Project sign on Main Street at the Church

The Church project on Main Street at Shelby Street is in full swing with construction crews shaping individual condos on the interior of the 19th century building.  Developers Pip Pullen and Susan Swope are transforming the building into condos including a unit for themselves.  Last time we checked in, construction had just begun with the opening of a garage portal on the eastern side of the building.

Since then, a new construction sign has been posted listing the official name of the project as “The Church” with a few clever slogans coined for the project: “Awesome Space, God Knows”, “Living Space For Lucky Souls”, and our favorite, “And They Said It Never Had A Prayer.”  One of the most unique conversion projects in town is definitely letting its personality shine through.

Pip and Susan tell us they want the project to demonstrate the unique qualities of Louisville and provide a great example of architecture as he project melds old and new uses and details.  They sent in an a great set of photos detailing interior construction progress of the first units (check them out after the click).

New floors have been installed and walls are going in.  Bar joists support trays of corrugated metal that will soon be filled with concrete and individual units have become discernible.  Work is centered around the eastern half of the building.  The main sanctuary will be transformed last into multiple units, one vast luxury condo, or even potentially a retail space depending on market conditions.

Pip and Susan have been working with architect Jeff Rawlins of Architectural Artisans to add a few extra details to their own unit.  Pip specified that a river run through the new condo, and a shallow pool is already apparent traversing the floor on the inside.  Simple stepped bridges will lead from space to space, but the water feature will help to provide a spatial continuity to the interior.  Other features of the condo include a central vacuuming system and a bedroom perched among the original, oversized, wooden rafters.

• Holy Condo Watch: Construction Officially Begins (Broken Sidewalk)
• Butchertown Church Conversion Approved (Broken Sidewalk)
• Holy Condo Watch Update: Project Plans Unveiled (Broken Sidewalk)
• You Live Where? In A Church? Holy Condo Watch (Broken Sidewalk)

Click through for a tour of the interior construction.

It’s been a relatively slow news week.  Enjoy your Independence Day weekend.

• Survey: Kentuckians need education on runoff polltion (WFPL)
• Floodwall at Arena to feature new style of gate (C-J)
• Construction on Harrods Creek Bridge halted (C-J)
• PETA hopes to place ‘wounded chicken’ statue Downtown (C-J)
• How did home sales fare last month? (Lou Homes Blog)

Photo by Diane Deaton-Street

• Four Louisville events in Southeast Tourism’s Top 20 for summer/fall (Biz First)
• New Albany’s Bank Street Brew House adds a patio (NA Confiential)
• Ramsey, U of L, honor the Louisville Arena Authority (U of L)
• Southwest Louisville setting up Ambassador program (Valley Report)
• Get Old Louisville house tour tickets for cheap on July 11-12 (Fat Lip)
• Local pubs to donate portion of proceeds to Brightside (C-J)
• Indiana governor says tolls ‘might’ help build bridges (C-J)
• Can anything be done about crime around U of L? (LEO)
• Can the film industry help Louisville grow? (Russell Neighborhood)
• Frankfort Avenue loses gelato, gets ‘Conez & Coneyz’ (LHB Forum)
• Public markets making a comeback across the country (GOOD)
• Newsweek honors Wendell Berry’s book on local agriculture (C-J)
• On the virtues of street performers & spontaneous encounters (New Geography)
• Yale economist: Housing slump may be ending (Bloomberg via P-zen)
• What to make of sprawl and do we have too much? (Imaginative America)
• Cities, urban areas growing, holding value longer (CEOs4Cities)
• Could these ‘zebra bumps’ make bike lanes safer? (Tree Hugger)
• Coal brings more bad than good to Appalachia (NRDC Switchboard)
• ExxonMobil still funding ‘research’ to deny global warming (GOOD)

Louisville Antique Mall building (BS file photo)

The Louisville Antique Mall located on the corner of East Broadway and Campbell Street closed today after a year and a half at its current location and 26 years in business leaving 200 antique vendors and the penthouse Colonnade Cafe to find a new home.  In January 2008, the building was purchased for over $800,000 and owner Denise Golden subsequently invested around $2 million to fix up the structure.

