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Butchertown House Under Wraps For A Year Now For Sale
Butchertown House For Sale
A three story townhouse on the corner of Washington and Shelby Streets is on the market after a long renovation and is seeking an owner to customize the interior. The 3,000 square foot, 19th century brick house is listed for $190,000, but the owner wants to get the home into good hands, so a deal could be had. But you’d better act fast as several interested parties are currently looking at the house.
Located amid a stretch of three story houses on Washington Street, the row has a stately presence. The property first caught out attention in 2007 when it was covered in scaffolding and plastic. We knew the house was being tuck pointed, but could figure out little more. Finally, last fall the scaffolding came down and later a for sale sign appeared in the front yard. The renovation is now estimated to be 60% complete and the owner surmises another $25,000 could finish the job in an elegant manner. The owner has been working on the house for two years, but with the current economy and lack of financing available for real estate projects, the owner feels selling the property as-is is the best solution.
There has already been substantial work done on the house, too. The entire west and south side, which backs up to the church-turned-condo development, have already been tuck-pointed and sealed. The chimneys have been fixed as well. A portion of the front facade has as well, but needs a little more work. Seeing the difference between the old mortar and the new repairs on the front is quite remarkable (photo after the click). Fixing a building’s masonry really makes it appear almost new.
Besides brick work, all exterior wood details along the fascia have been replaced and new box-gutters installed. The interior features new hardwood floors, but is largely open for the new owners to custom-design their living space. The house was originally carved into three apartments and was in very poor condition. The exterior was rotting and plaster ceilings had fallen in. The owner wants to return it to single family use and estimates 3 or 4 bedrooms could easily fit into the space.
This stretch of houses in Butchertown is one of the finest examples of urban order in the neighborhood known for its eclectic architecture. The houses are stately and tall and with a little effort, this house could become a like-new century old show-piece.
PrintThree West Main Street Buildings Ready For Redevelopment
Three West Main Street Properties For Sale
Three prominent row-buildings on West Main Street once part of a planned entertainment center are being placed on the market. The buildings for sale include the Fort Nelson building on the corner of Main & 8th Streets and two double-wide row buildings at 811-813 Main and 815-817 Main. Original plans called for selling the properties all at once, but owners Paul and Carolan Bariteau of Forte Development are now selling the buildings individually. The three properties represent the last major buildings vacant on West Main Street without development plans.
The buildings were all originally tobacco warehouses are contain a combined 71,000 square feet, minus basements, which empty onto Washington Street. No price has been set for the properties, but they will likely be listed for similar prices as recent sales in the neighborhood (The Fulton-Conway property went for around $1.5 million). This stretch of West Main Street has been largely redeveloped with high-profile museums including the Louisville Slugger Museum, the Frazier International History Museum, and the Louisville Science Center (currently being expanded). The National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution plans another history museum and geneology library in the 2-story Fulton-Conway building sandwhiched between the for sale properties. To seal the deal, the buildings are only one block from Museum Plaza to the north if the kunsthalle/museum and towers eventually get built.
The Fort Nelson Building, the turreted cast-iron and stone Romanesque-revival structure dating to the 1880s, was considered for conversion into a museum twice in recent memory. John Conti Coffee Company had once planned a coffee museum at the site and later donated the property to the city in the mid-1990s. A group of investors later took control of the building and made some repairs. The building was then in poor shape and they are credited with saving the building from demolition.
Paul Bariteau bought the building several years later planning restaurants and a music museum for the site. Plans for an entertainment center grew and Bariteau eventually purchased two additional buildings for what could have potentially been apartments, condos, restaurants, and clubs. A large abstract mural depicting the city’s evolution and architecture was also proposed for the side of the building. The Fulton-Conway building separated the properties from seamless redevelopment, so plans were eventually tabled. The two story structure is now slated for renovation with a landscaped roof deck, so the opportunity for punching windows into the sides of the taller buildings for sale could aid in redevelopment attractiveness.
