchart, wants to develop 25 condos on 1.1 acres at 129 N. Shelby St. and 800, 802 and 804 Franklin Street. The Louisville Metro Council will have final say.

Butchertown Neighborhood Association President Jim Segrest said the group gave the proposal "universal support." Segrest also noted the Historic Landmarks and Preservation Districts Commission gave Edison Park a Certificate of Appropriateness.

"It's not easy to satisfy landmarks and the neighborhood," Segrest said. Paul Whitty, a lawyer who represented the developers, said the project would blend in with the neighborhood.

The project, to be called Edison Park in honor of inventor Thomas Edison, who once lived nearby on Washington Street, would involve renovating four buildings and constructing three new ones.

Wesley House Community Services used the existing buildings and the playground behind them until it moved last year.

Proposed for renovation are:

Two late-19th century buildings facing Washington Street. Six condos are proposed in them.

A Queen Anne-style house immediately east of those building. It would have four condos.

A gym behind the buildings, which would house six loft-style condos.

New buildings would include a row of five townhouses facing Franklin Street and a row of four townhouses facing Shelby Street.

The third new building would be a four-car garage behind the row houses. Parking plans also include 14 underground garage spaces, 16 parking-lot spaces and 12 spaces on the streets.

Units would have from just under 1,000 to 2,200 square feet. Prices would be $195,000 to $475,000, Buchart said.

Edison Park condos would have rooftop gardens and balconies to make up for the lack of lawn space, as permitted by regulations approved last year. The project is the first proposed rezoning that seeks approval under the regulations, called traditional design alternatives.

The Butchertown Architectural Review Committee of the Landmarks Commission praised Edison Park's density and architecture for being "respectful" of Butchertown's historic character. The committee also applauded the project for not indulging in "false historicism."

The developers hope to begin construction this spring. The first units could be ready by fall and the project finished in about three years, Buchart said.

Reporter Bill Pike can be reached at (502) 582-4243.

Circle Centre is about 950,000sf. I will need to confirm, but I think the downtown Nordstrom is 120,000 itself.

Saving the facades of the buildings is a must! I really like the tower design too. Louisville is doing very well. Once the arena opens, I would expect even more development to pop up.

The website is up and running. Nothing really new but there is a neat map that shows IQ in relation to other attractions downtown.

http://ironquarter.com/

Ground broken on new hotels

Construction of two Marriott chain hotels, a 140-room Fairfield Inn and a 182-room SpringHill Suites, was marked with a ceremonial ground-breaking today at the site of the old Inn at Jewish Hospital.

An investment group headed by Steve Poe is developing the two hotels in the downtown block bounded by First, Brook, Jefferson and Liberty streets. The project cost has been reported to be more than $30 million.

The two hotels “will mean the city will be more attractive to convention business” and add to the momentum of recent downtown development that has inclued hundreds of housing units, Mayor Jerry Abramson said at the event.

Poe’s group, Louisville Jefferson Partners LLC, bought the 1.9-acre block for $8.25 million last year from a subsidiary of Jewish Hospital & St. Mary’s HealthCare.

Work started recently on renovating the old Inn at Jewish Hospital on the western half of the block along First as the six-story Fairfield Inn. The new nine-level SpringHill Suites is under construction on the eastern half.

Both hotels are expected to open in spring of 2008, officials said.

Poe’s partners in the venture include White Lodging Services Corp., a major Marriott franchisee that will operate both hotels; REI Investments of Indianapolis; and Louisville investors Clyde Ensor, Mike Ehrler and Nolen Allen. The same partners developed the 615-room Louisville Marriott Downtown that opened in 2005.

Bolenmeister::: why do you think that new retail development will be right by the Marriott????

well correct me if i am wrong but i recall someone posting an article about it. its a big surface lot known as the water company right behind the marriott. then i was watching metrotv one day (lol i guess someone watches it) and on there i saw the mayor say they are keeping the focus on downtown and that a major announcement would come for that area in the enxt year. with all the momentum downtown, i have to believe that is the site where they will construct the huge retail center. i think iron quarter is going for more of a historic upscale boutique feel, kind of like victorian square in lexington. however, i believe this project in louisville will have national instead of local retailers, bc i saw todd blue on the news and he said he was bringing retailers "new to louisville" that he would "annouce in the coming weeks to months." i mean, i think really all u need are stores like urban outiftters, bana republic, diesel jeans, and maybe some kind of trendy urban furniture store. maybe cb2 and crate and barrel? i think this development could get that stuff an d it could attract soccer moms from the suburbs to shop too. well i dunno, this guy seems to be sucessful but does he have any retail development experience? i think maybe he shoudl team up with simon or general growth to draw the big names. i think at the very least this is going to need a mini anhcor like crate and barrel. i think lville is hungry for nice retail but its a matter of convincing them to come in. i think they culd do a little smaller crate and barrel store here, maybe 25,000 square feet. i think espn zone would work very well too. then get a few smal boutiques to serve the downtown residents like i said, a small modern furniture store like fusion home on bardstown. urban outfitters is a natural fit. that would draw young peopl from all over the region, bc its not in the area that i have seen. u could even mix in a few successful local type retailers, but really, i think it needs to be more chain oriented and stores u cant find in the suburbs. this is the quote todd blue made on whas11.com--
“I think the Summit and other developments like that are terrific and they’re fabulous, but when they were announced, they promised to bring retailers they didn’t bring, and we got the same stuff. This development will bring retailers that aren’t currently in the marketplace that people are currently driving to Cincinnati and Indianapolis, flying to Chicago to do, so that Louisvillians can have… and everything’s gonna be great.”

good stuff

my sorry attempt at a rendering including IQ, Arena and MP....

http://i111.photobucket.com/albums/n127/WeezerChips/2010.jpg

good stuff

well im from cincy and i cant think of too many retailers we have that lvilel doesnt so i amnot so sure about blue's quote? i guess saks. i cant see them in downtown lville there is a huge issue in cincy since we had to pay them to stay lol. hmm i am thinking, theres a few stores at kenwood that lville doesnt have but i think most of them are coming to mall st matthews soon like apple. i mean cincy doesnt even have armani exchange lol its kinda pathetic. i didnt notice one in indy, but i do think indy has some nice shopping. i like nordstrom and H&M. i think those could maybe work in downtown lville.

my sorry attempt at a rendering including IQ, Arena and MP....

http://i111.photobucket.com/albums/n127/WeezerChips/2010.jpg

not bad

ok thanks Bolenmeister....i thought you might have been talking about the NEW hotels that Steve Poe is just starting on near Jewish Hospital, but I see what you mean about 4th street live and the water company block

Ewwezer:::: there was a rendering of the Louisville skyline that was a copy of the renderings on the MP Web site, but it had the arena and the Iron Quarter included also....anyway, I saw this new rendering on a local news channel, but haven't been able to fidn it on the internet.....it looked cool, but I was disappointed with the height of the arena hotel.....I would love to see that hotel be atleast 20 stories high and then the Iron Quarter office midrises go up to the 23 stories (as potentially suggested))

Another quick thought....are you all familiar with the Louisville developers who could have a major impact in downtown??
Todd Blue (Cobalt Ventures), Steve pOE (Poe Companies-*Mus pLAZA*), bILL wEYLAND (cITY PROPERTIES *ZIR-MED, HENRY CLAY*), these guys have made definite impacts in a big way....do you all know of anybody else who could do something like that????

Another quick thought....are you all familiar with the Louisville developers who could have a major impact in downtown??
Todd Blue (Cobalt Ventures), Steve pOE (Poe Companies-*Mus pLAZA*), bILL wEYLAND (cITY PROPERTIES *ZIR-MED, HENRY CLAY*), these guys have made definite impacts in a big way....do you all know of anybody else who could do something like that????

i dunno, but who is this guy todd blue? im loving his slicked hair and manhattan look lol. u guys should watch this video at www.fox.com. he seems pretty ballsy and convincing in his statements. well i have a question for you all, i was looking at a map of downtown louisvilel and it seems almost every block has a proposal, a rehab, or something under construction. its sort of hard to believe but i wondered if louisville has a history of proposing things it doesnt build? i mean tehre are so many planned condos and office and stuff i never realized a city this size would be so ballsy, its a change ive seen versus some other places ive lived lol. or was downtown just that laxking that it needs all these proposals to bring it up to par? i mean it seems so much for a city this size.

i dunno, but who is this guy todd blue? im loving his slicked hair and manhattan look lol. u guys should watch this video at www.fox.com. he seems pretty ballsy and convincing in his statements. well i have a question for you all, i was looking at a map of downtown louisvilel and it seems almost every block has a proposal, a rehab, or something under construction. its sort of hard to believe but i wondered if louisville has a history of proposing things it doesnt build? i mean tehre are so many planned condos and office and stuff i never realized a city this size would be so ballsy, its a change ive seen versus some other places ive lived lol. or was downtown just that laxking that it needs all these proposals to bring it up to par? i mean it seems so much for a city this size.

Todd blue is developing, besides the IQ, the Mercantile Gallery Lofts, he helped with Louisville Slugger Field, and his brother is involved with the Midlands. Oh, and he is doing the Hub condos soon also.

I think that Louisville does need those projects pretty much everywhere downtown b/c it was really not shaping up compared to other cities.....so it is basically catching up....I really think this ""boom"" needs to continue though.....i saw on metro t.v. the other day that bill weyland (developer of zir-med, henry clay restoration, glassworks, etc) that he ""wants to develop an urban neighborhood"" in the are around west market/west liberty.....so that is encouraging that more projects will come on line down there

Officials expect more downtown projects
Arena the catalyst for revitalization
http://cmsimg.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=B2&Date=20070323&Category=NEWS01&ArtNo=703230460&Ref=AR&Profile=1008&MaxW=500&title=1
Louisville Metro Council member David Tandy said projects like Iron Quarter, the arena and the Museum Plaza skyscraper indicate Louisville "is becoming a first-class city … a destination point." (By Sheldon Shafer, The Courier-Journal)

The $50 million Iron Quarter development on West Main Street will not be the last significant investment in downtown Louisville spurred by the planned $400 million arena complex, officials said yesterday.

The prediction came at a news conference at which plans were formally announced for developer Todd Blue's shopping and office project on the north side of Main between First and Second streets.

Most of the details of the project had been released earlier this week. The project will feature approximately 110,000 square feet of offices on the upper floors and 120,000 square feet of retail space, as many as 25 stores, on the first and second floors, along with 500 parking spaces, half of them underground.

Metro Mayor Jerry Abramson called Blue a "visionary" and said he expects more projects around the arena site to be announced in the next 12 to 18 months. The arena is to be built at Second and Main streets.

Both projects are expected to open in 2010.

Blue plans to save the facades of eight century-old storefronts along Main and incorporate them into a new steel and glass building that will be as much as 14 floors tall. The lower levels will be parking and stores, with offices on the upper levels.

Iron Quarter, a name that reflects Main Street's cast-iron building facades and the Blue family's scrap-metal business interests, will attract nationally known retailers to the Louisville market, Blue said.

The project, he said, will be a "lifestyle center" and all about "shopping, shopping, shopping." The project will open the first substantial new retailing space downtown since the ill-fated Galleria opened in 1983.

Blue said Iron Quarter will serve the growing number of people living, working and visiting downtown. The north side of the development along Washington Street will have shops and will function as a pedestrian walkway to the arena, officials said.

At the news conference at the University of Louisville Cressman Center for the Visual Arts at First and Main streets, Gov. Ernie Fletcher said his administration is working with the city and private sector to build a downtown environment conducive to development. He praised Blue for his Iron Quarter plans that he said "combine rich history with modern amenities."

Louisville Metro Council member David Tandy, a Democrat whose 4th council district includes downtown, said projects like the arena, Iron Quarter and the proposed Museum Plaza skyscraper indicate Louisville "is becoming a first-class city … a destination point."

He challenged other developers to follow Blue's lead and invest in downtown's improvement, adding "our best days are still ahead."

Reporter Sheldon S. Shafer can be reached at (502) 582-7089.
http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007703230460

Seems like there could be more things in the works, my uncle came into town over Christmas. While he was here I was telling him all about all the things goin on here, he told me it's a 180 degree turn from when he was my age (early 80's). Even from what I remember when I was younger, it has changed a lot, looks like Louisville has finally awaken from its nap. Todd Blue seems very serious about getting some new retail in here, which he will need if he wants Iron Quarter to be successful. From the way city officials are talking I wouldn't be surprised if there were some other big project(s) that they aren't letting the public know about.

Seems like there could be more things in the works, my uncle came into town over Christmas. While he was here I was telling him all about all the things goin on here, he told me it's a 180 degree turn from when he was my age (early 80's). Even from what I remember when I was younger, it has changed a lot, looks like Louisville has finally awaken from its nap. Todd Blue seems very serious about getting some new retail in here, which he will need if he wants Iron Quarter to be successful. From the way city officials are talking I wouldn't be surprised if there were some other big project(s) that they aren't letting the public know about.

well thats what it sounds like, i mean i was looking at buying a condo in the henry clay building and then i uncovered that they plan to build a hotel on chestnut strete? has this been announced or is this something i just missed? i cant hardly keep up with all this develpment news lol the link is right here
http://www.thehenryclay.com/hotel
well u noticed they mention parking lot but i wonder which one, i think there is two near there. i guess it will be fun to see what more they announce this yr for downtown. i was reading business first and todd blue mentioned something about seeing gallery place in dc which is near their arena and using it as a model for here, but then i looked at the tenants they have and wasnt too impressed, but they are
Gallery Place washington DC Now Open:
Ann Taylor Loft 202.628.1224
Aveda Institute 202.824.1624
BB&T 202.628.7440
Bed Bath & Beyond 202.628.0002
Benetton 202.393.4441
City Sports 202.544.6083
Clyde's 202.349.3700
Haagen Dazs 202.783.4711
Lucky Strike Lanes 202.347.1021
Regal Cinema 202.393.2121, 1800FANDANGO Code 1721
Sushi-Go-Round & Tapas 202.393.2825
Thai Chili 202.393.2905
Urban Outfitters 202.737.0259
Washington Sports Club 202.737.3555
Zengo 202.393.2929

Check out this businessfirst site about a partnership between UofL and the marine hospital in Portland....sounds like one step in the right direction for the neighborhood

http://louisville.bizjournals.com/louisville/stories/2007/03/26/story8.html?b=1174881600^1436452

this is sort of a random ?, but do u guys think the condos downtown are overpriced for louisville? i mean, some developements are charging over 300 dollars per square foot when you can by a home most any where in the city or suburbs for 100 per square foot. riverpark place charges a staggering 400-a square foot for many of its units. that means a 1000 sf unit is 400k. for example there are several very nice completely rehabbed houses in the lower highlands that sell for 200k. to get 1500 square feet downtown they are asking like twice that, i mean do you guys think this will hold up????

I do not think the prices will hold, but right now demand is greater than the supply once this levels out we should see more reasonable prices but still much higher than the suburbs the land just costs more.

Also if you get a chance head over to the courier sight and click on the pictures for Ali Center plaza the last two renderings really give you a feel for what it will look like when it is finished.

http://cmsimg.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?

^^ ^^
I definitely agree with Orangecard about those prices

I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned. Not downtown but we do need a venue of this size...

Fair Board wants to raze Cardinal Stadium, build amphitheater
The Associated Press

LOUISVILLE, Ky. --The State Fair Board wants lawmakers to approve a measure that would tear down decaying Cardinal Stadium and put a gleaming 12,000-seat amphitheater in its place.

The board will introduce the $41 million project to the General Assembly next year. Nearly half the money would go toward either replacing or relocating facilities currently housed in the stadium.

