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Louisville Downtown Development Plan City of Louisville • Downtown Development Corporation • Louisville Central Area, Inc. September 2002 To the Friends and Supporters of Downtown Louisville JUNE 1, 2003 This is a tremendously exciting time for our entire Our downtown has seen incredible momentum build that the Downtown Development Corporation, a community. We have come together to create a new – with close to $1 billion in investment over the model of public/private partnership innovation, is city government—Louisville Metro—that unites all past 10 years. New downtown projects now under the steward for implementation of the Plan. of us, center city to suburb. way total more than $330 million. An additional $490 million in downtown development is in vari­ The guiding principles highlighted in these pages It’s also a tremendously exciting time for downtown ous stages of project design. Each new project propose very high standards for our downtown. The Louisville – the heart of our new city. To be a truly becomes another building block for creating the most creative and talented thinkers in the country great community, we must have a downtown that vibrant downtown envisioned by this Plan and by were engaged in this effort. These urban designers, delights, inspires, entertains, educates, provides an our community’s leaders. planners, housing and transportation experts, econ­ array of services and bustles with energy … from omists, and graphic designers worked in concert its richly varied workforce to its growing number Why is a strong, vibrant, creative downtown so with those who are involved in downtown planning of residents. important? To compete in the 21st century, our and development on a daily basis. community must be a stimulating and creative Louisville’s downtown should be our city’s most place to live and work — economically stimulating, Our community has enthusiastically endorsed the unique and stimulating environment — a place socially stimulating, and intellectually stimulating. vision of downtown detailed in the Louisville that epitomizes our city’s energy and pulse. People with vision, with creativity, with ideas, can Downtown Development Plan. Together we will work often live wherever they choose. Entrepreneurs in the months to come toward bringing that vision To achieve this, we need a strong vision that serves should want to live here because of the business to life. as the blueprint for our downtown. Fortunately, the opportunities. Educators should want to live here Louisville Downtown Development Plan provides because exciting things are happening in our this vision. It represents three years of hard work schools, our colleges and our universities. Artists by more than 600 of our citizens, thanks to strong should want to live here because of our rich, financial support from the City of Louisville, the J. creative environment. People from other cultures Graham Brown Foundation, the Gheens Foundation should want to come here because this is a place Jerry E. Abramson and the W.L. Lyons Foundation. These partners in of opportunity. Downtown Louisville sets the tone Mayor downtown deserve our sincere appreciation, as in these areas for our entire city. City of Louisville does the Policy Committee chaired by former Mayor David Armstrong and Kelly Downard, As our vision for downtown moves forward, there is former chairman of the Downtown Development a great deal more to be done. More support from Corporation. We applaud all of the people who the public sector, more investment from the private have helped craft this vision for downtown. sector, more innovative public/private partnerships can take us where we want to go. We are fortunate 1 LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY Louisville Downtown Development Plan City of Louisville • Downtown Development Corporation • Louisville Central Area, Inc. September 2002 Policy Committee Co-Chairs David Armstrong, Mayor, City of Louisville Kelly Downard, Chairman, Downtown Development Corporation Project Management Barry Alberts, Executive Director, Downtown Development Corporation Patti Clare, Assistant Director, Louisville Development Authority David Peterson, President, Louisville Central Area Plan Team Lead Consultants Urban Design Associates Chan Krieger Associates Supporting Consultants Economic Research Associates Zimmerman/Volk Associates E & Y Kenneth Leventhal Real Estate EDAW Selbert Perkins Design University of Kentucky School of Architecture/Joint Urban Design Studio QK4 Associates (formerly Presnell Associates) American Engineering Principal Writer Barry Alberts Contributing Writers Patti Clare Charles Cash Charles Raith Editor Michael Gritton Graphic Design Priscilla Daffin 2 Downtown Development Plan Table of Contents Cover Letter . .1 Retail . .46 Credits . .2 Public Realm . .52 Table of Contents . .3 Circulation . .60 Preface . .4 Activity Generators . .70 Introduction . .8 Hotel and Hospitality . .78 Past Decade . .11 Medical Center . .80 Study Process . .14 South of Broadway . .86 Guiding Principles . .16 West Main/Shippingport . .88 Urban Form . .20 Neighborhood Connections . .90 Strengths and Weaknesses . .22 Downtown Management . .94 Residential . .24 Regulatory Environment . .97 Clarksdale Mixed Income Neighborhood . .31 Executive Summary . .99 Office . .36 Bibliography . .103 eMain USA . .42 3 LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY Preface There are a number of reasons why we have will grow stronger tomorrow. We should borrow a embarked on a new Downtown Development Plan. management concept espoused by Peter Drucker, First, the original Plan is now ten years old, and in the management guru, who said “Results are the intervening decade we have firmly embraced its obtained by exploiting opportunities, not merely guiding principles: a focus on the pedestrian; a by solving problems.” sense of distinct districts with their own character rather than a homogenous whole; a return to the What exactly does this mean for our downtown River; a more compact core. Second, we have, for and our new merged community? It means creating the most part, carried out the specific recommenda­ a vision of the future, not steeped in a return to the tions of the Plan: we have expanded the Convention past, but one that capitalizes on current trends that Center, redeveloped the waterfront into an asset for provide new growth opportunities downtown. It the entire community, developed the West Main is rather amazing, when you stop and think, the Street Cultural District, and focused our attention changing attitudes toward urban life and downtowns on the Downtown Medical Center as an economic since we began to develop the Downtown Plan ten driver. Third, having strengthened the base of our years ago. Just a decade ago, much effort and dis­ downtown, we can now tackle the more difficult cussion was still focused on what were considered issues of retailing and housing — and in fact we to be the traditional functions of downtown: major have already begun to do so with great enthusiasm department stores, high-end apparel retailing, fine and initial success — through the Downtown dining, most if not all white collar jobs, etc. Most Housing Initiative, Fourth Street Live!, and the of the analysis dealt with ways to reduce or over­ Fourth Street Entertainment District. come the obstacles that people believed prevented a return to a prior vision of downtown – traffic, These are all good reasons, but the most com­ crime, lack of parking, and to be frank, people pelling reason to develop a new blueprint for the different than themselves. future of downtown is a simple one: the market­ place has changed—for the better—and we must be This way of thinking was a continuation of a trend sure that we are poised to capitalize on these posi­ that began in most cities, including Louisville, in tive changes. There are now as many—if not more the 1950s. The rapid movement towards suburban­ —opportunities to capitalize on than liabilities to ization scared most city leaders and planners, and overcome. Downtowns everywhere are being all too often the instinctive response was to eliminate thought of in positive, rather than negative, terms. the differences of downtown and try to replicate the We need to move into the future seeking out the suburbs. How many cities developed pedestrian emergent opportunities resulting from this shift in malls, built enclosed shopping centers, created perception, rather than trying to hang on to old covered skyways, and leveled historic buildings images of downtown. These old images may be for surface parking – all in the name of trying to romantic, but are no longer operative in the replicate this new suburban model? We all know, dynamics of urban life that exist today and unfortunately, the result of most of these efforts. 4 Downtown Development Plan By replicating the suburban model, we drained the you will have by now noticed that by far the major uniqueness and character out of downtown, and all change is the public’s attitude toward cities and we did was to provide—even if successful—a simi­ downtowns. Whereas ten years ago, the general lar experience. Why would anyone go out of their attitude was still fairly negative, it has now become way to come downtown if it was just the same as highly positive, at least in certain important demo­ something that they already had closer and more graphic circles. Downtowns are now seen as pos­ convenient to where they were? sessing certain unique and positive attributes that outweigh their drawbacks. Pick up recent copies of Obviously hindsight is 20/20 as these efforts were Newsweek, USA Today, The New York Times, and well intentioned at the time, but this is just not even The Wall Street Journal, and you will see smart business. What would you think in your own story after story about people who are seeking a business if your company team was asked to devel­ more interesting and exciting experience, who are op a business plan for the new century, and their rediscovering the assets of downtowns and inner living or working in the suburbs at one point in their recommendation was to recreate how business was city neighborhoods.

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