These properties are massive and solid and could help to finally turn West Main Street into a dense, walkable community while blending the Museum District with the emerging Glassworks District to the south. While the coffee and music museum proposals sound intriguing, the buildings would be ideal for conversion into residential condos or apartments. Too many museums in a small area could deaden the street, but more eyes and feet on the street could serve to liven it up into truly one of America’s best streets.
- History of the Fort Nelson Building (Louisville Guide / Google Books)
- Entertainment complex planned for Main Street (Business First)
- Fort Nelson building sold, new owners mull restaurant (Business First)
- Sons Of The American Revolution Raising Funds (Broken Sidewalk)
- American Revolution Headed For Main Street (Broken Sidewalk)
- Snapshot: Louisville Science Center Moving Debris (Broken Sidewalk)
- Louisville Science Center Expands (Broken Sidewalk)
- West Main Street Apparently Great (Broken Sidewalk)
- Remember When They Were Building Museum Plaza? (Broken Sidewalk)
Click through for more photos of the three West Main Street buildings.
Now’s Not A Good Time To Sell A Pink Palace
Old Louisville Pink Palace
One of Louisville’s most famous 19th century mansions can’t find a buyer. The Pink Palace on St. James Court in Old Louisville has recently been taken off the market after no offers surfaced in five months. A tipster pointed us to a listing for the house in Preservation Magazine which lists the house for sale at $875,000. The magazine, operated by the National Trust For Historic Places goes on to describe the house:
“The elegant century-old craftsmanship is dazzling. The mansion features intricate millwork, dramatic archways, massive wood mantels, and oak hardwood floors. The upper floors boast dramatic views of nearby Central Park, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted.”
The owner says the market just isn’t right to sell such a magnificent home. He finds most people in Old Louisville are looking for cheaper homes to fix up, not an already restored mansion in perfect condition. While the house isn’t formally being marketed, the owner will still consider offers on the property.
The Pink Palace even comes with its own web site. The home was originally built as a gentleman’s clubhouse for Louisville’s emerging first suburb where wealthy Louisville men retreated for a cigar and game of cards. The home features a large yard with a swimming pool. Here’s a little more history including how the house was painted pink:
“Completed in 1892 as red brick Queen Anne Victorian, the Palace was christened the “St. James Court Casino.” The home was sold to the Women’s Christian Temperence Union in 1910, who immediately painted it pink to distance the organization from the building’s past usage. Since then, it has served as home to a number of Louisville mayors and other noteworthies.”
- The Pink Palace (Official Site)
Old Louisville Pink Palace
Lodge 820 Redefines Luxury Urban Living
Lodge 820 on Frankfort Avenue
A new luxury mixed-use building on Frankfort Avenue in Crescent Hill is wrapping up construction and has now fully leased its seven sidewalk level retail spots. The project replaces a surface level parking lot adjacent to the former Dietrich’s Restaurant. Included in the Pierce Architecture designed development are seven retail spots and seven two-story condos above.
The last retail spot in the building has now been leased to a women’s boutique called “The Dressing Room” and will be under construction soon. It’s expected to open February 1st next year. Other retail on the strip includes a wine shop and several other upscale women’s boutiques.
Just above the retail level are some of the most luxurious condos to hit the Louisville market. The building was built as a shell for about $1.7 million and the interior spaces have been built later. Some are still available for a custom build-out to a potential buyer. Currently, three units are under construction and a model has already been finished.
The condos aren’t cheap. Prices range from $495,000 for just over 1900 square feet to $865,000 for over 4,000 square feet. The interiors amenities, however, make the price seem well worth it. Units have their own private entrances off the sidewalk with video-surveillance and a ground floor foyer. From there, you can either take the stairs up to your condo or ride up on your own personal elevator. That’s right, a Louisville condo first: private elevators.
We went inside one unit under construction to take a look at the new urban infill development. Besides elevators, each unit has its own private 2-car garage off the alley and plenty of additional parking behind the building. There are 10′ to 12′ ceilings with over-sized doors; a modern kitchen with custom cabinets and stainless steel appliances compliments over-sized traditional woodwork and windows.