The amphitheater, which would be used mostly for concerts, is high on the board's priority list for next year. The board approved a six-year capital-improvement plan for the Expo Center and the Kentucky International Convention Center at a meeting last week.

The plan includes finding a new way to attract high-profile acts to the fair site. Though Cardinal Stadium has been through a lot in its 51 years, housing Louisville football and baseball teams, minor league baseball and major concerts, it is badly in need of repairs said Fair Board President Harold Workman.

Rather than renovate the stadium, the Fair Board would like to put in an amphitheater with 12,000 permanent seats while possibly providing addition seating on a berm. Workman estimated the amphitheater could cost as much as $20 million, with an additional $2 million needed to demolish the stadium.

The amphitheater has not been designed, and it wouldn't be open until 2010 at the earliest even if the General Assembly approves the funding next year.

Workman hopes the amphitheater would give the city a music venue that would be competitive with similar venues in Indianapolis and Cincinnati. Workman said concert promoters are passing over Louisville in favor of those cities because of the lack of a passable venue.

The Expo Center has undergone $107 million in renovation and expansion over the last four years, and the amphitheater is a logical next step, Workman said.

"We wouldn't ask for (the projects) if we didn't need them," he said.

State Rep. Joni Jenkins, D-Shively, said legislators "have been very supportive" of the Expo Center and know the reach and appeal of the Expo Center benefits more than just the area.

The Fair Board will submit its improvement plan to the state Commerce Cabinet in the governor's next biennial budget. Other items on the plan include money for maintenance work and additional parking spaces.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070329/NEWS01/703290460/1008

There some good potential buiness expansions going one with companies in riverport and a new ethanol plant

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070329/BUSINESS/70329033

Hey please let me know if all of my posts are getting annnoying.....I wanted to share this potential steel company investment in Louisville:::

http://louisville.bizjournals.com/louisville/stories/2007/03/26/daily25.html?jst=b_ln_hl

well those are great stories and all but the reason the midwest dies is that it lost all its industry, so i wouldnt really try hard to attract steel mills or cinnamon roll factrories. i would much rather see a small health science incubator attracted or even i dunno some sort of online company or hell even a distribution plant that came bc of UPS.

^^ ^^
I agree about evolving into those types of business sectors, but I would say that some of these companies are a result of UPS.....like cafepress::

"""CafePress.com is an online marketplace allowing users to create and sell T-shirts and other customized products. It plans to add 119 workers as its expands into space adjacent to its current Riverport facility."""
---I am not certain, but I wouldn't be surprised if that company located there b/c of its quick access to the airport and UPS, just like so many other companies have done.

Historic house facade to get new home

By Sheldon S. Shafer
sshafer@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal



The stone and brick façade of the historic Heigold House, which has inscriptions dating to the Civil War, is being moved from the riverfront to a spot on nearby Frankfort Avenue.

Edwards Moving & Rigging of Simpsonville has begun preparations to move the 70,000-pound structure that is 26 feet high and 35 feet wide. It probably will be moved next week to a temporary spot and then to a permanent site on Frankfort by early summer, officials said.

“Whenever you have a solid masonry structure with no supporting walls or roof to tie everything together, it’s different,” said company president Mark Edwards. “But we have moved structure similar to this, and we think we can do it without any problems.”

The two-story façade has stood for two generations off River Road near the Louisville Municipal Boat Harbor. The area where it stands now is being developed as the $200 million RiverPark Place housing project by the Poe Cos.

The Heigold façade is a riverside landmark and sits just west of another historic structure, the Paget House, which is intact and will be incorporated into RiverPark Place.

The Waterfront Development Corp., which oversees riverfront revitalization efforts, is using a $530,000 federal grant to move the Heigold façade and to widen about 300 feet of Frankfort Avenue south of River Road from two to four lanes. The façade will rest in the median of the new four-lane section of Frankfort adjacent to the Sea Ray of Louisville boat dealership.

The façade will serve as an entryway to the Butchertown neighborhood.

For more on this story, read tomorrow's Courier-Journal.

Reporter Sheldon S. Shafer can be reached at (502) 582-7089.

I like the idea of moving the facade to the middle of road, maybe make a bit of a park with it. Atleast they are keeping it intact and moving it where it will be enjoyed, I just hope they put something around it so nobody runs into it.

well, the development flurry continues lol, im not used to this coming from ohio but its like every week its something different. well this makes me wonder, does louisville have a historhy of proposing all kinds of stuff that never getrs bulit? well the news is business first today reported that KY native Eric. P Bachelor, who now lives in florida, is closing on the purchase of the Hilliard Lyons building downtown. the sale price was undiclosed, but it is opwned by PNC and has been for sale for around 10 million for the 8 story building built in 1907. the historic building once housed a major department store. bachelor plans a "upscale" 250 room embassy suites in the location and additonal retail and restuarants on the ground floor. He is calling it an "urban lifestyle center" and the mayor said it is being made to compliment one a few blocks away (I assume he means iron quarter). well, the article also mentions that cordish now owns some property nearby (I am not sure what) and will make an announcement later on this year about that area.
in short, most the building will be the hotel but 150k sf will be reserved for retail. The building may inlude an office/residential component but that isnt for sure yet. Bachelor said what is for sure is that plans for retail and the hotel in the building are "confirmed." The owners of embassy suites also own hilton and say they do not intend to compete with their own hotel, and they say that downtown can support the addition 1300 rooms that will be open by 2010.
well the developer is a shelbyville native who owns successful real estate and buildings all over the country, and he considers this a "homecoming." he said "I knew at some point louisivlle would blossom." "with the history of the buildings it has and the opportunity to redevelop downtown, it makes a wonderful place" for a development. they also mentioned parking problems to be addresses. whew, i had to summarize it bc the article is in print edition only, and i thought u guys would be interested!

That is sweet. You had to think, with all the activity around there, that this building wouldn't sit empty for long. This is great news.

Bolen, Louisville really doesnt have much of a history with hot-air-proposals. Perhaps the most notable would have to to be the Vencor tower. It was to go where either the Ali Center is, or where MP will be. The reason it was never built was because Vencor ended up going bust, I think. Its a shame, cause that tower was slick. Oh well, I think what we have instead is much better.

well, the development flurry continues lol, im not used to this coming from ohio but its like every week its something different. well this makes me wonder, does louisville have a historhy of proposing all kinds of stuff that never getrs bulit? well the news is business first today reported that KY native Eric. P Bachelor, who now lives in florida, is closing on the purchase of the Hilliard Lyons building downtown. the sale price was undiclosed, but it is opwned by PNC and has been for sale for around 10 million for the 8 story building built in 1907. the historic building once housed a major department store. bachelor plans a "upscale" 250 room embassy suites in the location and additonal retail and restuarants on the ground floor. He is calling it an "urban lifestyle center" and the mayor said it is being made to compliment one a few blocks away (I assume he means iron quarter). well, the article also mentions that cordish now owns some property nearby (I am not sure what) and will make an announcement later on this year about that area.
in short, most the building will be the hotel but 150k sf will be reserved for retail. The building may inlude an office/residential component but that isnt for sure yet. Bachelor said what is for sure is that plans for retail and the hotel in the building are "confirmed." The owners of embassy suites also own hilton and say they do not intend to compete with their own hotel, and they say that downtown can support the addition 1300 rooms that will be open by 2010.
well the developer is a shelbyville native who owns successful real estate and buildings all over the country, and he considers this a "homecoming." he said "I knew at some point louisivlle would blossom." "with the history of the buildings it has and the opportunity to redevelop downtown, it makes a wonderful place" for a development. they also mentioned parking problems to be addresses. whew, i had to summarize it bc the article is in print edition only, and i thought u guys would be interested!


I used to work in that building, there were always rumors that it was going to be a hotel. A lot of the basement still has the remains of an old deparment store, it's actually kinda scary. I think this will add nicely to a fast growing area...

That is great news!

What the hell is the deal with all the ************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************s?

yeah...these stars are weird

welllll, not that im trying to doubt or anything, but it seems like all these things are announced but not a lot of dirt has turned yet. i mean, out of the 10 or so major projects downtown can ppl give me start dates for construction? i saw that river park finally started that looks like ibe cool.

What the hell is the deal with all the ************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************s?

Now, they're gone from Louisville but have moved on to Lexington. Whatev.

welllll, not that im trying to doubt or anything, but it seems like all these things are announced but not a lot of dirt has turned yet. i mean, out of the 10 or so major projects downtown can ppl give me start dates for construction? i saw that river park finally started that looks like ibe cool.

I don't know what you want. It takes time to see progress. That doesn't mean progress isn't happening.

River Park Place has started, like you said.

Fleur de lis is underway

The Condo building at Campbell and Main has been excavated.

The rehab of teh Main St. facades for MP has happened.

The Henry Clay is finishing up.

The Arena is in design...and moving the Substation at 3rd and River Rd. has just bid and is scheduled to be completed by Oct.

The addition to Waterfront Park Place has started (putting piling in the ground).

Phase III of Waterfront Park is well underway, with the BigFour soon to be a pedestrian bridge.

ZirMed, I'm sure is under design, especially since it appears they have financing, as that sign is already up.

The Byck's Lofts are certainly under renovation.

I can't think of anything else off the top of my head. To me, that is a hell of a lot announced and started on. What else are we missing?

A Florida businessman plans to buy the Hilliard Lyons Center at 501 S. Fourth St. and turn it into a hotel with 250 suites.

Eric Bachelor, a former franchisee with Outback Steakhouse, expects to close on the seven-story property by the end of June, said David Mayo, the real estate broker representing Bachelor in the transaction.

Mayo said construction on the new hotel — an Embassy Suites — will begin soon after closing and last about a year. The estimated cost of the project including the property is between $30 million and $34 million, he said.

The current owners, PNC Financial Services Group, were asking $9.95 million for the 97-year-old building, which is mostly vacant. Mayo did not disclose the purchase price, but he said it will be less than the asking price.

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070402/BUSINESS/70402034

as noted before...

Fourth St. landmark may become a hotel
By Alex Davis
The Courier-Journal



A Florida businessman who grew up in Eminence, Ky., plans to buy the Hilliard Lyons Center at 501 S. Fourth St. and turn it into a 250-room hotel.

In an interview yesterday, Eric Bachelor said he expects to close on the seven-story property by the end of June for around $10 million. He predicted it will take about a year to turn the building into an Embassy Suites, after an estimated $15 million to $30 million is spent on renovations. A fitness center, offices and retail also are being considered as part of the project.

For much of its life, the century-old building was a department store run by The Stewart Dry Goods Co. The current owner is PNC Financial Services Group.

Two architectural firms -- Cox Allen and Design Plus -- are working with Bachelor on the renovation. John Warmack, a principal with Design Plus, said the building's historical character will be preserved as much as possible during construction.

City officials have been in talks with Bachelor for a couple of months and will continue to assist with issues such as parking, said Chris Poynter, a spokesman for Metro Mayor Jerry Abramson.

Bachelor now lives in suburban Fort Lauderdale. He was a standout basketball player at Eminence in the late 1960s, and was named to the Courier-Journal & Louisville Times' third-team all-state basketball squad in 1970. He went on to play guard at Marshall University in Huntington, W. Va., and later became a franchisee with Outback Steakhouse.

Bachelor said yesterday that many details of the Hilliard Lyons Center project have not been finalized. He was drawn to the property by its size -- 340,754 square feet of rentable space -- and location near the 4th Street Live entertainment complex.

"It's on a corner that you can't repeat, and it's a building that has been maintained unbelievably," he said.

Bachelor said he's leaning toward selecting Hilton to manage the property. Hilton also has its flag across the street at The Seelbach, a hotel with more than 320 rooms and suites owned by a private equity firm. Jon McFarland, general manager at The Seelbach, said he expects the Embassy Suites to have a short-term negative impact on occupancy rates at downtown hotels, but he said the two properties could benefit from a common reservation system and other shared services. Bachelor estimated that rates at his hotel would be about $135 a night, with complimentary breakfast and free afternoon cocktails.

Mark Blankenbaker, who works downtown near the Hilliard Lyons Center, said yesterday that the planned hotel would be "a nice addition to an evolving downtown."

"An Embassy Suites in the city center only makes us a more desirable destination to visitors," Blankenbaker, 25, said in an e-mail.

Other hotels in the works for downtown include a Westin at the planned Museum Plaza, two Marriott affiliates at the site of the old Inn at Jewish Hospital, and a one linked to the planned arena complex at Second and Main streets. Also, the Ramada Inn in Jeffersonville, Ind., is being refurbished and will reopen early next year as a Sheraton.

I don't know what you want. It takes time to see progress. That doesn't mean progress isn't happening.

River Park Place has started, like you said.

Fleur de lis is underway

The Condo building at Campbell and Main has been excavated.

The rehab of teh Main St. facades for MP has happened.

The Henry Clay is finishing up.

The Arena is in design...and moving the Substation at 3rd and River Rd. has just bid and is scheduled to be completed by Oct.

The addition to Waterfront Park Place has started (putting piling in the ground).

Phase III of Waterfront Park is well underway, with the BigFour soon to be a pedestrian bridge.

ZirMed, I'm sure is under design, especially since it appears they have financing, as that sign is already up.

The Byck's Lofts are certainly under renovation.

I can't think of anything else off the top of my head. To me, that is a hell of a lot announced and started on. What else are we missing?

lol dont get me wrong, im not a doubter, but where i come from stuff gets announced and never built. so well please excuse my skepticism. i am very impressed with all the stuff announced for especially downtown, i just hope it all gets built, and that it gets built on time. for example, i had to go all the way out to the summit today to shop and then coming home it took over an hour bc there was a wreck on 71, i mean it would be much nicer to have that shopping downtown. if things keep going as they have been there will be another major announcement for downtown soon, it seems one comes about every other week for a 20 million plus project. i think after all teh announced stuff is built the next step is to start fillinbg in some of that surface parking, it gives downtown an empty feel with the wide avenues onthe east and west ends of downtown and especially there by 2nd street. just my two cents, but lemme say louisville impresses me everyday with all the devlopment i see.

That's cool bolemeister.....it is kind of hard to not want eveything to happen really fast....it sucks to have to wait

7-home, elevated development planned for U.S. 42

Planning officials say they've never seen a local subdivision like this

By Bill Pike
bpike@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal



Planning officials say they've never seen a local subdivision like the one Panacea development proposes off U.S. 42, just north of Interstate 71.

Panacea wants to build seven large homes on a site so steep and otherwise constrained that everything to be constructed -- houses, driveways and a road -- would be elevated on piers.

The 4.1-acre wooded site at 6411 U.S. 42 has slopes as steep as 60 percent. Goose Creek flows through a corner of the site, some of which is in the 100-year flood plain. No construction would be in the floodplain, but some would be above it.

The constraints make the proposal "a first," said Brian Davis, a planner with Louisville Metro Planning & Design Services who is monitoring Panacea's application.

"An ordinary subdivision couldn't go on that site," Davis said. "I've never seen anything developed like this."

The land-use committee of the Louisville Metro Planning Commission recently approved a six-month extension of an earlier approval of Panacea's proposal. Panacea, led by Concessa Ford, claims the unique design required engineers to spend extra time surveying the site, analyzing its soil and identifying trees to be preserved.

The approval would have lapsed on April 13. The extension gives Panacea until Oct. 13 to get development under way.

David Johnson, an engineer with the Metropolitan Sewer District who reviewed the subdivision's drainage plans, said the proposed subdivision is unique. "You see projects like this in the mountains in North Carolina, but not here," Johnson said.

