It seems the Smart Car, that tiny European 2-seater that inspires awe or fear into all who lay eyes upon it, has become this season’s preferred raffle item. The Smart Car has just nudged out the Vespa from seasons past, and is now the potential prize of one lucky ticket holder (or two). Two raffles currently going on in town feature the 40+ MPG vehicle as the door prize, and the proceeds go to good causes: Volunteers of America and Actor’s Theater of Louisville.
The brick arrived at the Shelby Street Apartments, a 22-unit mixed-use, mixed-income apartment building on the corner of Shelby Street and Broadway, in early October, and now the building is rapidly nearing completion of its masonry facade. The building fills in an important empty lot, and with its strong architectural emphasis on the corner along with the masonry and concrete facade, is one of the best buildings going up in Louisville in terms of urban quality. Funds for the $3.5 million project came from a program similar to that which funded Liberty Green, but this building is better than anything we’ve seen at the LG site yet.
Center City
The plastic drainage tubing we told you about on Monday has been installed and covered over with dirt. Workers have also removed the grass on the Belvedere’s west lawn in preparation for re-seeding.
We dont really have anything new to say about this one, but hey, that finished masonry sure looks nice.
A few more windows to go in on the Preston Street side of the 82-unit project. Preston Street is really starting to be defined as an urban space with the mass of all the new construction.
A tower crane is now fully set up on Jefferson Street at the site of a new 6-story, 433 space garage between First and Second Streets. Construction of the garage’s foundation began last August. Half of the spaces will be used for the adjacent 222 Building and the ground level will include 1,000 square feet of retail space.
This brings the total number of tower cranes in downtown or immediately adjacent to four. The other projects include the ZirMed Gateway Towers, JCTC Allied Health Building, and the Medical Center Mega-Garage.
The Cloister Apartments on Chestnut Street is losing a small bit of its century old charm this week as workers remove its old slate roof in favor of a new asphalt one. Shattered shingles were tossed off the three story building’s roof creating a dust cloud and a startling racket on the sidewalk below.
Even as the remaining slate was being discarded, workers, seen below, were installing the new asphalt shingles. The Phoenix Hill icon was originally the Ursuline Convent of the Immaculate Conception.
This week’s big blank wall was found on Mellwood Avenue between Frankfort Avenue and Brownsboro Road. To be fair, this area is dominated by big blank walls of various factories and warehouses, but this one overwhelmed us with its sheer size. The wall is actually two identical warehouses sitting side by side belonging to the Stiglitz Corporation, manufacturers of stamped metal products such as appliance parts.
Like last week’s Big Blank Thursday, the Stiglitz Corporation is a local family-owned business. It is, in fact, operated by the great-great-grandson of the original owner. Back then the company was located in Portland and operated a foundry making furnaces, stoves, sewer covers, and the like.
Here’s some history from the company’s web site:
Established in 1818, The Stiglitz Corporation specializes in the stamping, powder coating and assembly areas for many different industries. Our primary customers are currently in the appliance industry; more recently expanding into the automotive industry.
The ability to assemble parts for distribution from the UPS hub makes Stiglitz an excellent candidate to assemble and distribute your product with the most reasonable shipping rates.
Like we said last week, these building typologies exist due to poor urban policy of the 20th century. This stretch of Mellwood Avenue, connecting two major streets and adjacent to Butchertown, will potentially one day see an end to its industrial days and transform into a mixed-use neighborhood. The Stiglitz property is particularly interesting as it backs up to Beargrass Creek. The urban Beargrass Creek corridor has quite a lot of potential to link urban neighborhoods via a slender, green park system and once cleaned up, could be a community focal point modeled potentially after Indianapolis’ Canal Walk.
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 square feet. 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 seamless 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.