The antique business has apparently been hit hard by the recession despite a good amount of traffic at the site.  Golden says the economy is to blame as spending has become tight.

The five-story art-deco building is currently for sale, along with several other large historic structures on East Broadway.  The 1920s era Louisville Antique Mall building is expected to be listed around $3.8 million.  Hopefully in better times this property and the entire stretch of East Broadway can pick up the pieces and begin to connect Downtown and near-Downtown neighborhoods with Irish Hill and the Highands above.

• Louisville Antique Mall (Official Site)
• Colonnade Cafeteria on Broadway (Broken Sidewalk)

Photo by Diane Deaton-Street

• Should the new arena be dubbed the ‘Jim Host Arena’? (WHAS Political Blog)
• McMansions falling out of fashion as boomers age amid recession (WSJ)
• A call to stop calling all Americans ‘consumers’ (World Changing)
• Five important but lesser known green jobs (TreeHugger)
• Smog air pollution increases risk of premature birth (TreeHugger)

Photo by Diane Deaton-Street

You may notice a few tweaks to the Broken Sidewalk user interface.  Hopefully the changes will make the site faster and easier to read.  We have also removed the forums for now as they weren’t getting much use.  Bear with us as we find all the little bugs with the new design.  If you find any problems or have any suggestions, tell us at bs@brokensidewalk.com.

• A Call For Two-Way Streets In New Albany (NA Confidential)
• We’re not really getting High Speed Rail in America (Urbanophile)
• Construction starts on wider Harrods Creek Bridge despite lawsuits (C-J)
• Trees in Waterfront Park being protected from deadly beetle (C-J)
• Even without a site selected, they’re trying to name the new VA Hospital (C-J)
• Louisville still on the list of “high hazard” coal ash sites (NRDC Switchboard)
• Los Angelos paying residents to get rid of grass lawns (GOOD)
• Where are Harvard grads heading after college & what do they want? (Atlantic)
• Denver looks to build more carriage houses, granny flats (Denver Daily via P-zen)

Photo by Diane Deaton-Street

Special thanks to our first regular Broken Sidewalk contributor, Diane Deaton-Street, who will be sending in sidewalk views from around the city in upcoming weeks.

Well, we finished skimming over a couple thousand headlines and now feel sufficiently caught up with the goings on in the River City and the related blogosphere.  Here’s today’s news along with a few notable headlines from the past few weeks.  It’s a lot and you probably have read many of them, but this will hopefully bring us up-to-date.

On a separate note, there may be an hour or so on downtime this weekend as we install upgrades to Broken Sidewalk’s software and implement the new design.  If you find any bugs, let us know at bs@brokensidewalk.com.

Local News

• Joe Davola’s finally opens on Barret Avenue (Consuming Lou)
• YUM going green with LEED certified KFC restaurant (Biz-First)
• 4th Street Live vs City Block controversy still going strong (Ville-Voice)
• Are local bars boycotting Maker’s Mark because of 4SL? (My Loueyville)
• JCTC still looking into Wayside’s Hotel Louisville property (C-J)
• While Wayside pays thousands in interest daily on the building (Ville-Voice)
• And the city is helping Wayside find another home (Ville-Voice)
• Updates from the arena which costs $1000 a minute (Ville-Voice)
• And a traffic study is set to begin around the arena site (Biz First)
• And the arena safety investigation explained here (Page One)
• Jarfi’s Bistro moving to ZirMed Towers from B-town Rd. (Lou HB)
• And Zaytun on B-town Rd. is expanding in Douglass Loop (Consuming Lou)
• St. Matthews’ Sustain store to close permanently (C-J)
• More ideas on how to revitalize the Russell neighborhood (Russell blog)
• Louisville tops voter chart of best cities overwhelmingly (Imagine Lou)
• Louisville th 10th safest city in the country according to FBI (Page One)
• With a critical mass in sight, can New Albany stay the course? (NA Confidential)
• $200 million proposed for State Street in New Albany (N & T)
• More on New Albany’s attempts to trade defeatism for revitalization (LEO)
• It’s still difficult to live car-free in Louisville (Presta vs Shrader)
• Rubbertown chemical company fined for chemical discharges in air (Fat Lip)
• Some great photos of Southwestern Louisville (a pretty pickle)
• Levee trail to be extended 2.5 miles in southwest Jeff. county (C-J)
• Louisville & Lexington join up for mutual gain (Biz Lex via Urbanophile)