Meme Runyon -- executive director of River Fields, a conservation organization -- said the project could set "a dangerous precedent" by allowing construction in other areas on steep slopes in the flood plain.

In 2005, the Louisville Metro Board of Zoning Adjustment approved variances and waivers the subdivision needed, mostly because of environmental constraints. To be called Terrace Place, the subdivision did not need a zoning or form-district change.

No one spoke against the proposal during the land-use committee's review of Panacea's request for an extension. Jill Mueller, who lives on Woodstone Way, asked that construction workers not disturb a nature preserve that borders the site.

Jim Ward, who is helping design the subdivision, told the committee that fencing to be erected during construction would protect the 26-acre preserve, which is part of Woodstone subdivision.

In an interview later, Ward said the piers would answer what he called the big question about Terrace Place: "How can we protect the hill and allow people to live there?"

Houses would have three floors, prices of $1 million to $1.2 million and decks at tree level. Their architecture would be minimalist, Ward said.

Each house will be situated to protect the natural features of its lot, including trees. Practically no grading will be needed, Ward said. "We don't want to move an earthworm if we don't have to," he said.

Driveways and the road providing access to U.S. 42 will be constructed of pre-cast concrete slabs with heating tubes inside to melt snow and ice.

Ward said some of the inspiration for Terrace Place came from Fallingwater, a Pennsylvania home over a waterfall that Frank Lloyd Wright designed in 1935. Fallingwater dramatized how a house can be integrated into its natural setting.

But following Wright's famous example isn't easy. Ward said he attempted four subdivisions similar to Terrace Place, but none worked out for various reasons. Those proposals were in Colorado; Florida; Edwardsville, Ind.; and Pippa Passes, Ky.

"But this time we've got it," Ward said. "This time we're going to do it."

At least we are heading in the right direction. I would like to see more substantial growth though.

Louisville population grew 5 percent from 2000 to 2006
Business First of Louisville - 8:24 AM EDT Friday, April 6, 2007
The Louisville-Jefferson County metro area added 59,800 residents from April 1, 2000, to July 1, 2006, the 57th largest numerical gain of the nation's 361 metro areas, according to population estimates released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The population grew to 1.22 million in 2006 from 1.16 million in 2000.

Atlanta experienced the greatest population growth, 21 percent, over the six-year period.

Louisville was the 42nd most populous metro area in the nation based on July 1, 2006, population estimates.

Expectedly, New York City was the most populous metro area, with 18.8 million people, followed by Los Angeles (13 million) and Chicago (9.5 million).

Louisville's growth is doing fine....

Luckily Jefferson County is not experiencing the mass exodus found in some urban counties such as Cincinnati's Hamilton. This only makes further urban improvements more difficult in those areas.

Then there's the whole 'why aren't we growing like Indy or Nashville?' argument. My response.......who cares?

I'll take quality over quantity. Despite those cities having much higher growth rates, Louisville's current line up of urban projects is doing just fine when compared to it's neighboring cities. Why? Because downtown Louisville doesn't have a Franklin or a Carmel to compete against. There's also no doubt that St. Louis' Clifton area has had a huge impact on development in the downtown area.

And I will point something else out. This growth is occurring without pro sports and without new upscale retail. Something which many people (including those in Louisville) have noted as a reason Louisville should be considered more of a second tier city.

You mean to tell me a city can reinvent itself without copying what everyone else has already done? shocking!

Given all of the transformations that are currently underway in Louisville, I'll take the 5% growth with a big fat :)

The growth news doesn't bother me for a couple reasons. One, it is positive for all counties. Two, these are just estimates. We won't really know what kind of growth we have seen for a few years. Three, I do not believe in massive growth. Sure, if Louisville had Las Vegas' growth I might be on here beating my chest about how great we are. But, I firmly believe that kind of growth dilutes the existing character of the area, and impedes the quality of life by straining the infrastructure. Furthermore, that kind of growth is usually predominantly suburban. While strong suburban growth isn't always a bad thing, as it adds more people to the area, it isn't the best way to grow. Anyway, as long as Louisville moves forward, and continues at it's development pace, the census estimates do not bother me.

At least we are heading in the right direction. I would like to see more substantial growth though.

Louisville population grew 5 percent from 2000 to 2006
Business First of Louisville - 8:24 AM EDT Friday, April 6, 2007
The Louisville-Jefferson County metro area added 59,800 residents from April 1, 2000, to July 1, 2006, the 57th largest numerical gain of the nation's 361 metro areas, according to population estimates released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The population grew to 1.22 million in 2006 from 1.16 million in 2000.

Atlanta experienced the greatest population growth, 21 percent, over the six-year period.

Louisville was the 42nd most populous metro area in the nation based on July 1, 2006, population estimates.

Expectedly, New York City was the most populous metro area, with 18.8 million people, followed by Los Angeles (13 million) and Chicago (9.5 million).


qell whats the growth of these other cities, i mean is louisville really growing slower than cincinnati, that would shock me! well, what are indianpolis and nashville growth rates? i agree, i have been to indy and i really didnt like it that much, i actually had a job offer there and declined it, lately i have been thinking the perfect city for me is austin but i have come to like louisville since moving here and it is really starting to impress me, im surprised its only growing at that rate. i noticed the census has their main office here, maybe it is more accurate for louisville bc of that and maybe overestimates some other areas? i dunno the most annoying thing about louisville is that many ppl here dont seem that confident in it ye t (i am talking like people i work with). I work downtown and asked people some stores they would want to see in that new iron quarter and i mentioned tiffany and urban outfitters and crate and barrel and they said they didnt think lville could support those stores.

^^^ MSA estimates for 2006

Indianapolis 1,525,104 1,666,032 9.2%
Louisville 1,162,409 1,222,216 5.1%
Cincinnati 2,009,673 2,104,218 4.7%
Nashville 1,311,789 1,455,097 10.9%

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/census/2007-04-04-metro-area-table_N.htm

Reposting figures here for ease of reference. As you can see, Louisville is actually growing faster than Cincinnati.

Midwest Metros Over 1 million:
Indianapolis: 9.2%
Kansas City: 7.1%
Columbus: 7.0%
Minneapolis: 6.9%
Cincinnati: 4.7%
Chicago: 4.5% (huge in absolute number terms though)
St. Louis: 3.6%
Milwaukee: 0.6%
Detroit: 0.4%
Cleveland: (1.6%)

Here's how some similar sized metros in other regions did:

South:
Raleigh: 24.8%
Orlando: 20.7%
Charlotte: 19.0%
Jacksonville: 13.8%
Nashville: 10.9%
Memphis: 5.8%
Louisville: 5.1%
Birmingham: 4.3%
New Orleans: (22.2%)

West:
Las Vegas: 29.2%
Austin: 21.1%
Sacramento: 15.0%
San Antonio: 13.5%
Portland: 10.9%
Denver: 10.5%
Salt Lake City: 10.2%
Oklahoma City: 7.0%

Other:
Hartford: 3.5%

Well, a few of my random thoughts on this.

Firstly, there is no doubt that if Louisville were a growth leader, everyone on on this board would be touting it, so let's not dismiss these figures. Still, Louisville's growth trajectory is on an up trend, which is certainly positive news. There are a lot of good things going on as well, including the fantastic Museum Plaza.

Louisville to me as always been a sort of place on the border. It's on the border of the Midwest and the South. It's on the border of being a Cincy class city vs. a Dayton class city. It's one of those places that could just end up going either way depending on how you look at it.

I personally don't believe size matters all that much in being a great or even world class city. I believe Geneva, Switzerland is much smaller than Louisville, for example. Many smaller European cities are nevertheless widely admired by the world. My thought is that Louisville should aspire to be a Geneva not a Paris. Be the best at what it is without concerning too much about what it isn't.

I predict that the city of Louisville has about 10-15 year window of having its day in the sun in terms of regional dominance. It needs to make the most of that to both complete key initiatives like the City of Parks, and also to build better relationships with its suburban areas. What do I mean by this? Well, as someone noted, Louisville doesn't have a Carmel to compete with. But you can believe that won't be the case forever. Indianapolis provides a roadmap for what Louisville can expect. City-county merger made Indy the dominant force - until it filled up its home county and growth kept going outside the boundaries. Louisville can expect the same. In a sense, merger happened in Louisville just when it ceased to matter. It won't be long before all the residents of Jefferson County are central city dwellers, just like the erstwhile Marion County suburbs of Indy, which are now facing their own take on urban ills.

When places like Oldham County really start coming into their own, that's when the city of Louisville is going to have a problem on its hands. As I say, I think that day is about 10-15 years out.

Louisville has an interesting situation where it is surrounded by mostly rural nothingness. I'm talking about places like Crawford County, Indiana. This means it must rely on the core for population. But it also creates a huge jobs draw into Louisville. It doesn't surprise me that Louisville is a national leader in exurban commuting. This is a potential base on which Louisville could build extensive connections fairly far out into its commuter shed. It wouldn't surprise me to see several more counties added to the Louisville MSA in the next Census because of this.

If you walk on the bike/running path along the river just west of Downtown (goes along rail road tracks) you will see what a great opportunity there is for an awesome extension of waterfront park.....whcih surely would lead to more revitalization efforts in west louisville.

It's possible that the census has undercounted Louisville's metro. For instance the Nashville figures given above are already known to have omitted the 35K Davidson residents that were revised up in January of this year. As Nashvillians found out in 2000, the midcensus numbers were 40-50 thousand less than the actual (official) count ultimately showed. Maybe Louisville is similar to Nashville, which is notoriously slack in keeping up between decennial counts.

Louisville's combined major projects are starting to add up to a pretty impressive and international-looking list.


Museum Plaza

703ft/61 floors
Residential, Office/Retail, Westin Hotel, Contemporary Art Museum
COMPLETE: 2010


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v67/ver2go/mp1.jpg

http://www.auralab.com/galerie01/OMA-L02.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/abdulsharif/image/73581439/original.jpg



RiverPark Place

PHASE ONE:Two towers/16 floors
Residential, Marina
COMPLETE: 2010


http://i.pbase.com/o4/14/344614/1/60771485.riverpark9.JPG

http://i.pbase.com/o4/14/344614/1/60771483.riverpark7.JPG

http://i.pbase.com/o4/14/344614/1/60771484.riverpark8.JPG


MASTER PLAN
http://www.pbase.com/abdulsharif/image/62397227/original.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/abdulsharif/image/62397228/original.jpg



Downtown Bridge

center tower- 210ft
COMPLETE: 2020


http://www.ctsgec.com/FinalBridgeTypes/Downtown/01.jpg

http://www.ctsgec.com/FinalBridgeTypes/Downtown/11.jpg

http://www.ctsgec.com/images/user/DowntownModel-7ius5.jpg



Downtown Arena

Will house the University of Louisville men's and women's basketball teams
Arena, Hotel, Retail
COMPLETE: 2010


http://governor.ky.gov/NR/rdonlyres/B9B1E98D-FE25-458F-A995-CCD4DE081953/0/louisvillearena_boards_16.jpg



Iron Quarter

12-20+ (floor/height undetermined)
Office, Retail
COMPLETE: 2010


http://www.louisvilleky.gov/NR/rdonlyres/859B93CE-FF1D-4B06-8EDE-E146806261F5/0/ironMainStreetlg.jpg

http://www.louisvilleky.gov/NR/rdonlyres/9661D78A-8C2C-4482-B564-A38D380642FF/0/ironWashStreetlg.jpg



Zirmed Gateway Towers

12 and 10 floors
Office, Retail
COMPLETE: 2008


http://cmsimg.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=B2&Date=20070215&Category=NEWS01&ArtNo=702150453&Ref=V2&Profile=1008&MaxW=500&title=1






LOUISVILLE 2010


http://governor.ky.gov/NR/rdonlyres/D7DDE69E-5FBF-46B3-AD71-1ECA1764DCB1/0/Skyline_wArena.jpg

Holy crap. Northern Kentucky is pumping things up. Take a look at this video:

http://www.gbbn.com/Markets/Housing/Newport_Housing_Site_Redevelopment/

That site has several projects going on in Covington, Newport, and Bellevue that are wildly urban and high-quality. Kentucky's seeing some seriously bright light at the end of the tunnel.

Blooming blocks on Main

By Marcus Green
magreen@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal



Years of neglect are obvious along this historic part of Louisville's Main Street -- faded ironwork facades, boarded-up windows, crumbling buildings.

But with a multipurpose arena and a $50 million retail and office complex planned nearby, some suggest the stage is set for a larger revitalization of the stretch of Main once home to the city's bustling whiskey businesses.



It is an area between Louisville Slugger Field and the proposed arena where, in recent years, private investment has crept west from the baseball park but largely avoided the blocks just east of the Clark Memorial Bridge at Second Street.

"It's the last frontier of Main Street" in downtown, said Aaron Mueller, whose Beta Brothers partnership renovated the Belknap Garage, across the street from businessman Todd Blue's "Iron Quarter" project, as a site where a retail and restaurant project is planned.

City officials call Iron Quarter a "sports-anchored" development -- a project launched as a result of the $450 million arena complex at Second and Main streets. Mayor Jerry Abramson expects additional investment because of the arena, which is scheduled to be completed in 2010.

The model, Abramson said, is the trend that has occurred near Louisville Slugger Field with projects such as the $27 million Fleur-de-lis and $12 million Preston Pointe condominium buildings.

"You eat an elephant one bite at a time. And so we're coming at it from both sides -- from Preston Street going west and from Second Street going east," Abramson said.

In announcing his project last month, Blue challenged other property owners.

"I encourage you to do what we've done and step up and develop your properties, because it's an exciting opportunity in downtown Louisville," he said.

Already, there are signs of what the future may hold.

Two buildings considered prime for new development -- the seven-story former Arctic Ice building and an adjacent five-story former warehouse on the north side of Main -- are for sale. The Arctic Ice building is under contract, according to the Walter Wagner Jr. Co., which is marketing the properties.

"We feel that developers are very interested in that area of Main Street for condos, lofts and … future retail," Wagner's office said in a statement.

Meanwhile, entrepreneurs are paying a premium for property in the area.

Last summer, the investors behind the popular Highlands bars Flanagan's Ale House and O'Shea's paid more than four times the assessed value of a building on the same block as Blue's project. They plan to open an upscale pub there within the next year.

Iron Quarter is billed as a high-end project: 110,000 square feet will house boutique shops, cafes, a coffee shop and an ice cream parlor. The historic facades will be incorporated into a design that includes a 12- to 14-story glass and steel structure. Blue has said the name reflects Main Street's traditional cast-iron storefronts and also that the Blue family made its fortune in the metals and scrap industry.

Ben Ruiz, an advertising executive who works on Main, said he welcomes the project.

"Now we'll have this convenient location with a bunch of shops and a bunch of other retail establishments in there," Ruiz said. "It's going to revitalize everything."

But those developments would contrast with established light commercial, wholesaling and other businesses along Main. In interviews, officials with several companies said they don't intend to move.

Jack Guthrie, president of Louisville's Main Street Association, said existing companies and new development can co-exist, but he expects businesses to get handsome offers to sell out as real estate prices rise.

Calvin H. Marcus Jr.'s family has owned the Marcus Paint Co. since 1853. Marcus said the company uses a Main Street building to store raw materials for making paint and has no plans to move its operations.

But, he said, "I figure our property will be in demand."

Progress Paint Manufacturing Co. moved to a factory on East Market Street from its plant near Ninth and Main streets in the late 1990s. Noel Booker, the company's president, said Progress has received "a handful of calls" about its property, which runs from Market to Main along Brook Street, but he said it would be difficult to move.

