Broken Sidewalk » Phoenix Hill

Vic’s Classic Bikes Moving To Baxter Avenue

Branden Klayko — Mon, 17 May 2010 13:32:21 +0000

912 Baxter Avenue (BS File Photo)

A couple weeks ago I mentioned Vic’s Classic Bikes in our New Local Business Roundup. Vic’s is currently located at 2016 South Preston Street near Eastern Parkway, but will soon be moving to 912 Baxter Avenue. Here’s some info from Vic’s blog:

“I have signed a lease and will take possition of the ground floor of the building located at 912 Baxter Avenue. This move will give me over 3 times the space and a more visible and accessable location.The main show room is 600 sq’ with 2, 4′x5′ display windows.”

Based on that description, it sounds like there will be a few changes to the existing facade such as expanding the size of the windows. Vic’s Classic Bikes hopes to be open in their new location by mid- to late-June.

Unexpected Infill In Phoenix Hill

Branden Klayko — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 00:05:08 +0000

New infill building in Phoenix Hill

While walking along Shelby Street near Chestnut Street, something didn’t seem right. There was some sort of change since the last time I was there. I checked photos in the Broken Sidewalk archive and discovered that a new two-story infill building has filled a vacant lot two doors down from Ed Hamilton’s sculpture studio.

While the structure seems to blend well architecturally with the surrounding neighborhood, I can’t figure out why the new building is set farther back from the street than its neighbor. You can see in the photo that Hamilton’s studio, being a commercial building, has no setback and ends at the sidewalk. Next door, a brick town house is set back slightly to indicate that it’s residential and not commercial. The setback is slight as the front yard is largely ceremonial. The new structure is set back another increment of about five feet.

Why didn’t the new residential form conform to the historic residential setback? The front yard is largely wasted space and an additional five feet in the back yard might have been more functional. It also seems like the new building could have directly joined the neighboring townhouse instead of becoming a stand-alone structure separated by a few feet. There may have been issues with the property line or windows in the side of the townhouse that dictated such a move, however.

I’m not sure who built the new building but judging from its similarity to the housing stock in Liberty Green and the new apartments farther down Shelby Street, I would guess it’s the Louisville Metro Housing Authority. Did anyone see this thing go up?

Empty lot in Phoenix Hill (BS File Photo)

East Broadway: Louisville Antique Mall Closing

Branden Klayko — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 03:20:41 +0000

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)

Hurricane Damaged Building Back Better Than Ever

Branden Klayko — Thu, 21 May 2009 23:29:13 +0000

Rebuilt Bargain Supply storage building

A building damaged in Wind Storm 2008 on Liberty Street in Phoenix Hill has now been fully rebuilt. The 1880′s era commercial vernacular building could have been just another casualty of Hurricane Ike, but the owners, Bargain Supply Company (located on the same block), decided to fix the building instead of tear it down. And they went beyond our expectations.

Before the windstorm, the windows on the upper floor had been substantially reduced in size with brick infill. It always looks a little strange to see a stone lintel several courses of brick above the actual window. The faded yellow-ish paint was peeling and what was left of the window apertures was boarded up. The building needed help; then the winds blew.

A large portion of the roof was severed from the structure, dislodging bricks from the parapet and causing the front facade to bow. The city declared the structure a “Dangerous Building.” The building was still sturdy, and repair work was in the plans. In December, scaffolding was put in place and crews began to rebuild the top floor facade and replace the roof.

The finished product is still just a warehouse, but the building lends a much more inviting face to the street. All the upper floor window openings were restored to their original size and now they even have windows. A new stone parapet cap was put in place and a fresh coat of paint completed the work. Quite a transformation a hurricane can make.

Scaffolding Watch: Danerous PH Building Being Tamed (Broken Sidewalk)
Dude, Where’s My Roof: Phoenix Hill Edition (Broken Sidewalk)
Demo Watch: East Jefferson Street Building Reduced To Rubble (Broken Sidewalk)

Bargain Supply building repair work

Modern Shotgun House Could Be Future Prototype

Broken Sidewalk — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 01:04:16 +0000

Modern Shotgun House on Hull Street

A modern interpretation of a shotgun house is finishing up construction on Hull Street in Phoenix Hill. The project was designed and built by Shed Design+Build and will soon be home to one of the partners in the business. Graham Clark and John Bajandas recently completed the now fully occupied Franklin Flats in Butchertown with a similar modern interpretation of traditional massing. The modern shotgun house could eventually serve as a prototype for infilling vacant parcels in many of Louisville’s neighborhoods.

