Goss Avenue is less than a mile long from its awkward beginning at Shelby Street—the site of the ongoing Three Points initiative—to its terminus at Eastern Parkway where it turns into Poplar Level Road. It serves at the dividing line between German-Paristown and Schnitzelberg, the two neighborhoods that comprise Germantown, and is one of the area’s central commercial corridors.
The street is lined with a shotgun houses—used both as residences and for business—mixed in with a hodgepodge of historic corner commercial buildings, nondescript recent additions, a strip mall, and a former textile mill. Some of Louisville’s most prized businesses line the stretch, such as Four Pegs, Eiderdown, and Hauck’s. Still, it’s a stretch to call Goss Avenue a bustling commercial strip. But Louisville is changing these days, building by building.
One of those small but vital incremental changes is a new pizzeria called The Post. Laura and Nash Neely are converting an old shotgun house at 1045 Goss Avenue, the former home of VFW Post 3593, into The Post, a pizzeria and pub. Nash, who left his career in banking to run the daily operations at The Post, takes his pizza very seriously and believes in contributing to the local pizza tradition. The Post will serve New York–style pizza, with larger slices and thinner crust. He said The Post plans to sell slices for the lunch and late-night crowds and focus more on whole pizzas for dinner. The Neely’s want The Post to have a relaxed, neighborhood hangout feel, where you can walk over with the kids.
“We will open sometime this November to the end of the year, all depending on when the alcohol permit comes through,” Nash said. “We’ll be open the next day,” he quipped.
[pull_quote_right]We didn’t want to do this project in a strip mall somewhere.[/pull_quote_right]
Goss Avenue itself was one of the reasons the Neely’s chose to locate their business in Germantown. “We didn’t want to do this project in a strip mall somewhere,” Laura said. The neighborhood feel appealed to both of them “There’s new young families moving into Germantown all the time, but at a more stable growth rate happening at a gradual pace. It’s not a boom like what’s happening in Nulu,” she said. “While some people think of Germantown as a bunch of new people moving in, there’s still a significant amount of old school Germantown residents—and they’re excited about this project, too.”
And their risk is already paying off. Shortly after they purchased their shotgun house, a major mixed-use project was announced across the street. The gargantuan former-textile-mill at 946 Goss Avenue is being converted into a mixed-use project with 200 market-rate apartments. More on that another time.
Construction at The Post has been taking place for a while now, but major changes are starting to take shape. “The project is coming together,” Laura said. “It’s a major renovation. We had to completely gut the building.” The house—a standard camelback shotgun house with an addition onto the back dating to the 1960s or 70s—is at least a century old, dating to before 1909.
The ceiling in the front room has been removed to reveal joists and an attic space above, lending an roomier feeling to the future dining room. “While a lot is new, there’s still the cozy, homey feeling to the old architecture,” Laura said. The Neely’s received a $60,000 in small business loans from Metro Louisville last December to help with facade improvements and making the building accessible.
With Germantown’s central location between Downtown Louisville and the Highlands and its plentiful housing stock, Goss Avenue is poised to become a major destination, adding to the walkability of an already very walkable neighborhood. What else would you like to see happen along the avenue?
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We need a good coffee shop! And a ramen shop!
I’d be pretty stoked to see Paul’s Fruit Market, Betsy’s Hot Yoga, and El Mundo to open outposts in the old antique building once renovations are finished.
@Genevieve – Dude that would be a trifecta of awesomeness! If only that could really happen!!
Improvements, development, highlighting, etc the bike route that follows Texas Ave and crosses Goss. Texas is a fairly lazy street, traffic-wise (hence the bike route), but Goss less so. Even though it may be a fairly safe, signaled intersection, more visible intersection striping/painting could make it even safer but–more importanly–bring attention to the (good) route which connects UofL to the Highlands via Germantown.
The old, weathered, green ‘Bike Route’ signs (where they still exist) are a bit of an injustice to an actually rather well-thought-out route network. Some pretty paint at a few, choice intersections along this route could raise awareness. (This is all from memory – I’ve been away for a few years…sorry if some of this has been done).
@Jeremy M –
I know exactly what you’re talking about- I would take that route every day from the Highlands to Belknap Campus. Definitely no need for bike lanes on that route- if I recall it’s all neighborhood streets and I’m not sure it would do much to raise awareness of that path- but clearly marked intersections for the bike route (with a way for cyclists to get the lights to change- Texas & Burnett, Texas & Goss) could get people’s attention.
Also, some sort of awareness campaign on campus of the bike routes to and from certain areas.
@John McCulloch – Yeah, I just remember the pleasant surprise when I first ‘discovered’ how nice and convenient the Texas Ave route was. But I think the ‘discovery’ of that route to UofL students and newcomers to the area (or newcomers to bikes) would be helped along by some better or more frequent signage and some paint at the intersections. And, yes, more information on campus would be a plus too. Agree that the route is already about as safe as you’re going to get – nothing is aboslutely needed…these would just be nice-to-haves. But as the article and the Three Points thing emphasize the centrality/crossroads nature of the ‘hood, some colorful paint at intersections might remind people that it can be much more pleasant, with more to see, crossing through on a bike than zipping down Eastern in a car.
Replace Mo’s Food Mart with anything.