Since a task force announced that the arena, which will serve as the home of University of Louisville basketball teams, would be built on Main near the Clark Memorial Bridge, Burwell Marshall III has been in talks with four groups interested in properties he owns.

Marshall has seven parcels of land on Main Street, including the buildings housing Zena's Café and the Big City Styles barbershop, across from the Iron Quarter site.

"These people are looking at everything I own and trying to decide what to do," Marshall said.

Steve Schoch's family sold a building that had housed the Schoch Heating Supply Co. at 123 W. Main to a group headed by Tom and Michael O'Shea and David Zimmerman, the owners of O'Shea's and Flanagan's on Baxter Avenue. The property had been assessed at about $136,000 in 2004 and sold for $600,000.

"The arena did enhance the value of our property," Schoch said.

Plans call for a pub off Main and banquet rooms on the second floor, said Bruce Jarrett, a co-owner of Brendan's, the investors' St. Matthews bar. Future uses may include a sports bar accessible from Washington Street, which is envisioned by Blue as a promenade leading to the arena.

The group had been looking at the Main Street location before the arena debate escalated in 2005, Tom O'Shea said.

"The arena definitely helped put us over the edge, though," he said. "There's no doubt about that."

The changes occurring on East Main mirror what happened on West Main starting in the 1970s, as developers found new uses for buildings in an old mercantile district.

Blue said he hopes the neighborhood around Iron Quarter continues to be diverse, with retail, light commercial, sports and entertainment facilities and office space.

"That's exactly what creates a neighborhood," Blue said. "That is what makes it exciting and urban and different."

Reporter Marcus Green can be reached at (502) 582-4675.

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/misc?url=/misc/zoom.pbs&Site=B2&Date=20070409&Category=NEWS01&ArtNo=704090411&Ref=AR

http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h147/JTUofL/development.jpg

I personally don't believe size matters all that much in being a great or even world class city. I believe Geneva, Switzerland is much smaller than Louisville, for example. Many smaller European cities are nevertheless widely admired by the world. My thought is that Louisville should aspire to be a Geneva not a Paris. Be the best at what it is without concerning too much about what it isn't.

Excellent post....a healthy provincialism. The comparison with Swiss cities (German and Italian ones would work as well) is really how Louisvillians should approach urbanity, and I think this might be what is going on, unconciously.

The problem is that most people are more concerned with being more like Indianapolis (more upscale shopping downtown) or Nashville (pro sports franchises). A VERY narrow viewpoint of the world. While there is nothing wrong with the way these cities have developed their downtowns, there are countless other ways the same thing can be done. The key is to understand your own key strengths as a city and capitalize on that.

I agree that Louisville should look far and wide to draw inspiration for it's future projects. Would Museum Plaza even exist today if the developers did not travel outside the states to learn of similar installations in Europe and elsewhere? Probably not.

Why?

Because most American cities (especially Louisville's size) wouldn't even give something like this serious consideration. There simply wouldn't be the interest in it.

I hate to admit it, but I was definitely thinking Louisville should aspire to be something it cannot be like (example: Boston, San Fran, even Chicago). After reading what you all said about being content with Louisville's good point.....and then develooping those points....I think it is a good bet to try to figure out what is so unique about Louisville and then accentuate those finer points.. Let me know what you all think those are....

What's great/unique about Louisville?

Firstly the neighborhoods. Lots of great, distinctive neighborhoods.

Second, the parks system is excellent.

Third, is the river.

Fourth, it's unique position straddling the north and south.

Fifth, the schools are decent by comparison with other urban locales.

Sixth, lots of tiny cities. How could this be turned to Louisville's advantage?

Seventh, bi-state metro. Again, a weakness currently, but how to turn it strength?

The things that seem to handicap us can in fact pave the way building great assets. Much like a lot of what we consider awesome ethnic cuisine started out as peasant food.

Consider the example of Central Indiana. Central Indiana is flat as a pancake. They like to moan about how they don't have mountains or a river or whatever. But consider another place that is flat as a pancake and below sea level to boot: the Netherlands. They turned flat land into an asset by becoming the most bicycle friendly society in the world. And they turned the needed drainage systems into cool canals and windmills. It's easy to look in retrospect and say that those things were obvious, but they were probably far from obvious at the time.

I'll admit I haven't thought through what Louisville might look like if it decided to go a different route. If it were obvious, it probably wouldn't be worth doing. But becoming something more like a southern city a la Richmond, Charleston, or Savannah might be a better route than trying to copy every other slow growth Midwest competitor.

I'm not anti-development. I think that Museum Plaza is just stunning, for example. But a city like Louisville is outgunned versus competitors in terms of population and corporate/financial resources. Plus with its difficult relationship with the state of Kentucky, this makes it difficult to say the least to play in the stadium, convention, etc. game where in each new round it costs hundreds of millions just to call.

Just a few initial off the cuff thoughts.

I think that some of the things Louisville is doing right now are exactly what needs to happen in order for it to be a unique city with its own version of growth. Museum Plaza is nothing like what other cities have done or are doing. Its unique to Louisville and helps to build on one of Louisville's great strengths: Art
The same goes for RPP, I think. It is accentuating Waterfront Park and the asset that it grew from: the Ohio River

I for one am thankful that Louisville isn't growing insanely because if it were, that would mean extreme amounts of sprawl. All the southern cities with major population gains may be seeing a lot of DT development, but equally and(in most cases) more so, they are seeing low-density urban-sprawl. Louisville is still seeing the same types of development, but also a healthy amount of urban development.
An advantage that Louisville has is an established urban fabric. It has been ripped in places, but all in all, it just needs patch work to re-connect the peices. Consider the neighborhoods that surround DT, consider the areas between them and how they bleed from one to the other, and then consider what is being done to sew them back together.

I think one thing that Louisville needs to start focusing on even more is re-attaching its neighborhoods to DT. When you have an area like the Highlands that leads straight into great neighborhoods like Phoenix Hill and Butchertown, the possibilities are terribly exciting. Yet, I feel that there is little effort to try and bridge these vibrant corridors to DT. It is being left up to developers to slowly inch the areas towards eachother, without any active encouragement from the surrounding residents and council-members.
But I am optomistic about the future of this re-connecting effort because of the small steps we can see being taken now.
SoBro and the area west of DT are both being looked at, studied, and evaluated. They both are broken peices of the fabric that were destroyed by neglect and urban renewel. Sobro, in particular, has been paved over, disconnecting DT from Old Louisville, one of the best preserved areas in the city. If the fabric remained unbroken from the CBD all the way to UofL, it could be one of the most incredible urban areas in the entire south. If the efforts to rebuild these transition-blocks are successful, I think we will see similar efforts begin to form in other parts of the city.

If Louisville can gracefully bridge all of its neighborhoods together, to me, the next logical step is mass transit that binds all of the corridors to eachother and, ultimately, downtown.

good thoughts....

highlands.....

I was driving through the other day and all of a sudden this hit me.......I think that Mid City Mall has great potential. Not in its' current state, but the land itself.

I can easily see someone razing it and rebuilding a modern lifestyle type buildings. Something that is flush with the street and has ample parking build in / under. It would also be cool to add another 500 or so parks for the public (at $5 bucks a pop) and consistant trolly service from there to the bar area.

This can be a mix of national tenants and locals.

On top of it put 10-20 stories worth of offices, condos and apartments.

^^
I never thought of that before.....sounds good, but I would like them to retain Baxter Avenue cinema....that's my favorite place to go see a movie in Louisville

In my thoughts theycould retain anyone who wants to be, but also add a lot more. I just think that there is a lot of potential for that block. I measured it and it is around 10 acres.

If they go verticle they could really make something nice.

The only problem would be that residents on Bardstown are against any sort of highrise development, and say its out of scale with the area. And having a highrise there would require a parking garage no doubt, and if there one thing the Highlands residents will NEVER have in their neighborhood, its a parking garage... *sigh* Which is a damn shame because I think your idea is very exciting. I hate that the Highlands hasn't gone any more dense largely in part because of the NIMBYs.

^^
Do you think an underground parking garage might be a possibility or not?

I think if such a project were to happen, it would be the only solution. The neighborhood association complains about parking non-stop, but when planners suggested a parking garage, they freaked out and said it was totally against the chracter of the neighborhood.

Hey look guys!!!! We're underrated!

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=462198

highlands.....

I was driving through the other day and all of a sudden this hit me.......I think that Mid City Mall has great potential. Not in its' current state, but the land itself.

I can easily see someone razing it and rebuilding a modern lifestyle type buildings. Something that is flush with the street and has ample parking build in / under. It would also be cool to add another 500 or so parks for the public (at $5 bucks a pop) and consistant trolly service from there to the bar area.

This can be a mix of national tenants and locals.

On top of it put 10-20 stories worth of offices, condos and apartments.

I have always wished that the Highlands had a hotel for me to recommend to out-of-towners. To me, DT is still a little too edgy with the crowds dispersed too sparsely on most nights, and it goes without saying that the East End and Fairground hotels provide absolutely no walkability. IMO, Louisville's real special showcase, that separates it from any peer city I can think of, is the Bardstown Rd. / Baxter Ave. corridor. I wish more visitors could stay in its vicinity to experience it. (Now, I do know that another hotel announcement for Louisville, after a slew of recent ones, might not be as sexy as some of the options you guys have explored. But there is no doubt in my mind the viability of the idea.)

Not saying it would ever happen, but if it did the parking garage shouldn't be the problem. It would mostly be underground and incorporated nicely in the design (as part of the building, not sticking out at all). It would actually help the area because, like I said, it could be built with extra parking for people who visit the Highlands to use. This would eliminate the need for a lot of the street parking and make it easier for current residents.

One thing I have always liked about Louisville is the way we build parking garages. They are very nice looking (for a garage) and more pleasing on the eyes than most cities.

But again, in my mind, the garage part would be the interior of the structure on the bottom few floor/underground and most would never see it.

I have always wished that the Highlands had a hotel for me to recommend to out-of-towners. To me, DT is still a little too edgy with the crowds dispersed too sparsely on most nights, and it goes without saying that the East End and Fairground hotels provide absolutely no walkability. IMO, Louisville's real special showcase, that separates it from any peer city I can think of, is the Bardstown Rd. / Baxter Ave. corridor. I wish more visitors could stay in its vicinity to experience it. (Now, I do know that another hotel announcement for Louisville, after a slew of recent ones, might not be as sexy as some of the options you guys have explored. But there is no doubt in my mind the viability of the idea.)

I agree. I've always thought this was prime for a hotel. But, I do agree it would need a parking garage. I think if you hid the garage behind the facade of the hotel, ala Courtyard downtown, it would work. However, I don't think anything over 4 or 5 stories would be approved on Bardstown Rd. I think it would work well, though. Especially if you made it kinda funky, like 21C, only less upscale and more bourgeois.

Yarmuth casts doubt on downtown site for VA hospital


U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth said he's "not sure if there's enough land downtown" for a new veterans hospital that may need 35 acres -- casting doubt for the first time on the controversial location officials have been talking about for months.

"A lot of people want it to be downtown. It makes sense to put it downtown," Yarmuth said yesterday. "We don't know where there's enough land."



He spoke during a press conference in which he praised the VA hospital after taking a tour in the wake of revelations about poor conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

He called the Louisville VA hospital "top-flight," with "state-of-the-art equipment and state-of-the-art care."

Veterans Affairs officials announced last summer that the aging complex off Zorn Avenue will be replaced, becoming one of the nation's first new veterans hospitals in more than a decade.

At the time, federal officials and Yarmuth's predecessor, Anne Northup, said they expect it to be downtown, making it convenient to other hospitals and the University of Louisville School of Medicine, which has a working relationship with the VA hospital.

City officials would like to see the hospital downtown for much the same reason, said Chad Carlton, communications director for Mayor Jerry Abramson.

Abramson and Yarmuth have discussed the VA's stated need for 35 acres for a new complex, he said, and city leaders hope to find out why the VA needs so much land.

"On the surface of it, 35 acres seems like a very large area to need for a VA," Carlton said, pointing out that other area hospitals have expanded vertically instead of horizontally. "It puts the downtown location at a disadvantage. That's not to say there's not 35 acres of land that's suitable in the broader sense of downtown. But putting it in the central business district would probably be very difficult."

Several veterans have objected to putting the hospital downtown, citing parking and other concerns. But John Cochran, 72, of Louisville, an Army veteran who has been getting care at the VA hospital for 25 years, said relocating the hospital wouldn't be a problem for him.

"If they move it and it's as good as this one, I say move it," said Cochran, who has heart disease and was taking a smoke break outside the hospital yesterday.

His wife, Amy, said she's a little concerned about the parking issue, but added: "If they have good parking, it's fine."

Yarmuth said yesterday that officials are beginning the site-selection process.

He has said he expects the new hospital to be open in 2013, with construction beginning around 2010 and costs reaching $700 million to $750 million.

The current hospital opened in 1951. A VA report said "the main hospital building is well maintained but has significant fire and life-safety issues."

Still, Yarmuth said, "they've done a great job in utilizing an old building for very modern medicine."

************


35 acres? What the hell?
It actually sounds like a lot of Veterans do not want this thing DT... I dunno, I wish terribly it could be in the Medical District; it would add a lot. Not to mention, if they really want 35 acres to build on, that could translate into a rather tall building.
But since a lot of the people who are treated by the VA system are older veterans, we are going back to that mind-set of "Downtown is a mess" "Its too crowded" "Its inconvient" "What's wrong with what we have?" "Put it at the fairgrounds"..... :sleepy:

"On the surface of it, 35 acres seems like a very large area to need for a VA," Carlton said, pointing out that other area hospitals have expanded vertically instead of horizontally. "It puts the downtown location at a disadvantage. That's not to say there's not 35 acres of land that's suitable in the broader sense of downtown. But putting it in the central business district would probably be very difficult."

Several veterans have objected to putting the hospital downtown, citing parking and other concerns....

I would be willing to be a lot of retirees or vets eligible for VA care are in the West End, SW County, and Hardin and Meade County. So it might make sense to put it in or near Shively, close to the Dixie/Watterson interchange, if they can find the land. The issue with parking is that the VA, and its customers, don't want a a pay-parking garage.

There actually used to be a big army hospital off of Manslick, just north of the Watterson, and west of the Jacobs Addition neighborhood. Nichols Army Hospital. When it was closed and the land turned over to the city it stood vacant, and a proposal was to build the "Watterson Model City" there, sort of a new-town-in-town. This never happened, of course, and it was subdivided for conventional housing.

But there still seems to be some underused land or propertys in that general 7th Street Road/Manslick vicinity....

And there certainly is a demand in the area for VA services, as the VA has a branch clinic over in an office building in Shively.

^^
I was reading alot of the comments on the CJ site made by veterans and a lot of them do live in south and southwestern Louisville, but most of them want it to stay in the same area around Zorn or River Road. It would make sense to move it more central; not even DT, but more around Newburg or Poplar Level. But they don't want it more conviently located, they just want easy parking. .. .. .. So give vets free parking in the garage. Problem solved?
Probly not.

^^
I was reading alot of the comments on the CJ site made by veterans and a lot of them do live in south and southwestern Louisville, but most of them want it to stay in the same area around Zorn or River Road. It would make sense to move it more central; not even DT, but more around Newburg or Poplar Level. But they don't want it more conviently located, they just want easy parking. .. .. .. So give vets free parking in the garage. Problem solved?
Probly not.

well i mean its not like there arent tons of parking lots on the east side of dt. i think they need to start densifying that area. i would personally like to see the va build a 20 story hospital on one of those huge surface lots with maybe 8 floors of parking underneath, and then thy could build another 8 floor garage next door, i have seen that area around university hospital and it defintely needs more vertical parking, i mean its parking lotted over especially east of university hospital. i am not sure why ppl in lville complain about parking so much? i cant see why it would be a problem to allow 8 floors of free parking for someoen with a veterans card who served our country'?