Graham Clark came to the realization that he wasn’t fully living in his 2,000 square foot condo in Crescent Hill. Realistically, he says he was only utilizing about 900 square feet on a regular basis. This led him to ask himself, “How do I live all over my house?” The result is a modern shotgun house where every bit of space has a use. The house sits on a 21′ by 111′ lot and has 1,438 square feet. Extra space in the basement and outdoor living spaces bring the total up to about 2,200 square feet. There’s still room on site for a carriage house and backyard as well.

The house is narrow at only 14′-5″ clear distance between exterior walls, but it has been designed to open up the interior spaces and create a flow to connect all parts of the house. Walking inside, high ceilings and tall windows help to push the walls out and make the house feel larger. Graham intentionally left the ground floor as a single open space with no interrupting walls to help heighten this effect. A half bathroom in the center of the house doesn’t quite reach the ceiling and provides a degree of visual separation between the living and dining areas of the house.

The half bath will be clad in the same hickory planks that cover the floor and a frosted glass clerestory will connect it to the ceiling. Built-in bookcases and storage units will help make the most of the small urban dwelling while keeping a clean, modern interior. In this way, even the bathroom becomes a piece of modern furniture placed inside the house rather than an afterthought tucked in a corner.

Privacy has also been unobtrusively designed into the house. Hotizontally oriented windows placed on the upper half of the side walls provide natural light while ensuring privacy on a narrow lot and recessed lighting keeps the space well lit without cluttering the ceiling. Since this is his own home, Graham was able to take risks he might not otherwise as a builder.

Perhaps the best spot in the entire house, though, is on the second floor. The dramatic butterfly roof set back from the front facade is revealed in the interior space and allows light to flood the two upstairs bedrooms. Salvaged 150 year old doors will be used to partition spaces. The master bedroom features a large terrace overlooking Downtown Louisville.

The modern shotgun house is situated high atop Phoenix Hill which rapidly fally away across Hull Street providing panoramic views of the entire city. Graham described the scene as an intensely urban one. City life unfolds in an action packed drama as city lights twinkle at night and various modes of transportation weave through the city just down the hill. Thunder Over Louisville this weekend is expected to put on an especially nice show from the terrace.

Graham Clark hopes to take his experiences with this house and apply them to a prototype modern shotgun house that can be built affordably as infill. He says the key aspects of the house are its open design, modern materials, traditional proportions, and urban scale. The house makes the most of its narrow lot while offering amenities common in modern design. The open floor plan and ample outdoor living spaces make this house extremely livable. Perhaps one day similar modern shotgun houses will fill missing teeth across urban Louisville.

Franklin Flats To Be Fully Occupied By End Of Year (2008) (Broken Sidewalk)
Franklin House Brings Modern Architecture To Butchertown (Broken Sidewalk)

Construction at the modern shotgun house.

View from the second floor terrace.

BS Neighborhood Derby: First Winners In, New Battle Begun

Broken Sidewalk — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 01:39:41 +0000

BS Neighborhood Derby 2009

[ EDITOR'S NOTE: These polls have closed. Please click here to go to the BS Neighborhood Derby page where the current open polls will be listed at the top. The BS Neighborhood Derby is just ahead. Thanks for voting. ]

The first two BS Neighborhood Derby Round One winners have been finalized. Both number 1 seeds, the Highlands and Downtown, advance to the second round of our neighborhood challenge. They were formidable opponents and the suburban town centers (Anchorage, Jeffersontown, and Norton Commons) and the classic duo SoBro & Limerick put up quite a fight with the latter beginning to pull ahead slightly towards the end of voting. Here are the final results of the first challenge. Don’t forget you have until Friday afternoon to vote on two more match-ups still ongoing, so head on over and show your support. The final results are posted below:

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll. Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Moving on to the next neighborhood battle, we have the perennial favorite Germantown, Paristown Pointe, Schnitzelburg trio versus the up-and-coming Smoketown-Jackson Park, Shelby Park duo. Also competing this time around in what surely will go down as the “Battle on the Hill” are Crescent Hill, Clifton, Clifton Heights against Phoenix Hill & Irish Hill. Which side of Interstate 64 will win? As always, feel free to vote in both contests. Exit polling in the comments. This race will last until Monday afternoon due to the weekend, so be sure to spread the word.

