A pedestrian was killed crossing the street on Baxter Avenue Friday night by a hit-and-run motorist driving a white minivan reported to be a Pontiac. Witnesses say the van didn’t even slow down driving through the intersection after the accident. Police are asking for your help in solving the horrible crime. Contact the police anonymously at 574-LMPD. Be careful walking, cycling, and driving this week, as always. (C-J, Fox 41, Mojo, Lou H & I)
Despite several good guesses, last Wednesday’s sidewalk photo eluded our readers. The street in question was Waverly Place off Frankfort Avenue in the Clifton neighborhood, a beautiful row of Victorian houses where the mature canopy turns bright yellow in the fall. Here’s a new photo ready for guesses in the comments.
Suburban Louisville is headed back to the drawing boards. Metro Louisville is trying to figure out how to retrofit the suburban fringe of Jefferson County along the Gene Snyder Beltway to “create a more vibrant center where walking, bicycling and public transportation are real options for residents.”
That arena has a roof (Photo courtesy Steve Wiser)
Would you take a look at that arena: the curvy roof has begun. I suppose we could call this point on the northwest corner of the arena site the tallest point on the entire arena.
I’m still waiting to see that curve swoop around onto the northern facade and waterfall to the Ohio River like the original reference promised. It’s also going to be exciting to see the large trusses spanning the arena pit put in place as well. Thanks to Steve Wiser for sending in these photos.
Ouerbacker House in October. (Branden Klayko / Broken Sidewalk)
Russell’s Ouerbacker House has had quite an eventful past couple of years. But disassembling the historic 1860’s era mansion and shipping it out of state will definitely not come into play. Alarmed tipsters wrote in today to report that a Cincinnati company had proposed just such a scheme.
You won’t find another example like it in Louisville, or likely anywhere else in the world. This two-story commercial building at the intersection of Bank Street, Rowan Street, and 15th Street in Shippingport was once planned for demolition but a group led by Gill Holland and his wife, Augusta Brown Holland, has saved the property and plans improvements.
1500 Bank Street. (Branden Klayko / Broken Sidewalk)
Situated on the acute end of a triangular block, this structure dating to 1888 has been sitting vacant for years. When Gill learned of its proposed demolition, he quickly purchased the property, closing only three weeks ago. He said the quirky structure has long been one of his favorites in Louisville, and we would have to agree.
Gill brought on Shine Properties to help with the first phase of the renovation which involves gutting the decaying interior. Gill recalled the building “was such a mess inside,” filled with old doors, 1950s push lawnmowers, and Playboy magazines from the early 1980s. Everything had to go so you could simply walk around inside and evaluate its potential.
Matthew Gilles of Shine Properties said work on the initial phase should wrap up by the end of next week and brainstorming for the structure’s future can begin. Gill Holland has plenty of ideas in mind for the 1500 Bank Street building, but nothing final. He envisions the building as a “gateway to Shippingport” and hopes it will spur investment in other buildings in the area.
Shippingport has been the target recently of a University of Kentucky student project imagining future development for the neighborhood and we took a photo-tour of the area shortly after that. Also located on the block are several sturdy brick shotgun houses and a two-story townhouse, currently boarded up. Improvement in Shippingport will likely begin with these smaller buildings before the large warehouse district is redeveloped at 15th and Lytle streets.
Whatever form the building takes in the end, it’s most important that there’s new investment coming to Shippingport. Gill said the building will keep its white paint and could eventually have a curving glass storefront installed on the first floor currently covered by non-historic stone. Little is known of the structure’s history, but it has started a new chapter this week.
New Albany Riverfront Amphitheater. (Branden Klayko / Broken Sidewalk)
A couple weeks ago, nearly $1 million in Federal funding was approved for the Ohio River Greenway connecting New Albany, Clarksville, and Jeffersonville in Southern Indiana. More funds will be needed to complete the project, but the latest funding keeps work progressing.
Celebration, Florida (Image via Wikimedia Commons)
Take a look at Walt Disney’s vision for the city of the future, the Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow or EPCOT. “No city of today will serve as the guide for the city of tomorrow,” serves as a guiding principle as varied ideas from shopping mall living, to freeways, to pedestrian safety, to high speed transit are considered. Disney himself said the city of tomorrow must abandon the old cities and their problems and be built on virgin land from scratch.
Celebration, Florida. (Via Wikimedia Commons)
From its “cosmopolitan convention center” to its theme-park shopping districts, Disney envisioned his 50-acre city core, completely enclosed and climate controlled like a shopping mall, hermetically sealed from the natural world. Outside of this air-conditioned environment of shops and offices, apartments, then parks and schools, then suburban houses radiate in a fantasy of controlled zoning where every use is separated from every other use.