Upon entering the condo from the elevator, you are faced with a wood paneled great room utilizing reclaimed heart-pine boards from a local barn that are 181 years old. The room includes built in bookshelves and is fully wired for a home theater. There’s even a hidden office behind one of the wooden bookshelves. A marble hallway leads to the dining room and living room with a slightly more formal feel.
Upstairs (or up another floor on the elevator), is the master suite and guest room. A solarium with a giant skylight (there’s even a hose to water plants) organizes the upstairs space. Laundry facilities are also tucked away on the bedroom-level. Views from the third floor of the surrounding Crescent Hill feature tree-lined streets and an elevated park-like view of St. Joseph’s across the street. The Frankfort Avenue face of the building includes extra insulation and sound-proofing to protect against noise from passing trains and traffic.
Overall, the project changes the entire feel of Frankfort Avenue, adding a distinct classic urban edge with traditional detailing and street retail. While such expensive and luxurious living might not be for everyone, the Lodge 820 pulls off upscale urban living well. The adjacent former lodge/theater, renovated as part of the development, is now home to offices and a bank as well. We’re glad to see another surface level parking lot filled in with quality urban architecture.
Inside Lodge 820: Family Room
- Pierce Architecture (Official Site)
- Lodge 820 real estate listing (W-R Realtors)
More East Broadway “Bridge” Corridor Sale-ability
Okinawa 'Health' Club
We love East Broadway. We want development to breathe new life into the many historic properties sitting at the hub of oh-so-many neighborhoods. Shall we name then? Okay: Phoenix Hill, Smoketown-Jackson Park, Paristown Pointe, the Original Highlands, and the Medical Center. And those are only the nabes with direct boundaries on East Broad (but not that far east). We’re calling the area the East Broadway “Bridge” Corridor as it has the potential to link many areas already experiencing redevelopment and growth.
That isn’t to say there’s nothing going on here. There’s not much, but the area is getting by. There’s a custom furniture store and a clock store. A consignment furniture store called the East Broadway Home Store now has two locations and appears to be doing well. The Louisville Antique Mall and Collonade Cafe are here, too. There’s a handful of other established businesses, too. Another building was renovated for a small music venue and record label by the future developers of that building on First Street. There’s beautiful architecture. New Directions is planning to renovate the old Tonini Building. The new construction Shelby Street Apartments are bricked. There’s no place to eat dinner, get basic goods, or hang out, though.
New-ish Business Along East Broadway
The area is largely for sale, too. The street’s great landmark with 23,000 square feet and best value at $600,000 is the Eichhorn Stained Glass building which leaves us wondering why it’s still on the market. There are other properties for sale too that could accommodate various size projects.
The former Okinawa Asian ‘Health’ Club famous for its happy endings and frequently busted for prostitution has been closed for some time and its building is for sale, listed at $300,000. The location is good between the old Broadway Theater and the Eichhorn building and offers a simple yet strangely grand facade that would make an excellent retail spot with a large glass facade. The building has 4600 square feet on the ground level and a partial second floor.
The building needs some work inside (all the original spa fixtures are still there, use gloves when removing), but the masonry and roof are in good shape. There’s an original patterned tin ceiling in there, too, so it’s got character. The realtor thinks the $300k price tag may be a bit ‘optimistic’, so someone might get a deal in this building that’s not illegal. The sign needs to be taken down asap, regardless.
The former Steepleton Billiards store is also vacant and for sale. The property is pricey at $750,000 but contains 20,000 square feet. There are three buildings on site, but two of them are essentially tear-downs. The historic structure pictured below is the only one really worth saving. When Steepleton consolidated to their St. Matthews store, there was interest in the property from the adjacent Goodwill store to use the buildings as warehouse space, but that has since fallen through. There’s likely a deal to be had here too, as it’s doubtful that price will stick.
Steepleton Property For Sale
So you can see there’s potential here, but East Broadway has, so far, been mostly overlooked by developers. It does suffer a sort of identity problem: it’s in the middle of everything but really a part of nothing.