Germantown, Schnitzelburg, Paristown

Louisville Weirdness: Tree Sitting Edition (Broken Sidewalk)
Up In Smoke: Old Hickory Burns (Broken Sidewalk)
Germantown Archives, Paristown Pointe archives

Smoketown-Jackson Park, Shelby Park

East Broadway Building For Sale, Ready For Redevelopment (Broken Sidewalk)
East Broadway Theater A Hidden Gem (Broken Sidewalk)
One More Reason To Love East Broadway (Broken Sidewalk)
Demo Watch: Shelby Park Destroys Brick Townhouse (Broken Sidewalk)
Smoketown-Jackson Park archives,

Crescent Hill, Clifton, Clifton Heights

Lodge 820 Redefines Luxury Urban Living (Broken Sidewalk)
Old Mom’s Music Set To Become Art Deco Retail (Broken Sidewalk)
New Bike Depot Location On Frankfort Avenue (Broken Sidewalk)
Hilltop Theater May Soon Be Hilltop Condos (Broken Sidewalk)
Frankfort Avenue Grandfather Clock Croaks (Broken Sidewalk)
Crescent Hill archives, Clifton archives

Phoenix Hill, Irish Hill

Baxter Mural Recalls Louisville’s Rural Days (Broken Sidewalk)
Broken Sidewalks: Doing It In The Road (Broken Sidewalk)
Snapshot: Phoenix Hill Rebuild Getting Rebuilt (Broken Sidewalk)
Rendering vs. Reality: 801 East Broadway Almost Done (Broken Sidewalk)
Stone Wall In Irish Hill Collapses (Broken Sidewalk)
Morgue Partial Collapse Still Blocking Sidewalk (Broken Sidewalk)
Phoenix Hill archives, Irish Hill archives

What Is A Housing Project?

Broken Sidewalk — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 00:38:17 +0000

Clarksdale Housing Project Just Before Demolition

The new HOPE VI development named 810 East Broadway held an official ribbon cutting yesterday. We’ve told you about the building all through construction and gave you a tour of the building last week, but the rest of the news came on board today with fresh coverage after the press event. Some news outlets labeled the 22-unit mixed-use building a “housing project.” We feel this term isn’t appropriate for describing the future of public housing in Louisville.

Housing “projects” are what we’re replacing. The old Clarksdale Homes (pictured above) were torn down to create the mixed-use, mixed-income Liberty Green development. 810 East Broadway is part of that transformation. While the building does have sub-market rate apartments, it’s part of a new approach to public housing called scattered site development where small numbers of units occur all throughout the city. The term housing project, for us at least, still carries a negative stigma from the 20th century equivalent and isn’t constructive to describe the new nature of these developments, especially 810 East Broadway.

But it’s really all just word play. This is a development project and it includes housing. Housing project. So, you could suppose that Waterfront Park Place or the Fleur-de-Lis on Main, or Lake Forest subdivision for that matter are all housing projects. But they don’t get headlines that read “City opens new housing project” from Fox 41. Most were more sensitive. The C-J simply calls it “public housing” or an “apartment complex” while Wave 3 says it’s a “housing complex for working families.” WFPL had the best headline reading “New Housing Development Opened Downtown.” It gets to the point without allowing stereotypes to fester beneath stigmatized words. And it generates the most excitement.

This is a new housing development in a beautiful new building that is one of the most contextually sensitive in Louisville. The city should be excited there’s 22 new housing units near downtown and over 3,000 square feet of new market rate retail space on Broadway. This building will be great for the city. The design of the structure (by Kersey & Kersey Architects) may have been a little too good, though. Apparently 810 East Broadway blends so well with its historic surroundings, Wave 3 thought it was a renovation: “The 801 East Broadway building at the corner of Shelby and East Broadway has been completely renovated to provide 16 one-bedroom apartments as well as six two-bedroom apartments.” It’s like the building has been here all along.

Are we concerned about nothing or do you agree 810 East Broadway isn’t a “housing project?” Even Mayor Abramson was delighted that we’ve progressed from warehousing the poor in barracks. Your thoughts in the comments.

Rendering vs. Realist: 810 East Broadway Almost Done (Broken Sidewalk)
Previous coverage of 810 East Broadway on Broken Sidewalk

Clarksdale Housing Project Just Before Demolition

Snapshot: Shelby Street Trolley Tracks Exposed

Broken Sidewalk — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 22:44:12 +0000

Streetcar tracks on Shelby Street

While we were visiting the 810 East Broadway development yesterday, we noticed a stretch of metal streetcar track that had been exposed during construction. Louisville once had an extensive streetcar system connecting all of the historic city and many of the tracks are still in place under many streets, although now unusable. They surface from time to time with utility work or construction, like these tracks we found on Preston Street last year. You can sometimes find hints of the tracks beneath asphalt: here, parallel cracks about 4″ wide are a clue at the top of the photo.