Despite being conceived as a modern utopia based around the automobile, Epcot envisions a future of mass transit for the daily commute. “Freeways will not be EPCOT’s major way of entering and leaving the city,” declared a confident narrator. Instead, an electrified monorail and people mover will connect the city and suburb, radiating in all directions from the core. It was envisioned that the primary use of the car would be for “weekend pleasure trips.”
Repeatedly, the dangers of automobile traffic for pedestrians are cited. The pedestrian is, in fact, declared “king” as transportation uses, like Epcot’s zoning, are completely separated. The pedestrian is “free to walk and browse without fear of motorized vehicles.” Children and bikes have separate paths in the suburbs for walking or riding to school. Electric vehicles travel on elevated roadways through Epcot’s downtown while underground transit carries workers in and out of the city. Separate facilities for cars and trucks are provided further underground.
Disney did eventually build a prototype city, but the end result was far from what was envisioned for Epcot. The town of Celebration, Florida chose not to abandon the cities of the past but to embrace the patterns that make them so interesting to experience. New Urbanism has been brought in to create a mixed-use town center and compact living. Celebration was just as carefully planned as the Epcot of old, but the end result is quite different. Whatever happened to abandoning the car for transit, leaving it in the garage for pleasure trips, though?
You probably won’t notice from the sidewalk, but there’s a new green roof installed at the American Life building at Fifth and Main Streets. The 17,000 square foot roof atop Mies van der Rohe’s 1973, five-story jewel of the Belvedere cost more than a traditional roof, but savings are expected in the long run. The roof also serves as a green reminder to Louisvillians peering out from surrounding Downtown towers, in this case, One Riverfront Plaza.
Green roof at the American Life building. (Branden Klayko / Broken Sidewalk)
A green roof helps to keep a building and the surrounding city cool in the summer by reducing heat gain, stores water in succulent sedum plants and releases it slowly in the event of heavy rain, provides wildlife habitat, extends the life of the roof by protecting the membrane from exposure to UV rays, provides sound insulation due to the built up nature of the planting material, and is aesthetically pleasing to look at and occupy compared to traditional roofs.
Many green roofs have been built or are planned in Louisville including at the Metro Development Center, Metro Archives, Green Building, Louisville Zoo, and a TARC maintenance shed among others.
Mid-November Demo at D & W Silks (Photo by Diane Deaton-Street)
Demolition has been going on for some time now on East Main Street at the former D & W Silks building where asymmetric 18-story towers are eventually planned by Jefferson Development Group. The destruction has continued steadily and little of the structure remains. There’s a salvage operation going on and old bricks are being stacked on pallets for salvage along with massive wooden timbers and various steel components. When demolition started, we didn’t have many details, but we now have a clearer picture of what’s going on.
Mid-November Demo at Riney Bedding. (Diane Deaton-Street)
We originally thought it strange that these two structures never had an intent to demolish sign posted even though they sit in the Phoenix Hill National Register District. It turns out that the City had deemed them non-contributing to the historic fabric of the area due to alterations and “apparent structural instability.” Preservationists had wondered why Louisville is so loose with its preservation standards and were caught unaware of the pending demolitions.
Plans filed with the city call for a gross 1.26 million square feet of new space for the 2 acre site. Included in the $150 million project is a 1,200 spot, partially underground parking garage with 22,000 square feet of retail. Above, 680,000 square feet of new office space in ten and twelve story towers would rise from a 9,000 square foot park on top of the garage for a total height of 16- to 18-stories. Shortly after we wrote about the demolition beginning, the C-J got an interview (now offline) with the developer, Jefferson Development Group:
[Robert Webber, president of Jefferson Development Group,] said that construction of new office space downtown has been almost non-existent in recent years, leaving companies that want 20,000 square feet or more of top quality space in the central business district with very limited opportunities.
Jeff Dreher, an office broker with Commercial Kentucky, which tracks local office usage, said downtown’s Class A, or best quality office space was 7.9 percent vacant as of Sept. 30, one of the lowest vacancy rates in years.
Even with the suburban vacancy rate, in comparison, at 18.9 percent, Dreher said the downtown market has “reached the threshold” where a lot of experts think new construction makes sense. “If the economy keeps coming back, we will need something” in the way of new downtown office space soon, he said.
Webber said, however, that with commercial lending tight, the partners probably need to have at least 60 percent of any new office space leased, before being able to get a construction loan for that space. Financing, he said, “will be difficult. No question.”
In the near-term, the site is likely to be converted into a parking lot. According to documents filed with the City, Jefferson Development moved up the demolition date, a move the C-J said is to show investors they’re serious about construction, and pushed back the time frame to begin construction, likely to provide time for the economy to recover and for tenants to be found. Jefferson Development Group now has until the end of 2011 to begin new construction on the site, but environmental and archaeological studies must be complete by the end of 2010.