We say its time to create a new identity here as the street acts as what we call a “Zipper Corridor.” A Zipper represents the confluence of many neighborhoods and is the communal strip that brings them all together. Bardstown Road is a great example of a Zipper Corridor, and to a lesser extent, Frankfort Avenue is, too. A Zipper has the ability to take on many roles and identities as it meshes together disparate neighborhood identities. The East Broadway “Bridge” Corridor can be a great Zipper.
- East Broadway Building For Sale; Ready For Redevelopment (Broken Sidewalk)
- East Broadway Theater A Hidden Gem (Broken Sidewalk)
- Snapshot: Bricking The Shelby Street Apartments (Broken Sidewalk)
- Demo Watch: Phoenix Hill Tavern (Politely) Wants More Parking (Broken Sidewalk)
- First Street Mystery Renovation De-Mystified (Broken Sidewalk)
- Revolving Doors: Will The Tonini Building Soon See Action? (Broken Sidewalk)
- Collonade cafeteria on Broadway (Broken Sidewalk)
A couple more photos of the for sale properties if you’re interested.
East Broadway Building For Sale, Ready For Redevelopment
Eichhorn Stained Glass Building
The Eichhorn Stained Glass Building located at 810 & 812 East Broadway near Shelby Street has hit the market and could potentially spark an East Broadway renaissance. The three-story building covers 18,600 square feet and was built in the 1860s. The property is listed at just under $600,000. The structure originally housed a dry goods store and today is the home of Eichhorn Stained Glass and Lightspeed Photography. The building has a dominant presence on East Broadway and features a Mansard Roof and intricate details. Broken Sidewalk went inside to check out the guts of the building and discovered this is a redevelopment project waiting to happen.
What’s most remarkable about this East Broadway building are the ceiling heights. All three floors and the basement are super-sized. The ground floor of the building currently has 14 foot ceilings, but those are drop ceilings put in place in the 1920s or 1930s. The original ceiling could be pushing 20 feet. The second floor has similar ceiling heights with potentially huge over-sized windows. The current windows on the first two floors are smaller than the original window openings, and the third floor is boarded up. As we rode the freight elevator to the top level, the ceilings somehow became even taller. The third floor space is undivided and features massive old-growth timber beams and rafters and could easily be a two-story space. If windows were replaced in the mansard roof, the space would have been flooded with light.
We climbed up to the roof while we were visiting to check out the view. A tornado that came through the area just over a year ago had ripped off a portion of the roof and a new quarter million dollar roof has been installed. This building is the tallest in the immediate area (not counting church steeples), and the view of downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods is inspiring. Peter Eichhorn remembers watching the Pegasus Parade roll down Broadway from the rooftop, probably the best view there is for the parade. The roof sloped gently, but we were imagining a roof-deck to watch the sun set over the Louisville skyline.
Back inside, we made our way to the back of the building currently used as an art-glass studio. An interior courtyard once probably used as stables has at some point acquired a roof, but could easily be opened up again. Finally, in the basement, we found massive stone arches nearly two feet thick. The basement contains an additional 4,500 square feet, bringing the total in the structure to over 23,000 SF. Eichhorn always considered this basement space, with its tall ceilings, stone arches and walls, and old-growth rafters, an excellent potential Rathskeller.
The building covers its entire site from sidewalk to alley, providing a very dense example of urban built form, but leaving no room for parking. Engineers, however, have studied the idea of parking in the basement via a ramp or courtyard area for potential residential redevelopment. Given its central location adjacent to Downtown, the Medical District, the East Village, Phoenix Hill, and the Highlands, however, it is certainly feasible that a resident wouldn’t need a car at all to get around.
Considering the great shape the building is in structurally and the stewardship it has received while in the hands of the Eichhorn Stained Glass Company, it’s amazing this building hasn’t already been redeveloped. The East Broadway corridor is a bridge connecting several thriving yet disparate neighborhoods, from the East Market Corridor to the Highlands. With the great stock of architecture in the area such as this building, redevelopment of this part of town could lead to a seemless transition from downtown to Bardstown Road. There’s already activity in the area, too. The Shelby Street Apartments are directly across the street are under construction, the Tonini building is set to be renovated, and several new retail outlets including a home store, custom furniture store, clock store, antique mall, and a music venue have all opened recently in the area. This building could be the centerpiece of the East Broadway revitalization puzzle.