Rendering vs. Reality: 801 East Broadway Almost Done

Broken Sidewalk — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 01:40:04 +0000

801 East Broadway: Rendering vs. Reality

Work is wrapping up at the new 801 East Broadway Development we’ve been affectionately calling the Shelby Street Apartments. The exterior of the building is all but done, so we decided to see how close it matches up with the original rendering. We’d say its just about spot on. While we were visiting the new mixed-use building today, we were able to take a tour of the newly finished apartments and shelled retail space. The building’s16 total apartments are all reserved for public housing, but we’d have to ask local developers to take note: this building is great.

Designed by Kersey & Kersey architects of Phoenix Hill, the 801 East Broadway building was designed to blend with its historic neighborhood and recently won a “New Landmark” award from the Louisville Historical League for its design efforts. The building contains five 2-bedroom townhouses, one two-bedroom flat, and 16 more one-bedroom units. On the corner, 3,100 square feet of retail space remains shelled so a future tenant can build out the space to their requirements. The space was designed to accommodate a shop or a restaurant and has all the plumbing and gas fit-ups for anything in between. There’s an estimated 66,000 employees within a mile radius of the corner, so customers shouldn’t be hard to find.

The units are smaller than what you might find at the Fleur-de-Lis on Main and the finishes certainly less grand, but we found them cozy with quality construction and plenty of room to live inside. Kitchens were open to the living areas with a bar to make the spaces feel larger. The views of Broadway, Shelby Street, and St. Martin’s Church weren’t bad either (Especially from that corner apartment). With their great location in the East Broadway “Bridge” Corridor halfway between the Highlands and Downtown, these things would lease in a heart-beat on the open market.

Construction will be complete this month and the first tenants will be moving in sometime in early April. New street trees will be installed tomorrow along Shelby Street and the construction fence should be coming down Monday. New streetlights have already been installed. One interesting quirk of the building is it comes equipped with its own floodwall. After Hurricane Katrina, MSD revised the flood plains in town and East Broadway is now right in the middle of one. Steel panels can be attached to the building’s columns in the event of rising waters on Beargrass Creek and the townhouses were elevated with a set of stairs to keep them dry (originally they would have entered directly from the sidewalk). Apparently, all new construction in the area must have a similar feature even though there’s been no flooding here since the Great Flood of 1937.

We’d like to see more infill developments like 801 East Broadway pop up all over town. These apartments could easily go for market rates and really start to boost Louisville’s urban population. The entire project cost around $3.5 million (not including land – the city already owned the property) and was paid for by the same Hope VI funds used to construct Liberty Green. With 22 units, over 3,000 square feet of retail, and a great ability to mesh with the neighborhood in material and scale, 801 East Broadway should certainly provide a model for future growth in Louisville.

More coverage of the 801 East Broadway development (Broken Sidewalk)

Townhouses at 801 East Broadway

801 East Broadway wrapping up construction

Rendering of 801 East Broadway (by Kersey & Kersey)

Beginnings of a complete urban edge on East Broadway

Inside the retail space at 801 East Broadway

Interior courtyard at 801 East Broadway

Inside the corner apartment at 801 East Broadway

Floodwall panels

Floodwall at 801 East Broadway

Floodwall panels from the retail space

Tonini Building Renovation Work Begins With New Roof

Broken Sidewalk — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 01:08:00 +0000

Tonini Building Under Renovation

Work on the Tonini Church Supply building on the corner of Shelby Street and Gray Street has finally begun. We’ve been waiting to see some progress on this one for a while since the project was announced last year. This building, believed to date from the 1890s, is one of our favorites in Louisville. The two- to three-story brick building may not be overly ornate or really all that memorable, especially considering it’s across the street from St. Martin’s Church, but it does everything it’s supposed to as an urban building: provides mass at the corner, is scaled well, works well with its neighbors, and offers mixed-use potential.

Plans call for converting the structure into 12 apartments for the mentally handicapped. The complete project will cost about $2 million and is being developed by New Directions Housing Corporation; financial assistance is provided by U.S. Housing & Urban Development. The first phase of the project calls for about $360,000 to go toward structural stabilization and a new roof. The rest of the work will follow later.

A new roof is currently being installed on the lower portion of the structure and non-original additions on the back of the building were removed. The interior of the building has been severely water-damaged and two quite large trees are growing from its front facade, so there’s quite a bit of work to be done. All work on the project will adhere to historic Landmark renovation guidelines. It’s nice when you’re able to breathe a sigh of relief over a building being saved that once seemed all but lost.

New Directions Housing Corporation (Official Site)
Revolving Doors: Will The Tonini Building Soon See Action? (Broken Sidewalk)
Tonini Building To Be Renovated (Broken Sidewalk)
Unintended Green Architecture: Attack Of The Trees (Broken Sidewalk)

Tonini Building Under Renovation