Hey, can you all help me??? I cannot search anything on this site without getting a response like this:: ""Sorry-there are no entries for your search""

Are you all having this problem too??? It's been like this for me at ANY computer for about 2 weeks.

Thanks

This is pretty sweet; to have such a great, art-influenced hotel brand start here in Louisville. I keep thinking that the city they are planning to announce will either be Atlanta or Nashville. They seem like cities that would respond well to the 21C concept.



Success has group bringing 21c concept to other cities

When the 21c Museum Hotel opened last summer in downtown Louisville, its owners weren’t sure how guests would feel about a place where the lobby, hallways and even restrooms resemble a contemporary art gallery.

But the results have been so good that owners Steve Wilson and Laura Lee Brown plan as many as 15 more of the upscale boutique hotels across the country over the next eight or so years.

Negotiations are under way in four cities, and Wilson said the first of those locations could be announced in late June. He declined to identify the city, but said it is somewhere in the South.

“The most exciting part of it to me is that people can understand that art and commerce can co-exist,” said Wilson, who also is developing the Museum Plaza skyscraper — a building planned for 2010 on West Main Street mixing offices, a hotel, a museum, condos and restaurants.

Statues of red penguins are perched along the exterior of 21c at 700 W. Main St.

A distorted bicycle hangs from a wall near the front desk, just yards from a deer head covered with flowing, stringy hair.

Tiny television screens embedded in the mirror of the first-floor restroom display close-up videos of human eyes. The hotel restaurant, Proof on Main, serves roasted pumpkin bruschetta and pan-seared Atlantic salmon for lunch.

The hotel’s rate of slightly less than $200 a night is almost twice the average downtown rate of $103, but that hasn’t stopped people from coming.

On weekends, local residents fill more than half the 91 rooms. The overall occupancy rate hovers at 72 percent, compared with 56 percent for the area for the 12 months ended in February, according to data from Smith Travel Research.

The new 21c Museum Hotels will vary in size, but each is expected to cost at least $30 million and include a restaurant modeled after Proof on Main. Most of the financing will come from new investors, although Wilson and Brown will continue to control a majority stake.

Kelley Bradley, who stayed at 21c last week on a business trip, said she could see the concept succeeding in other urban areas with a strong appreciation for art.

“It would work in Raleigh, maybe not in Greensboro,” the North Carolina resident said.

Although there may not be another 21c replica yet, Kathryn Potter, a spokeswoman for the American Hotel & Lodging Association, said boutique hotels in general have enjoyed booming growth over the last decade.

“All of them position themselves as hip and sexy and cool,” Potter said. “It’s all about differentiating yourself.”

Wilson will serve as chairman of the new company, called ACE Unlimited LLC. He and his wife also are majority owners. Three other partners in the venture come from Myriad Restaurant Group, a New York-based firm that developed Proof on Main.

The name is an acronym for Art Commerce Entertainment. Craig Greenberg, a board member and a Museum Plaza developer, said the company’s founders are aiming to build “two national hospitality brands” with the 21c and Proof concepts.

According to ACE chief executive officer Michael Bonadies, the other cities in consideration are all at least as large as Louisville, and are “dynamic and growing.”

Wilson said he and Brown will play an active role in collecting art for the new hotels, adhering to his rule that the pieces are not purely decorative, but “very much part of the structure” of the building itself.

As for the $465 million Museum Plaza project, Wilson said the mixed-use skyscraper is entirely separate from the hotel company, and he’s not looking to create more skyscrapers in other cities.

“One is enough,” he said.

This is pretty sweet; to have such a great, art-influenced hotel brand start here in Louisville. I keep thinking that the city they are planning to announce will either be Atlanta or Nashville. They seem like cities that would respond well to the 21C concept.

Somewhere (but not in this article) I read Austin.

Developer to convert downtown skyscraper
By David Goetz
The Courier-Journal


The Kentucky Home Life Building, one of Louisville's original skyscrapers, is still breaking new ground downtown.

Developer Keith Eberenz has bought the 94-year-old, 19-story office tower at Fifth and Jefferson streets and plans to convert it to office condominiums, allowing commercial tenants to buy their offices and suites.

Office condominiums have been going up in Louisville's suburbs for more than a decade, Eberenz said, including some developed by his River Glen Properties. "We are simply applying that concept vertically downtown, while it's been applied horizontally in the suburbs."

Eberenz paid $6.7 million for the building and said he intends to spend more than $3 million to upgrade its common areas, including the lobby. "It's a great old building" that was ahead of its time when it went up in 1913, Eberenz said, and had a major upgrade in the 1980s.

The price for office space will be about $159,000 for 1,600 to 1,700 square feet, Eberenz said. "That's about 75 percent of the suburban rate."

Plans also call for 7,500 square feet of retail space at ground level and a half-dozen residential condominiums on the top floor.

The apartments likely will be 1,800 square feet with two bedrooms, Eberenz said. "We know they'll be (priced) in the half-million-dollar range." He said two buyers have made commitments.

Tenants also will be able to lease space in the 200,000-squarefoot tower.

The project is "yet another example of how downtown Louisville is changing by the minute," said Chris Poynter, a spokesman for Metro Mayor Jerry Abramson. It's important, Poynter said, because it gives potential downtown tenants a choice.

"This is another opportunity to buy into downtown," he said.

Eberenz said his project "reiterates a change in the focus of the central business district in Louisville that is of magnificent proportions." The vacancy rate is dropping very quickly, he said. "The resurgence is ahead of the national (pace)."

Humana extends headquarters
By Patrick Howington
The Courier-Journal

Great reuse of some beautiful buildings - too bad they didn't extend it and build over the surface lot that adjoins it. Maybe someday...

A row of historic buildings on West Main Street, built around 1880 but largely vacant in recent years, has begun a new life as an extension of Humana Inc.'s corporate headquarters.

The health insurer bought the buildings last year and has been renovating them for use as an employee dining area, offices, and meeting and conference space.

The $20 million project involved converting a series of long but narrow four-story buildings, each stretching south from its Main Street storefront, into larger spaces by knocking entryways in walls between the buildings.

Some work is still going on, but a second-floor coffee bar and cafeteria opened last week -- stylishly renovated to reflect both the buildings' original architecture and that of the Humana tower next door, where about 2,000 people work.

Yesterday the dining areas teemed with Humana employees who until now haven't had a place inside headquarters to gather for lunch or breaks.

"This is a very nice, refreshing place," said Mamtha Iyengar, a software consultant, as she ate lunch with two colleagues near a large window overlooking Main Street.

Before the dining area opened, they said, they probably would have eaten at a nearby Subway or grabbed a carry-out sandwich from a shop in the lobby of the Humana headquarters, 500 W. Main St.

The dining area provides a place to "eat lunch and network all at the same time," said Maria Hughes, a project manager, as she sat in the coffee bar with a friend. Hughes said she can "really connect with people -- you don't get that opportunity here very often."

A California company, Guckenheimer, provides the food service.

The buildings' third and fourth floors will be offices and meeting and training spaces. On the first floor, three Main Street businesses will continue to operate -- Hurt Printing, City Wok restaurant and Java Brewing Co. Remaining first-floor space will house a center for consumers and customers to learn about Humana health-care innovations.

The buildings Humana bought are at 518 to 526 W. Main St. The company already owned 516 W. Main, adjacent to the headquarters.

The buildings are reached from the headquarters tower by an entryway created at the second-floor level.

Connecting the buildings and making it possible for people to move from building to building indoors "was a huge challenge," said Chuck Lambert, Humana vice president of associate and business services.

For example, one building's floors were at different heights from the others', so new floors had to be built.

Original design features, such as interior brick walls, mix with new elements such as travertine and terrazzo flooring. Strips of copper embellish the wall behind the coffee bar.

"What we wanted to create was a warm place for our (employees) to refresh, renew, network," said Bonnie Hathcock, Humana's chief human resources officer. Many employees of the high-rise headquarters, she said, are "probably seeing each other for the first time in a few months."

Bolenmeister:: you mentioned that you could not find a downtown condo with a good price. I thought you should check out the LouisvilleLofts project. I drove by it today (corner of lampton and logan street) and it looks like they are still working on it. A 1,200 sf condo is about 120,000 dollars. The surrounding area is working class, but I think it will develop very well in the future. My only concern is that I don't know how quickly the project is moving along....the website seems dated......

www.thelouisvillelofts.com

Urban agenda will be promoted
2 biggest Ky. cities seek more support


Members of the metro Louisville and Lexington-Fayette councils have developed a nonpartisan "urban agenda" they hope to sell to state legislators and to officials of other major Kentucky cities.

Nine of 26 Louisville Metro Council members joined with four Lexington council members last week to develop the "collaborative goals" at a meeting at the Louisville Zoo. The representatives met once earlier this year in Lexington.



Talks between the two councils "have evolved into an effort of unity and camaraderie to move urban issues forward," said Louisville council member Tina Ward-Pugh, D-9th District.

The two councils intend to "move the entire commonwealth into the 21st century and enhance the quality of life for all Kentuckians," said Lexington councilman Jay McChord.

The effort's goals:

Fund nearly $40 million in planned improvements at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington in preparation for the 2010 World Equestrian Games.

Change the 1948 state formula under which state gasoline tax money is distributed to local jurisdictions for road work. The council members believe the formula now favors rural areas.

Repeal the alternative minimum tax system. The council members believe the system, which lets corporations use different ways to calculate their state taxes, favors large companies and puts too much tax burden on smaller companies.

Push for federal homeland-security funds to be based more on population. Council members say the system now favors smaller or rural areas.

Cap the state income tax rate at 5 percent (it is now 6 percent). Doing so would require a constitutional amendment and statewide referendum.

Increase use of special tax districts in urban areas that allow developers to reclaim a share of the state sales taxes their projects generate.

The council members said they will discuss the urban agenda with officials of the state's eight or 10 other largest cities over the next eight months and try to gain their support for the goals.

The Lexington and Louisville councils plan to meet a final time in November, after the election for governor, officials said. Representatives from Kentucky's other urban areas may join them.

So thunder was pretty awesome yesterday. The weather was perfect and the city was PACKED. A lot of out-of-towners. I was loving every minute of it. There were a bunch of street performers and random groups too. Everything was just really alive.
Anyone else make it?

I was there. The company I work for rents out a large parking lot by slugger field for all of its employees. That in itslef is an awesome perk and a great thing that they do, especially for families.

Thunder is awesome

The architect of Louisville’s downtown arena released the design for the building’s interior today, calling it “a unique seating bowl concept with better sightlines than Freedom Hall.”

The design calls for 11,348 of the arena’s 22,000 seats in the lower bowl, a publicly accessible sports bar on the main concourse and wider and deeper seats than Freedom Hall, where the University of Louisville’s basketball teams now play.

“You’ll have more comfort in the upper deck,” Steve Hotujac, principal of architect HOK Sport, told members of the Louisville Arena Authority at its monthly meeting.

Hotujac said the seating configuration will be similar to Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis and modern arenas in Memphis, Tenn., Charlotte, N.C., and San Antonio, Texas.

The arena, to be built at Second and Main streets, is expected to open by fall 2010. U of L’s men’s and women’s basketball teams will be the main tenants of the building, part of a $450 million project that includes a 975-car parking garage, hotel and floodwall.

In a significant change from the basketball layout at Freedom Hall, the seats behind the baskets will be steeper. Also, Hotujac said, the arena floor will be located above the 100-year flood plain at the project site.

For more on this story, read tomorrow’s Courier-Journal.

Reporter Marcus Green can be reached at (502) 582-4675.

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070423/NEWS01/70423014

I can't wait to see the arena renderings!

Jim Host said the renderings will likely be 60 days, but 30 days isn't out of the question. So we could see them by end of May. I can only hope.

Will they only be interior of the arena? Or will we see new over-all renderings? I hope we get to see a rendering that includes the Arena and Iron Quarter together, and then one that includes MP also.

Good god.... They may have no grounds, but they know that. All they want is to stall and cost the developers money and time.... UGH



Resident sues to block Midlands development

Plans for The Midlands, a large mixed-use development proposed on Brownsboro Road at the Watterson Expressway, have been challenged by a lawsuit filed by a nearby resident who claims that the project was illegally approved.

The lawsuit, filed in Jefferson Circuit Court by E. David Meena, says the Louisville Metro Council and the Graymoor-Devondale City Council acted in an "arbitrary and capricious" manner in February when they approved the project and zoning and form-district changes it needed. The suit wants the approvals declared void.



Also named as defendants were the owners of the project's site, Hildebrand I LLC and Browenton Limited Partnership, and the developer, Fenley Real Estate.

"Each and every" allegation in the lawsuit is groundless, according to a response filed on behalf of Louisville by Assistant County Attorneys Jonathan Baker and Theresa Sennington.

Responses filed by Graymoor-Devondale City Attorney John Singler and Michael Tigue, who is representing the other three defendants, likewise denied the claims. None of the defendants' responses provided detailed arguments, although details could come as the case unfolds. Circuit Judge Susan Gibson will hear the case.

Plans for The Midlands include 97,000 square feet of office space, 139,000 square feet of retail space, 318 condominiums and apartments, and a hotel with 150 rooms. The project would occupy 38 acres off Brownsboro Road. Part of the site is in Graymoor-Devondale.

The approval followed several months of reviews and public hearings by planning officials that primarily questioned the project's impact on traffic in the busy area. As a condition of approval, construction of The Midlands would be coordinated with construction of the Watterson Expressway-Westport Road interchange, which is expected to relieve traffic congestion on Brownsboro Road and U.S. 42 near The Midlands' site.

Meena's lawsuit, prepared by attorney Kenneth Sales, claims the approvals violated the guidelines of the metro development guidelines because:

The project would add to "extremely heavy traffic at this location."

Form district changes that were part of the approval did not comply with guidelines. The Metro and Graymoor-Devondale councils did not "provide all parties with adequate due process."

A development guide for the U.S. 42 corridor approved by the old Jefferson Fiscal Court in 1989 recommended that only single-family residences and offices be developed there

^^
very frustrating

By their reasoning the old farmers who lived in that area in the 40's should sue all the current residents for making traffic bad in that area. THEY create WAY more traffic than the Midlands will. Also, once the Westport interchange is built at least 40% of the people who exit onto Brownsboro/42 will be going onto Westport.

I think that when the West port interchange is built that the Watterson should be widened from the current narrowing to the interchange. Then, as part of the I-71 widening that the rest of the Watterson (we are only talking 4 or so miles for the entire thing) should be widened and improvements shoud be made to the brownsboro Rd. interchange.

The main reasons why traffic is so bad is because there isn't an interchange on Westport (problem will be solved) and that the Brownsboro Rd. exit is really an exit for 2 roads (42 and Brownsboro). They should redo the interchange and have dedicated lanes exiting for 42 and brownsboro, no merging/changing lanes. I think you should see something like; 2 dedicated left turn lanes, 2 dedicated right turn lanes onto 42, 1 or 2 dedicated lanes going directly (not into that traffic light) onto brownsboro, and 1 lane going directly into the Midlands.

This would require acquiring a few small businesses (DQ, gas station, etc...), but it really needs to be done. If all this were done, traffic wouldn't be a problem at all.

Project Update:

I was driving around downtown today (and it was bustling!), but anyway, I noticed some things.

The new hotels where the Inn at Jewish Hospital used to be is coming along. This job was busy. I think it will be up and running by the Holidays.