Other news of interest

• Michigan governor calls for making trains at car factories (Infrastructurist)
• What should we get out of High Speed Rail & how to pay for it (StreetsBlog)
• Fix rail as it was in 1920s, forget High Speed Rail techno-glitz (Kunstler)
• DIY laser bike lane idea enters prototype phase (GOOD)
• Chart shows how slow it’s been to improve fuel economy (How We Drive)
• Great comedy about cars, driving, and transportation by Stephen Wright (How We Drive)
• Study: Urban residents twice as likely to exercise than suburbanites (CEOs4Cities)
• More single females than males in Louisville (Creative Class)
• Greater population density increases exchange of skills, ideas (Creative Class)
• What is “Gen-Y” looking for in cities and who ranks in the top-25 (Creative Class)
• And how to attract talented outsiders to a city (Urbanophile)
• This map showing human development doesn’t look good for the South (Creative Class)
• Sense of community increased as economy slows (CoolTown Studios)
• Construction sites can be pedestrian-friendly, too (Spacing)
• Study: Green sector ‘poised for explosive growth’ (World Changing)
• And Louisville certainly has room for green job growth (World Changing)
• And green jobs have outpaced the economy for a decade (LA Times via Infrastructurist)

Hello again.  Sorry the transition has taken a little longer than anticipated, I just got my Internet up and running today after three long weeks going without.  This is the first post from New York just to let our readers know that Broken Sidewalk isn’t going anywhere.

Now that I can actually connect to the site, the schedule should move more quickly and new stories by me and contributing witers should begin to appear online in the next week or two.

Thanks for hanging in there while this rather tumultuous process plays out.  I have aleady begun to miss Louisville in just three weeks of being away, but I am having a great time in New York City as well.  Stay tuned as we hope to get Broken Sidewalk up and running again as soon as possible.

Thanks for your support.

If you notice the the posting schedule diminished in the next week or two, please be patient.  We’re making a few changes to Broken Sidewalk, that should, in the end, make the site even better.  First of all, I am moving to New York City next week which will take time and adjustment.  Don’t worry, Broken Sidewalk isn’t going anywhere.  I will continue to write about Louisville from a distance and will have the help of several new contributors, correspondents, and guest posters who have expressed interest in adding to the site.  We’ll introduce them as they begin writing.  (If you would like to contribute, let us know at bs@brokensidewalk.com.)

This means your tips are now more important than ever.  We’ve received quite a few tips in the past few days that we haven’t had time to get online yet.  Rest assured, we’re looking into them and will add articles very soon.  We really love getting photo-tips, too.  If you see something going on around town, snap a cell phone photo or reach for your digital camera and send it to us at tips@brokensidewalk.com.  Keep sending in any tips or questions you find, though, with or without photos.

Broken Sidewalk will soon look a little different, too, as we launch BS 2.0.  We think the new format will be more readable and even more functional than before, so stay tuned.  On that note, if you have any suggestions to improve the site, let us know.  Tell us what you like and don’t like.  (To the feed readers out there, we’re going back to the full feed by popular request.)

Lastly, tell us what you want to hear about on Broken Sidewalk.  What stories would you like to read?  We can’t promise we’ll get to every single one, but we’ll sure try.  Thanks again for reading and stay tuned for some exciting changes; and don’t be alarmed if posting is slow for a short time.