Inside The East Broadway Building
- Eichhorn Stained Glass Company (Official Site)
- Lightspeed Photography (Official Site)
- Official Property Listing (LoopNet)
Click through for a tour of the building inside and out. 25 total photos (2 from 1879).
Jewish Hospital Selling Half It’s Fourth Street Space
Jewish Hospital is getting serious about selling the old J.C. Penney Building on the corner of Fourth Street and Guthrie Green. Earlier this year, the hospital was considering keeping the building and giving it an exterior face-lift, but it now looks like the hospital will continue to seek a buyer. The building in question is three stories and clad in pink synthetic stucco and last operated as a department store in 1982. An identical neighboring two-story building called the W.T. Grant building is seamlessly clad in the very same pink stucco and is not part of the deal. It will remain as offices for Jewish Hospital. JH Properties also owns the parking garage on the corner of Fourth Street and Chestnut Street.
The building is just over 66,000 square feet over three floors and is listed at $2.3 million. The original brick facade allegedly still exists underneath the pink stucco and styrofoam, but there’s no telling what condition it might be in. Any buyer would be advised to revamp the facade ASAP, probably scrapping the brick for glass anyway. Here’s that catch, though: Jewish Hospital will retain the building’s basement for its own use and the buyer will own only the three floors above grade. That’s still a lot of space to make into, say, an entertainment complex. That’s what the Cordish Company thought back in 2005 when it announced it had purchased the property for an extension to 4th Street Live. They even paid a $75,000 non-refundable deposit before the closing date in March 2006. They even promised to have tenants in the building within 18 months. That deal obviously fell through leaving one of the most ideally located properties on Fourth Street languishing away.
Not a lot has been happening on this stretch of Fourth Street since 4th Street Live opened. An upscale Japanese restaurant has cancelled its plans for City Property Group’s Wright-Taylor Building and a local club once planned for the McCrory’s building has fallen through. With the J.C. Penney building’s location on a pedestrian mall just a block south of Cordish’s development and between the Brown and Seelbach hotels, redevelopment of the property is only a matter of time. Recently, there has been substantial interest in the building even though nothing has materialized. Even last week, a potential deal for the building began discussions, so hopefully we might hear something about the property soon.
- Club Planned For McCrory’s On Fourth Street Falls Through (Broken Sidewalk)
- Development Watch: Wright-Taylor Building (Broken Sidewalk)
- Fourth Street Property To Be Spruced Up (Broken Sidewalk)
Downtown New Albany Goes Up For Sale
New Albany Put Up For Sale
New Albany has been put up for sale. All of it. Every last building must go. Okay, so that’s obviously an exaggeration, but walking around the New Albany downtown, it does seem that every other building has a for sale sign on it. So these photos aren’t hot off the presses. They were taken just before the Harvest Homecoming on October 8th, but the fact that New Albany is for sale is still a current topic. A New Albanian told us this for-sale-phenomenon is in part due to the Harvest Homecoming and the thousands of visitors that will flock the streets of the city center. Eager property owners are out to make a buck, and the prospective buyer has quite a selection to choose from.
The Sunny-Side town has torn down a lot of its historic architecture; some of the best is now only a memory. However, the New Albany city center still has a sizable amount of building stock to choose from and it is generally situated into one dense area. Area leaders like Mike Kopp, who has many of the properties listed, have a strong desire to see New Albany become a vibrant urban area and are constantly excited about the town’s potential. Hopefully as the economy improves, we’ll see some of these signs start coming off the buildings, but it will likely be a slow process. Southern Indiana is set up for cars and suburban sprawl and unless something drastic changes (the return of high gas prices, maybe?), we’ll keep hearing about Veterans Parkway and not Main Street.
Check out several other properties awaiting redevelopment along New Albany’s Main Street.
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