The Zirmed Towers project looks to be relocating the utilities at the site. There is a bundle of conduit and part of the parking lot is roped off.

The condo/loft building at Main and Campbell has been excavated.

I didn't go by any of the other projects, but I have seen a lot of work at River Park Place, Fleur-de-Lis, and some foundation work for the completion of Waterfront Park Place.

Things are lively.

WPP is LONG over-due...

I think it is interesting that Zirmed is shooting for a completion date of 2008. I guess we should plann on seeing foundation work by the end of may? I hope so.

That Kentucky Home Life proposal sounds great. There is a fantastic lobby/banking hall on the ground floor, with this huge vaulted ceiling.

That building was built in two phases, and was the tallest in Louisville as late as the 1950s...which is pretty late. It has a great site, too, across from the Courthouse.

A Wolfgang Puck Express restaurant will open late this year at the Kentucky International Convention Center under plans approved today by the Kentucky State Fair Board.

In addition to the Express outlets, the celebrity chef and restaurateur operates or lends his name on franchised businesses to numerous other restaurant brands, including Spago, Chinois, Granita, Vert, Postrio, Trattoria del Lupo and Wolfgang Puck Bar & Grill. There are more than 30 Wolfgang Puck Express restaurants in nearly 20 states, plus Canada and Jahttp://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070426/NEWS01/70426059pan.

The downtown Louisville business will be the first Puck Express in Kentucky, said board president Harold Workman.

“It will offer gourmet quality food, served quickly,” said board spokeswoman Amanda Storment. “It will be great for convention delegates and for the downtown lunch crowd, as well as being open for dinner.”

i like to eat :):)

I know when I lived in Louisville there was a big movement to get rid of I-64 on the riverfront, but if its going to be there it sure would be nice to have something like this there. Looks like the state is firmly against it because of the cost.

http://cmsimg.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=B2&Date=20070425&Category=COLUMNISTS08&ArtNo=704251111&Ref=AR&Profile=1019&MaxW=500&title=1

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007704251111

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007704260471

it's kinda massive, but ok i guess.

I really like those arches. This is an urban park, and I think the arches fit within it. I-64 is going to be there. It would be wonderful if it wasn't, but the reality is that our economy is based on logistics and getting goods from point A to point B. I think removing I-64 from the waterfront would seriously jeopardize that notion. At the very least, it would scare off potential companies from relocating here, expanding here, or staying here. So, given that I-64 will be there, we need to have something like this going through Waterfront Park. Hell, it wouldn't be half bad to look at out of Waterfront Park Place. Much like the tunnels had to go through Cherokee Park when I-64 was first built, this span has to be built through the Great Lawn.

Waterfront Park is an urban park. There is no need to make I-64 look pretty, when the expressway was incorporated into Waterfront Park's design. It would be a different thing if I-64 was at ground level but it's hovering 20 feet overhead, so it's not an impediment at all, nor is it an eyesore and it still won't be when two ramps are added for Spaghetti Junction.

Here's one KC forumer's thoughts on Louisville (some dude from kcrag.com). Thought I'd post it over here. :)

Seems like the Kentucky Derby is to Louisville what Mardi Gras is to New Orleans. Sort of the soul of the city poured into a few weeks of festivities. Louisville has the charm and hospitality of the south with the business sense and tidiness of the midwest. Gained a few pounds on bourbon and every special dish of the season(Derby Pie, Derby Cake, Derby Hash etc.) Lots of parties and lots a moneyed folks in town. It is a little too much for me and cannot wait to get back to dull KC. Had a huge fireworks display(Thunder over Louisville) and a big balloon race.

Fourth Street Live----A big yawn. Thankfull that the KC Live will just be a one block component of the P&L District. Physically it is a remade failed downtown mall. Sort of like if they had put a roof over Petticoat Lane 25 years ago when there was still retail DT. Cordish opened it up so it is sheltered but open air. You get carded and braceleted just to walk down the block. Big signs posting dress rules---no tank tops, no excessively baggy clothing etc. Only about a dozen eating and dining establishments with menus dreamed up in corporate offices not by chefs. Only retail is Border's. Walked through and out of the place in 15 minutes, but they were lots of people coming in even on a weekday evening. Asked a security guard for dining recommendations and was directed to a nice little bistro a few blocks away. DT seemed to have a lot of people about for a small metro, I do not know how much is spin off from Cordish.

While DT is not encircled by a freeway loop, the elevated freeway is right on the otherwise imposing riverfront and presents quite a visual although not physical barrier.

There is a large convention hall near the river and some large newer convention hotels as well as several elegant old hotels. The Kentucky Expo center that lured the FFA is out on the inner loop(as if 435 was at 75th St and another loop was at 135th). It adjoins 6 Flags and the U of Louisville Stadium. It has multiple halls and has the same barn feeling as the buildings at our American Royal complex. The airport is just across the freeway.

The most impressive thing in town to me is Old Louisville. Mile after mile of huge Victorian Mansions, well kept. Little cafes and shops on the corners. The density of the area(while not row houses, they are close together) gives a lively European feel to the neighborhood. There are some nice 1930's and postwar neighborhoods in rolling wooded hills. And of course the outer loop could be JoCo, or north Dallas or Perimeter Park in Atlanta. Same shops and strip mall gulags. One thing about the suburban houses. They are all brick, on all sides, none of that brick front, board and batten on the other three sides typical of JoCo.

never heard of him.

Here's one KC forumer's thoughts on Louisville (some dude from kcrag.com). Thought I'd post it over here. :)

Seems like the Kentucky Derby is to Louisville what Mardi Gras is to New Orleans. Sort of the soul of the city poured into a few weeks of festivities. Louisville has the charm and hospitality of the south with the business sense and tidiness of the midwest. Gained a few pounds on bourbon and every special dish of the season(Derby Pie, Derby Cake, Derby Hash etc.) Lots of parties and lots a moneyed folks in town. It is a little too much for me and cannot wait to get back to dull KC. Had a huge fireworks display(Thunder over Louisville) and a big balloon race.

Fourth Street Live----A big yawn. Thankfull that the KC Live will just be a one block component of the P&L District. Physically it is a remade failed downtown mall. Sort of like if they had put a roof over Petticoat Lane 25 years ago when there was still retail DT. Cordish opened it up so it is sheltered but open air. You get carded and braceleted just to walk down the block. Big signs posting dress rules---no tank tops, no excessively baggy clothing etc. Only about a dozen eating and dining establishments with menus dreamed up in corporate offices not by chefs. Only retail is Border's. Walked through and out of the place in 15 minutes, but they were lots of people coming in even on a weekday evening. Asked a security guard for dining recommendations and was directed to a nice little bistro a few blocks away. DT seemed to have a lot of people about for a small metro, I do not know how much is spin off from Cordish.

While DT is not encircled by a freeway loop, the elevated freeway is right on the otherwise imposing riverfront and presents quite a visual although not physical barrier.

There is a large convention hall near the river and some large newer convention hotels as well as several elegant old hotels. The Kentucky Expo center that lured the FFA is out on the inner loop(as if 435 was at 75th St and another loop was at 135th). It adjoins 6 Flags and the U of Louisville Stadium. It has multiple halls and has the same barn feeling as the buildings at our American Royal complex. The airport is just across the freeway.

The most impressive thing in town to me is Old Louisville. Mile after mile of huge Victorian Mansions, well kept. Little cafes and shops on the corners. The density of the area(while not row houses, they are close together) gives a lively European feel to the neighborhood. There are some nice 1930's and postwar neighborhoods in rolling wooded hills. And of course the outer loop could be JoCo, or north Dallas or Perimeter Park in Atlanta. Same shops and strip mall gulags. One thing about the suburban houses. They are all brick, on all sides, none of that brick front, board and batten on the other three sides typical of JoCo.

i agree, i love old louisivlle but bardstown rd and the adjoining mansions on cherokee rd and cherokee park are what makes louisville so special. i suppose a lot of people miss that when they come to louisville bc I sure did living in cincy. its not all that big of a city but it took me a month to find frankfort ave which imo is another quaint and hip strip of bars and restuarants. i wonder if that guy found bardstown rd, willow ave, cherokee rd and place slike that? i tell you i was surprised when i discovered those areas in lville.
i also do agree that louisville has a pretty vibrant downtown, its impressive for its size and i can only imagine that will double in the next few years if they actuyally build all this stuff they saythey will.

he apparently was just driving through as he missed Belgravia & St James ...he seems to be talking about 3rd and 4th streets, taking a windshield tour of the city.

Interesting catch on the "all brick" houses. I never thought of that, but I guess in KC they dont have that.

If anyone is interested in this 5 year good for nothing Jeffersonville Town Center I guess its good they finally changed the website around a little adding another department store to the rendering's, and a few other things.

If anyone is interested in this 5 year good for nothing Jeffersonville Town Center I guess its good they finally changed the website around a little adding another department store to the rendering's, and a few other things.

Ha, so whats the latest, they building this thing or not? Last time I was in Jeffersonville it appeared that they were clearing land, but I know they had some legal trouble.

HELL YES. Activity.



Electrical work first sign of planned arena
Third Street traffic will be restricted

E.On U.S. is beginning work on a new downtown substation -- the first tangible evidence that the planned $450 million University of Louisville arena complex will become a reality.

The utility, parent of LG&E, announced yesterday that the two west lanes on Third Street will be closed between River Road and Washington Street after the morning rush hour Monday and remain closed indefinitely while work on the substation and later the arena progresses.



One lane of traffic in each direction will be maintained in the two easternmost lanes of the street.

The lane closures will likely affect traffic using the Third Street ramp to exit westbound Interstate 64. The traffic signal at Third and River Road at the ramp will be adjusted during peak traffic periods in an effort to reduce congestion on the ramp.

The arena is to be built in the block bounded by River Road and Main, Second and Third streets. LG&E has a large substation in that block. Before the arena block can be cleared, a replacement substation must be built and operating, said company spokesman Chip Keeling.

The new substation will be built near Third and River Road -- across the street from the existing one. The new substation and some related work are expected to cost about $63 million, Keeling said.

He said the intent is to have the new substation operating so the arena target site can be transferred to the Louisville Arena Authority in October 2008. The authority is paying the utility about $70 million for the property and to cover the cost of the new substation. The authority also plans to acquire land in the arena block from Humana Inc.

The new arena, along with a hotel, parking garage, plaza and commercial space, is to be completed in 2010.

JTC, or some other large regional mall (which aren't really being built anymore), is LONG overdue. Green Tree mall was nice for its' time, but it is way too small to be the retail hub of the northern end of our city. JTC will, without doubt, destroy Green Tree. I just hope they raze Green Tree and redevelop it with condos or something soon after. I just don't want this large, empty mall sitting around.

Anyway, one dept store for sure will be Macy's. They have no prescense on the north side and I am positive they are the dept. store that has been listed the whole time. The other, new dept. store, in my opinion, will be a JCP. It would be nice for it to be a Nordstroms or something high end, but WHEN those guys come it will be to the east end/downtown.

JCP has been pulling out of a lot of malls as leases expire and building free standing units in power/lifestyle centers. That, and the fact that there are only a handful of dept. store chains left (there are a bunch of different names, but only around 6-7 chains outside of the high end guys) leads me to think that JCP is being proactive in this.

This will be a nice development, a lot nicer than the Summit, but I really wish they would build all the "downtown" looking portion to 3 stories and have apartments and condos above the retail.

Again, I see the next large, new, suburban retail to come to Fern Creek. I can easily see a large power/lifestyle center with over 1,000,000 s.f. coming to the SWC of Bardstown and 265.

JTC, or some other large regional mall (which aren't really being built anymore), is LONG overdue. Green Tree mall was nice for its' time, but it is way too small to be the retail hub of the northern end of our city. JTC will, without doubt, destroy Green Tree. I just hope they raze Green Tree and redevelop it with condos or something soon after. I just don't want this large, empty mall sitting around.

Anyway, one dept store for sure will be Macy's. They have no prescense on the north side and I am positive they are the dept. store that has been listed the whole time. The other, new dept. store, in my opinion, will be a JCP. It would be nice for it to be a Nordstroms or something high end, but WHEN those guys come it will be to the east end/downtown.

JCP has been pulling out of a lot of malls as leases expire and building free standing units in power/lifestyle centers. That, and the fact that there are only a handful of dept. store chains left (there are a bunch of different names, but only around 6-7 chains outside of the high end guys) leads me to think that JCP is being proactive in this.

This will be a nice development, a lot nicer than the Summit, but I really wish they would build all the "downtown" looking portion to 3 stories and have apartments and condos above the retail.

Again, I see the next large, new, suburban retail to come to Fern Creek. I can easily see a large power/lifestyle center with over 1,000,000 s.f. coming to the SWC of Bardstown and 265.

I also beleive that Fern Creek will be next in line for the next "mall" type development that could be similar to stores that are located in the malls on Shelbyville Road. I also wish that the southwestern edge of town could get something but you know how that goes. I do wish JTC would start to speed up though.

Yeah, i have thought for a while that the southern end of Dixie needs a regional development. There is potential with the movement of kroger and Wal-Mart's wishes to go super. That center (they both are currently in) and the surrounding lots COULD yiled a 500,000-700,000 s.f. power center. A lot would have to happen, but it is very feasable. The best chance of that happening is for the owner of that shopping center, who is losing Kroger, and WM would like to leave, to start buing up all that land. It is mostly smaller businesses, except for some out-parcels, that i am sure could be had.

While I am not a fan of this type of development (suburban, sprawling centers), I am also a realist and know that it is going to happen. I just wish Dixie could get some major shopping. It is NOT going to happen at the old Dillard site either. That site is simply too small with no room for expansion.

The best bet there is for something like a Hobby Lobby, Burlington Coat Factory, and a couple other users with Spencerian College taking the upstairs of the Dillards. They can make it look nice and it can be a useful, viable center. however, it should not be the reail hub of the area. Just too small to get a bunch of big boxs like Best Buy, Michaels, Kohl's, JCP, Liquor Barn, Dick's, Petsmart, Bookstore, large 20 plex theater, BB&B or LNT, etc.....

of course with some national rest. on pads. I really do think this is the best spot. You already have the old Winn Dixie center across the street that would easily be re-developed/filled if this were to happen. Additionally, there are 3-5 rest. hotel pads available on the NEC of Dixie and 265/Greenbelt. These would be taken in a hertbeat if this were to happem.

Anyway, that is my realistic dream of what should go there......

I work for a restaurant company in their RE department. As part of that i get a lot of national retail/Real Estate/Development journals.

I am flipping through one today and noticed an add by a large developer (Faison). On their properties lsit is a property called Middletown Farms in Louisville.

I checked out their web site and couldn't find anyhting. Hopefully this will be something of significant size that can compliment Middletown Station. I have always said that the plot of land between middltown Station and 265 is PRIME RE.

Anyway, not trying to start a rumor. For all I know this could be a 20,000 s.f. strip center that will be built somewhere on Shelbyville Rd. However, they have a bunch of cool renderings/pics and everything else is large.

Anyone know anyhting? I would contact them, but I don't want it associated with my work/get their hopes up.

Speaking of southwest Louisville I was driving around and saw a new neighborhood being built on St.Anthony's Church Rd. with the price range between 300,000 and 600,000, I was pretty impressed considering where I was.

Speaking of southwest Louisville I was driving around and saw a new neighborhood being built on St.Anthony's Church Rd. with the price range between 300,000 and 600,000, I was pretty impressed considering where I was.

yea.. it is surprising but becoming common.. as every new neighborhood starts in the dixie highway are it is very rare for any homes to be under 200,000 and is very common to go above 500,000. So yes those people I would think at least deserve a Borders or Books-A-Million, Khol's, and a PetsMart.

I GUARANTEE those type of national retailers would locate on south Dixie, if there was space. That is the problem. A developer has to come in and build a shopping center. The problem with that is there isn't any empty land on Dixie inside the Snyder. The only real place I could see it happening is the 50 acres or so that surround the current kroger/Wal-Mart shopping center. I think all that land could be had and developed accordingly. That is why I said for it to happen it woul probably have to be by whomever owns that shopping center.

I GUARANTEE those type of national retailers would locate on south Dixie, if there was space. That is the problem. A developer has to come in and build a shopping center. The problem with that is there isn't any empty land on Dixie inside the Snyder. The only real place I could see it happening is the 50 acres or so that surround the current kroger/Wal-Mart shopping center. I think all that land could be had and developed accordingly. That is why I said for it to happen it woul probably have to be by whomever owns that shopping center.

I think a revamp of Dixie Manor would do wonders for the area as well. They could make Dixie Dozen up to date and bring in a Best Buy or Dick's. There is also plenty of room around the green belt that could be developed.

Could this be just the beginning? I know I've mentioned Louisville's and Lexingon's areas merging because of their proximity to each other, and with Frankfort being between the two. It's a ways off if a possibility, but could developments like this be the beginning of the Louisville-Frankfort-Lexington Metro area? It seems to be smack between the two.


Nestled in the heart of horse country, Equestrian Lakes is the perfect location to call home. Between two major metropolitan areas (Louisville and Lexington) you will be close to work and area attractions, while your home is off the beaten path.

Equestrian Lakes is located at 1810 Fisherville Road in Finchville, Kentucky 40022:




Directions to Equestrian Lakes:

From I-64:

Merge onto KY-55 S via EXIT 32A toward TAYLORSVILLE
Turn RIGHT onto KY-148
End at 1810 Fisherville Rd
From Keeneland (click here for maps) - 48.56 Miles

Start out going WEST on VERSAILLES RD / US-60 toward RICE RD / KY-1969. Continue to follow US-60 W.
Turn SLIGHT RIGHT onto US-60 BYP W.
US-60 BYP W becomes US-60 W.
Merge onto I-64 W via the ramp on the LEFT.
Take EXIT 32 toward FINCHVILLE / TAYLORSVILLE.
Turn LEFT onto KY-55.
Turn RIGHT onto KY-148.
End at 1810 Fisherville Rd
Finchville, KY 40022-5742, US
From Churchill Downs (click here for maps) - 35.80 Miles

Start out going EAST on CENTRAL AVE toward S 6TH ST.
Turn LEFT onto S 3RD ST / KY-1020.
Turn RIGHT onto EASTERN PKWY / US-60 ALT.
Merge onto I-65 S.
Merge onto HENRY WATTERSON EXPY / I-264 E / US-60 E via EXIT 131-A.
Merge onto I-64 E via EXIT 19A toward LEXINGTON.
Merge onto KY-55 S via EXIT 32A toward TAYLORSVILLE.
Turn RIGHT onto KY-148.
End at 1810 Fisherville Rd
Finchville, KY 40022-5742, US
From the Louisville International Airport (click here for maps) - 33.10 Miles

Merge onto HENRY WATTERSON EXPY / I-264 E / US-60 E.
Merge onto I-64 E via EXIT 19A toward LEXINGTON.
Merge onto KY-55 S via EXIT 32A toward TAYLORSVILLE.
Turn RIGHT onto KY-148.
End at 1810 Fisherville Rd
Finchville, KY 40022-5742, US
From the Lexington Blue Grass Airport (click here for maps) - 49.75 Miles

Start out going SOUTHEAST on TERMINAL DR toward AIR FREIGHT DR.
Turn LEFT onto MAN O' WAR BLVD.
Turn LEFT onto VERSAILLES RD / US-60. Continue to follow US-60 W.
Turn SLIGHT RIGHT onto US-60 BYP W.
US-60 BYP W becomes US-60 W.
Merge onto I-64 W via the ramp on the LEFT.
Take EXIT 32 toward FINCHVILLE / TAYLORSVILLE.
Turn LEFT onto KY-55.
Turn RIGHT onto KY-148.
End at 1810 Fisherville Rd
Finchville, KY 40022-5742, US

I wouldn't say that Equestrian Lakes/Finchville is smack between the two metro areas. It's closer to Louisville than Simpsonville; Finchville is just to the east of the Jefferson-Shelby County line. Locust Grove (between Eastwood and Simpsonville), is just as much between the two metro areas as Equestrian Lakes.

Besides, directions are given to L'Esprit (on the Henry/Oldham County line) from Cincinnati and Louisville. I'd say we both have a little more developing before anything remotely close to a merger comes our way.

Speaking of southwest Louisville I was driving around and saw a new neighborhood being built on St.Anthony's Church Rd. with the price range between 300,000 and 600,000, I was pretty impressed considering where I was.

That hill country from roughly Iroquois Park south to, say, Bobby Nichols Golf Course/Pages Lane, has developed into the somewhat upscale part of Southwest County (aside from Kenwood Hill).

This really started out with Windsor Forest (between Old Third Street and Arnoldtown Roads) at the very end of the 1960s into the 1970s, which was the crowning effort of a local developer active in SW County since the 1950s...this was also sort of proof-of-concept that "east end" style development could work in SW County.

After that one began to see larger homes go up in those hills. There was a slow growth period in the 1970s, but in the 80s & 90s this subarea really started to be developed.

St Anthony Church Road was already getting smaller scale developement of for more affluent folks, but it was one of the last areas in those hills still somewhat underveloped in larger subdivisions.

It really makes sense for those type of homes to be built there. There is money in the area and people like hills. So it just makes sense that maore expensive homes would be built there. Hopefully they will continue to be built.

i attended my first dwerby but i never realized how much attention it brings to the city. with the queen there and oj getting kicked out of jeff rubys, it was getting all the publicity! well anyways, i dont know ruby personally but i know ppl in cincy who do and man ppl either love the guy or hate him. i dont want to be quick to judge but it may have been a publicity stunt by him, i have been to his place and i swear i saw oj on the wall, i wonder when he took it down?

Fashion shop leaving 4th street is good news. It needs to go because it DOES NOT work at that location, and now we'll get to see 4SL switch around and add something new. The furniture shop they're opening on East Main.....?
Geez. It is either going to be gross, or a great asset to the neighborhood. But please god, don't let it be a big-box type deal where they use a big parking lot, or attempt to buy up more lots to supply them with ample parking. That would suck.


http://cmsimg.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=B2&Date=20070510&Category=BUSINESS&ArtNo=705100413&Ref=V2&Profile=1003&MaxW=500&title=1

Chain asks to close stores
Fashion Shop tells court it will sell inventory, open at new sites

The owners of the Louisville-based Fashion Shop chain want to close all six stores by November, according to a filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

Inventory at the six locations -- four in Louisville and one each in Lexington, Ky., and Evansville, Ind. -- would be sold as part of a plan to raise an estimated $10.8 million to pay off creditors and open three new stores.

Benjamin Levine, a co-owner of the family business, said the plan still needs court approval and is subject to change. The company has about 125 people on its payroll, and he said the owners want to retain as many of those employees as they can.

According to the May 3 court filing, Fashion Shop wants to open an upscale home-furnishings store at 835 E. Main St. in the Butchertown neighborhood; an approximately 100,000-square-foot "mega store" in Clarksville, Ind.; and a third location in the Hikes Point area.

A group that includes some of the Fashion Shop owners purchased the Butchertown property last August for $1.15 million. Tax records show the building has two stories and 37,917 square feet of space.

Levine said yesterday that the store could be open as soon as this summer, selling "eclectic, one-of-a-kind home furnishings" such as sofas, chairs, end tables and accessories. He said a location for the Clarksville store has not been finalized, but it will sell mostly home furnishings.

The Hikes Point location will be the only store focusing on apparel, he said, adding that it could be in the St. Matthews area instead.

Andy Cornelius, manager of the Market on Market grocery and deli just east of downtown, said more upscale retail stores are needed in the neighborhood to serve an influx of residents in recent years.

"There are condos going up all over the place," he said.

Stewart Brown, who runs a marketing and consulting firm on East Washington Street, agreed that the area is gentrifying, but said that he was skeptical that it could support a larger retail store. His business partner, Mary Simpson, said a Fashion Shop would need to draw heavily from commuters and people attending special events downtown.

In front of the Fashion Shop at 4th Street Live yesterday afternoon, shoppers Kathleen Lickteig and Pam Hawkins said they would support a store on East Main as long as it offered merchandise for working adults.

"We're career women," Lickteig said. "Now it's more geared to teens."

If the liquidation plan moves forward, Levine said the company could emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy by September. When Fashion Shop filed for bankruptcy last July, it owed $5.6 million to its largest creditor. Dozens of other creditors have submitted claims to bankruptcy court, including one from The Courier-Journal for $27,668.

The company has since closed five of its stores. Levine said the three new planned stores would have a different merchandise mix compared to the company's traditional apparel lines, but the overall business model isn't changing.

"We'll always be known for our value regardless of the price range," he said.

Fashion Shop, like Bycks and Levys was a real Louisville retail institution, though quite downmarket compared to Bycks....cheap womans clothes. Very Southwest County (I think the first one I recall was out in that Westchester Center, off Terry Lane in the nether reaches of Pleasure Ridge Park.

Debate intensifies over Waterfront Park overpass

The agency that oversees Waterfront Park wasn’t pleased with two early designs for a stretch of Interstate 64 over the Great Lawn — a key part of a reconstructed highway under the Ohio River Bridges Project.

Now, the Waterfront Development Corp., has warned Kentucky transportation officials that state law gives it the authority over what is built in the park and is urging the state to “begin serious discussions with those involved.”

“As we go through the process, the Bridges Project Team would be well advised to listen to the objections and constructive criticism offered,” Michael Kimmel, the waterfront agency’s deputy director, wrote in a letter to the state earlier this month.

At issue is the design of the I-64 span that will traverse the Great Lawn. Kimmel said the waterfront agency’s board was not “enchanted” by two alternatives the state presented earlier this year.

Each design would sink at least 40 pillars in the lawn, the centerpiece of Waterfront Park.

State highway officials have said that the waterfront agency’s preferred design — an arched span with possibly as few as 10 piers — has been developed on paper but that engineering work has not been done to determined if it’s feasible.

The arched design could cost as much as $160 million, state highway commissioner Marc Williams said in March, compared with $48 million for a steel “haunched box” girder design with 40 pillars and $36 million for a conventional steel-box girder span with 55 piers.

State officials were not immediately available for comment Monday morning.

David Karem, the waterfront agency’s executive director, did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.

In 2004, city law created a special district for the waterfront in which the waterfront agency reviews development in the district. That law stemmed from a state law allowing such districts.

The transportation cabinet cited Kentucky law last week when it denied the Courier-Journal’s request under the state’s open records laws to review documents on the possible arched span, saying the design plan is still in its preliminary stages.

Well Damn. No tower. At leasy we got the company though. The company is to grow rapidly. Perhaps they'll move to a tower one day.


PharMerica HQ to be off Blankenbaker Parkway

PharMerica, the pharmacy services company formed from parts of Kindred Healthcare and AmerisourceBergen, will have its headquarters off Blankenbaker Parkway, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The offices will be at 1901 Campus Place near Commonwealth Drive.

I swear... if they fuck up Waterfront Park, I'll be pissed. I would LOVE the arch design. Screw money. Im sick of money.
Full article: http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070515/NEWS01/705150416/1008

http://cmsimg.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=B2&Date=20070515&Category=NEWS01&ArtNo=705150416&Ref=AR&Profile=1008&MaxW=500&title=1

http://cmsimg.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=B2&Date=20070515&Category=NEWS01&ArtNo=705150416&Ref=V2&Profile=1008&MaxW=500&title=1

http://cmsimg.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=B2&Date=20070515&Category=NEWS01&ArtNo=705150416&Ref=H3&Profile=1008&MaxW=500&title=1

I swear... if they fuck up Waterfront Park, I'll be pissed. I would LOVE the arch design. Screw money. Im sick of money.
Full article: http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070515/NEWS01/705150416/1008

http://cmsimg.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=B2&Date=20070515&Category=NEWS01&ArtNo=705150416&Ref=AR&Profile=1008&MaxW=500&title=1

http://cmsimg.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=B2&Date=20070515&Category=NEWS01&ArtNo=705150416&Ref=V2&Profile=1008&MaxW=500&title=1

http://cmsimg.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=B2&Date=20070515&Category=NEWS01&ArtNo=705150416&Ref=H3&Profile=1008&MaxW=500&title=1


wow what a henious monster! lville is doing good things but man that whole 64 thing is a mistake. how could u put that many pilings in a park? no where else would they do this! just leave it like it is, and build an eastern bridge, i have never encountered super bad traffic in louisville. ur going to have bottlenecks in every major city, i mean do u expect it to be 5 PM and be able to go 65 mph everywhere? louisville could build a pretty nice starter bus rapid transit or light rail system down 64 and even 65 too for the 2 billion they save on the downtown bridge. lville luckily is pretty dense so i mean u could send a line 15 miles east of downtown and 15 miles south and u would get a good percent of the population.
let me say for all the good lville is doing in its urban areas and growing so nioce, i think the whole widening 64 downtown and not getting money for light rail will knock it to a lower tier of cities in the next 25 years.
the news on pharmerica is good any time u get a fortune 1000 relocations to ur city is nice.

Good news for the Louisville market:


Louisville-area real estate outperforming nation's
First quarter sees house-price gains

Louisville homeowners did better than the national average keeping the homes they wanted and selling the ones they didn't in the first three months of the year.

Nearly 17 percent more homes got default notices, auction notices or were repossessed in Kentucky during the quarter -- far less than the national increase of 62 percent, according to RealtyTrac, a Web-based research firm.

"I would think that's probably in the ballpark," said Dan Albers, master commissioner for Jefferson Circuit Court, which handles foreclosure sales. "I would say 15-20 percent is probably an accurate figure."

And a separate report showed that those trying to sell their homes in Louisville saw prices continue a slow-but-steady advance in the quarter, bucking a national trend that saw the median home price fall nearly 2 percent, the National Association of Realtors reported yesterday.

Area condominiums did even better, with the median price rising 10 percent over a year ago, the association said, compared to 1 percent nationwide.

The median price for a single-family home in the Louisville-Southern Indiana market was $133,300 in the first quarter of 2007, the Realtors reported, up 1.7 percent over the same period a year ago. The median condominium price was $127,500.

News that the pace of existing home sales slowed nationally in the first quarter by almost 7 percent compared to a year ago cut short a 100-point surge in the Dow Jones industrial average. After rising sharply through much of the day on news of tame inflation, the home-sales report left major indexes mixed.

It was the latest indication of a national slowdown in the housing market. The Realtors said home sales reached a 6.4 million annual rate compared to 6.9 million in the same quarter of 2006.

"We expect foreclosure activity to at least stay above last year's levels for the remainder of 2007, fueled by a combustible mix of risky loans taken out in the last few years -- many in the subprime market -- and slowing home-price appreciation," James Saccacio, chief executive officer of Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac, said in a prepared statement.

Home prices, too, are still falling. The national median existing single-family home price in the first quarter was $212,300, down 1.8 percent from a year ago when the median price was $216,100, according to the NAR's quarterly survey of housing market conditions. The median is a typical market price where half the homes sold for more and half for less.

At least part of the decline in the median price of homes is because sales have shifted away from more expensive homes, said a statement from the NAR, a Realtors trade group.

There are some signs of hope in the housing market. Existing-home sales rose at a 2.4 percent higher annual rate than in the final quarter of 2006. Fourteen states and the District of Columbia showed an increase in the rate of home sales last quarter compared with only six states showing gains a quarter earlier, the NAR said.

"It appears the worst of the price correction is behind us," said Pat V. Combs, NAR's president and vice president of Coldwell Banker-AJS-Schmidt in Grand Rapids, Mich., in a prepared statement.

RealtyTrac said foreclosures in April spiked to 147,708, compared with 91,168 in 2006, as lenders moved to repossess one of every 783 homes. The April figure was 1 percent lower than in March, when foreclosures hit a two-year high.

Nevada, Colorado, Connecticut, California and Ohio had the highest foreclosure rates nationwide, RealtyTrac said.

There is a basic conflict between the Great Lawn and, how many lanes of traffic? Won't it get shadowy under the road deck? Maybe they should take out the grass and put in some aggregate subbase under the deck, as a conceptual art thing...using the gravel they use when building the interstate roadbed.

I agree with Jeff of Dayton ^^ ^^

Read the end of this article concerning future plans for a waterfront park in the westend:::

Portland Wharf cleanup volunteers sought
The Courier-Journal





Volunteers are sought to clean up Portland Wharf Park near 31st Street and Northwestern Parkway tomorrow from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Neighborhood leaders are organizing the effort along with Louisville Metro Parks, Brightside, Metro Solid Waste Management and the Portland Museum.

The effort will include picking up debris and removing old tires and tree limbs deposited by floodwater and illegal dumping.

The historic Portland Wharf, important to Louisville’s early commerce, dates to the early 1800s.The city’s long-range plan is for a 56-acre park at the site.

We can just paint it one single ugly color and be done with it!
AHHHHHHHHHHHHG.
Why not at least something interesting? Like green?

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070520/NEWS01/705200480

http://www.courier-journal.com/assets/B273970520.PDF

I wonder what Mr.Blue has against Museum Plaza. If you look at the Iron Quarter site Ironquarter.com in the 'fresh off the press section' they have a story from Velocity claiming that 'IQ is a much better idea than Museum Plaza. Also, in the IQ rendering MP is nowhere to be found.

Recruiting retailers
Mayor Jerry Abramson is telling some of the nation's trendiest shops that Louisville is the place to be
By Alex Davis
alexdavis@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal





Mayor Jerry Abramson is hoping that what happens in Las Vegas this week will eventually come back to Louisville.

If he plays his cards right, Abramson believes his first trip to the spring convention of the International Council of Shopping Centers could help to bring several new and popular retailers to the area.

The annual trade show draws 1,200 exhibitors, and is viewed as a sort of Super Bowl for deal-making in retail real estate.

Abramson has meetings lined up with more than half a dozen companies, including Crate & Barrel home furnishings, the Trader Joe’s grocery chain and Nordstrom department stores.

Meetings with those and other businesses will give the city a chance to “look them eyeball to eyeball and try to sell the community,” Abramson said.

“Quite often it’s difficult to get these companies to come to your community,” he said in an interview, noting that the cachet many of the retailers bring improves perceptions about the area’s quality of life.

Dozens of area developers, bankers and other private-sector leaders also plan to attend. Todd Blue, developer of the Iron Quarter project on East Main Street near the planned arena, will be trying to lure national restaurants and apparel outlets for about 100,000 square feet of retail space.

He said Abramson has offered to meet with at least one of his prospective clients, partly to show that local government supports the project.

The estimated cost of Abramson’s trip is $2,000, money that will be well spent, said Chris Poynter, a spokesman in the mayor’s office.

Poynter said roughly the same amount of money will be spent on tickets and airfare for John Fischer, another city employee who will accompany the mayor.

Fischer is assistant director of the city’s Economic Development Department, overseeing a retail program called COOL that was formed four years ago when the city and county governments merged.

Fischer said that COOL — Corridors of Opportunity in Louisville — has been involved in more than 200 retail projects since its inception.

They include the redevelopment of Bashford Manor Mall, a P.F. Chang’s China Bistro restaurant off Shelbyville Road and a new Kroger grocery in the Portland neighborhood.

Abramson won’t be offering any special financial incentives to the various retailers, and the meetings don’t necessarily mean that a deal will happen any time soon.

Nonetheless, Fischer said mere appointments with retailers send a signal that they have an interest in coming to town.

“They don’t really have the time to meet with somebody they’re not interested in,” Fischer said.

Among the companies to meet with Abramson, Fischer said the Trader Joe’s grocery chain eventually wants to open two or three stores in the Louisville market.

The company, based in Monrovia, Calif., is known for its selection of wine, health foods and international cuisine. A spokeswoman did not return a telephone message seeking comment.

Fischer said another company on the mayor’s list, McCormick & Schmick’s, could put one of its upscale seafood restaurants downtown. The chain has 66 locations now, including Indianapolis and Cincinnati.

There are no formal plans to open a local McCormick & Schmick’s at the moment, but Tory Harms, a spokeswoman based in Portland, Ore., said there are “always things in the development pipeline.” Telephone messages left with Crate & Barrel and Urban Outfitters were not returned.

Abramson said he was confident Trader Joe’s would announce its first Louisville store in the next 12 months or so. Nordstrom was on the verge of coming to Mall St. Matthews six years ago before a last-minute cancellation.

Before he committed to the Las Vegas trip, Abramson said he spoke to other mayors who have attended the show, including Richard Daley of Chicago and Thomas Menino of Boston. Both reported that the experience was a useful way to link retailers with their communities, Abramson said.

A recent article in Governing magazine said about 1,200 mayors, city council members and other public-sector employees planned to attend this year’s convention. The shopping council will offer 2 million square feet, or roughly 46 acres, of exhibit space.

Robert Holmes Jr., another veteran of the show, will attend on behalf of NewBridge Development, a subsidiary of The Mardrian Group.

The company recently bought the old Philip Morris cigarette plant at Broadway and Dixie Highway, and Holmes said he and the firm’s two owners are looking for an anchor tenant for their planned mixed-use development.

NewBridge doesn’t expect Abramson to provide any special treatment at the show, Holmes said, but his presence could provide a boost in credibility during negotiations.

“It sends a message to retailers that they’ve got complete support” from local government, he said.

According to Fischer, there were some companies that turned down the city’s request for a face-to-face meeting. He didn’t offer names, but said the rejections were not a concern.

“No is only good for about six months in the retail business,” Fischer said. “We’ll circle back.”

Reporter Alex Davis can be reached at (502) 582-4644.

I wonder what Mr.Blue has against Museum Plaza. If you look at the Iron Quarter site Ironquarter.com in the 'fresh off the press section' they have a story from Velocity claiming that 'IQ is a much better idea than Museum Plaza. Also, in the IQ rendering MP is nowhere to be found.

He knows MP will have a much larger impact and will pretty much overshadow IQ.

And how lazy must a person be to not be able to walk from MP to the Arena? ...when i go to uofl football games, i see a lot of people walk all the way from uofl's main campus all the way to the stadium.

^^
Hahaha. Yeah. Wow. I park in Waterfront park and walk to 4th street all the time. Its a pleasant walk. Lots to look at.

In that PDF, MP had one little tiny picture in the planned residential section.. Way to really downsize the project.

I was DT last night going to see Spamalot, which was amazing, but I noticed that the Ali Center is still very much not quite exactly close to finshed at all. STILL. WTF mate?

And what is going on in St Matthews around the hospitals with the rising steel? Their's a new Tallest in that medical complex.

I had a feeling this might happen! I am not sure what to make of it either, at first I was mad but now maybe it would be best for the design. I always like new hotels downtown though. It also seems like more and more funding streams are being cut from the project.

Arena hotel plan scrapped
By Marcus Green
magreen@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal

An upscale hotel had been hailed as a key part of paying for Louisville’s downtown arena, but project officials now are scrapping plans for one on the site.

The Louisville Arena Authority, approved dropping the hotel today after the arena architect said it would not fit the project’s look— an issue first raised during arena task force meetings in 2005.

The plan to remove the hotel was included in a financial analysis presented to the arena authority by Leib Advisors as a follow-up to a 2006 report.

The hotel was expected to generate sales of $21.7 million a year, adding about $1.3 million in lease payments toward the $252 million arena project, according to last year’s study.

In addition to concerns by the architect, hoteliers had worried that the 475-room arena hotel, coupled with a planned Westin at the Museum Plaza skyscraper complex at Main Street and River Road, would give Louisville a surplus of downtown hotel rooms.

The report unveiled today also paints a rosier picture of revenues from arena operations, projecting that the arena will turn an average operating profit of $196,000 during its first 30 years. In last year’s study, consultants predicted an annual average operating loss of $123,000.

Read more in tomorrow’s Courier-Journal.

Reporter Marcus Green can be reached at (502) 582-4675.

Well poop. That's a nice, glass tower that could have been.

Hey but who knows demand is sure to be going up, maybe this will allow room for another one else where downtown, perhaps the water company block.

^^
I'm really thinking that is where our open-air DT mall will be... :okay:

(I'm a dreamer)

what does everyone think about that retail thing. i cant believe lville has to lure trader joes? seems like such a simple store to get. also nordstrom isnt that great, the saks in cincy is pretty nice tho.

Well poop. That's a nice, glass tower that could have been.

i dunno, can lville really support all these new hotels? i know they are building those 2 marriott branded ones right now downtown, and i know starwood is turning that hotel across the river into a sheraton. I am a starwood preferred business traveler, and apparently they are looking to put another hotel in the market besides the westin at museum plaza. then i think i remember an embassy suites is planned for fourth street too? starwood has a toned down version of w called aloft that is to open hundreds of hotels soon, and is already building in places like arkansas near walmart hq. they have been looking regionally at saint louis and other towns for Aloft. i think they are looking somewhere on 4th street for a franchisee for an aloft hotel, but that is just going on what the lady at starwood told me, because i always ask when the midwest would get a w outside chicago, and i was hoping cincinnati could get one bc i doubted lville was big enough) :) http://www.starwoodhotels.com/alofthotels/index.html
if you look, it seems they have some urban properties in places like minneapolis, so aloft seems to be pretty cool, i think a 90 rm aloft would work better in lville by then instead of some huge hotel on main street, bc i cant think of an operator willing to put 350 more rooms in downtown lville. I mean, isnt there like 6 hotels under development/construction downtown now, that seems crazy for a city lvilles size.

And what is going on in St Matthews around the hospitals with the rising steel? Their's a new Tallest in that medical complex.


It is an 8 story, 200,000+ s.f. addition to Baptist East. I think it has topped out. By the way, why is it called Baptist East? Was there a Baptist somewhere back in the day?

Trader joes didn't have to be lured here. The article in the CJ mentioned that they are looking at putting 3 or so stores here, but the Mayor is meeting with them. Probably to go over some stuff, but they don't have to be lured. I am sure one will go to Westport Village. They mentioned from the begining that they wanted an upscale grocery.

There are plenty of markets that still don't have a TJ. Corporate RE is a tricky thing. More goes into it than just the next best market, for younger, expanding companies at least.

Anyone heard anything about UofL aquiring the 30+ acre Kentucky Trailor property?????

what does everyone think about that retail thing. i cant believe lville has to lure trader joes? seems like such a simple store to get. also nordstrom isnt that great, the saks in cincy is pretty nice tho.
I thought Saks left Cincy, or moved to the suburbs or something??

I think its sad we have to put all the power in these over-glorified retailers hands, but if it takes begging to get them here, so be it. I won't be shopping at most the places because aint no way in hell i can afford them.
Target sells some damn fine clothes at pretty reasonable prices. :okay:

I would like to know what you all think about an urban Target somewhere around town. Indy is in serious talks about it, but there is an ever-looming fear it will be built in a traditional suburban layout. If we could get an uban styled, multi story Target(see Minneapolis), I think that the DT housing market would suddenly take some firm ground. You'd finally have a place that offers all the amenities that people argue you have to leave DT to get.

Does anyone know what building this is? Its a UofL Medical building, but I don't know where exactly its going.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/50/2006_Jun_14_SW_ground_view.GIF/800px-2006_Jun_14_SW_ground_view.GIF

it's going on top of the arena ;)

SE Corner of Ali and Hancock

We can just paint it one single ugly color and be done with it!
AHHHHHHHHHHHHG.
Why not at least something interesting? Like green?

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070520/NEWS01/705200480

ARGHH, that's crap. Beige is such a mediocre color when it comes to bridges.:ohno: Painting bridges a color other than brown, grey, or white can really change the atmosphere or the waterfront. IMO those colors (white can be an exception) give the area an industrial feel. In Kennedy's case, they could've atleast went with something like this for the scheme:
http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/4681/ravenswoodbridgelw1.jpg

And hell, since they are just blowing millions on this stuff, they should've hooked George Rogers Clark up with something like this:
http://img377.imageshack.us/img377/9131/irontonrc3.jpg
Or hell, maybe even the color from the purple people bridge in Cincy.
http://community.iexplore.com/photos/journal_photos/purple_II.jpg
Only problem with painting the 2nd Street bridge a color like one of those is the smudge marks at the top of the bridge from Thunder would become pretty visible.:lol:

Sounds like me may finally get rid of what's left of Bashford Manor. Hopefully they can incorporate a casual restaurant or two. There is space available to do so....


http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070523/ZONE03/705230319

Bashford Manor Mall
Old Dillard's store may be razed soon
New retail center is being considered
By Scheri Smith
ssmith@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal



The old Dillard's store in Bashford Manor soon could be the site of a new retail development anchored by a Burlington Coat Factory.

The old Dillard's building was part of Bashford Manor Mall. The retailer pulled out in 2003 after the mall began to decline. The store was saved when the rest of the mall was razed.



The building, like the old Bashford Manor Mall, is owned by Rubloff Developments. Bill Bardenwerper, a local land-use attorney who represents Rubloff, said the deal has not been finalized with Burlington, but negotiations are ongoing. Bardenwerper filed preliminary design plans for the development with Planning & Design Services earlier this month.

The Dillard's building would be demolished if plans are approved, he said.

A new retail center -- with 80,000 square feet of space -- would be built in its place. In addition to Burlington, plans show 28,220 square feet of retail space for a smaller store and 4,200 square feet of office space.

The new building will face Champions Trace Lane.

The Dillard's store remained when the rest of the mall was razed because Dillard's was entangled in litigation with Rubloff. The developer sued Dillard's in 2003 for a variety of claims including breaking its lease.

Today there's a Super Wal-Mart and a Lowe's Home Improvement Store where the mall once stood.

Area leaders are ecstatic that the old Dillard's building may finally go, said Donna Ising, president of the Bashford Manor Area Association. Ising said the vacant store was an eyesore because it was covered in graffiti.

"The building was really bad," Ising said.

She said neighbors are looking forward to continuing to help create a strong retail center.

"The development we've had has been very successful. That's the way it used to be a long, long time ago," Ising said. "That's what we want -- to keep the area alive and full of people."

It's pretty sad if you are reduced to begging the likes of McCormick and Schmick to locate in your town. It's a nothing special seafood chain that will soon grace every city in America. It adds little or nothing unique to Louisville, which has dozens of wonderful independently owned restaurants to choose from.

I agree. I generally don't dine at chain restaurants because I crave the unique-ness of locals. However, I don't discriminate against the chains. If there is a "unique" chain, I'll certainly eat there. However, I don't think we are "begging". The arena authority is trying to fill it's space. It's sad that it won't be local, but at least it will be a quality restaurant.