It has been about a month now since the top of the Baxter Avenue Morgue building partially collapsed onto the sidewalk and the mess has yet to be cleaned up. Perhaps the decaying building and the pile of bricks adds to the ambiance of the haunted morgue?
The permit to block the sidewalk expires in a matter of days… and a few pallets of brick have been delivered to the site, so it looks like this one is ready to be rebuilt.
After years at its East Main Street location, family owned silk flower wholesaler D & W Silks has closed up shop to make way for Jefferson Development Group’s proposed Twin Towers.
A sign posted on the door of the empty showroom states a new downtown location will be announced soon, so keep your eyes out for any silk flowers blooming around town. We expect to see an “Intent to Demolish” sign up before long.
After the partial collapse of part of the east wall of the historic Ouerbacker House last week, Metro Council Member David Tandy and several historic preservation groups held a press conference to drum up support for saving the crumbling landmark. The only problem… no press outlets were present 15 minutes after the scheduled start of the press conference. One quick call from Tandy’s office over to the city press room sent all the major stations with eager cameras to the mansion’s doorstep, however. Once the cameras were rolling, pleas from left and right rang out: “Save This House! No, really, Please!”
It’s still not too late to get your tickets for this year’s Taste of Frankfort Avenue. This year, 26 restaurants will be at the Clifton Center at the corner of Payne Street & Clifton Street. The event occurs all under one roof from 4:00–7:00p.m. on Sunday, June 22.
The Taste is more than just great food from the area’s finest restaurants, here’s what the Clifton Center says about the event:
Along with the incredible food, the Taste features a Tasteful Silent Auction including enticing dining and entertainment packages, jewelry and other finery from Frankfort Avenue area retailers.
The evening culminates with the drawing of the winners of the Frankfort Avenue Taste Tour Raffle—two drawings for breakfast, lunch or dinner for four people at 12 Taste restaurants.
This 16th annual event is the Center’s major fundraising event and welcomes 500 folks to join in the celebration.
Tickets to the 2008 Taste of Frankfort Avenue are available on the Clifton Center web site for purchase through PayPal or by phone at 502.896.8480. Here is the list of this year’s participating restaurants:
60 West Bistro & Martini Bar
Basa Modern Vietnamese
Bourbons Bistro
Brendan’s
Caffe Classico
Clifton’s Pizza
Consumers Choice Coffee
Crave Cafe & Catering
Fat Jimmy’s
Gerstle’s Place
Grape Leaf
Havana Beverages
Heine Brothers’ Coffee
Irish Rover
Java Brewing Company
Kentucky Bar-B-Que Company
L & N Wine Bar and Bistro
North End Cafe
Porcini
Ray Parrella’s Italian Restaurant
Sweet Surrender Dessert Cafe
The Sweet Tooth
Tony Boombozz Pizzeria
Varanese
Volare
Zen Garden
The tower crane for the Med Center Mega Garage under construction at the corner of Clay Street and Muhammad Ali Blvd. has been assembled and while it may not tower as high as other notable cranes (hey, the garage is only nine floors), the boom arm of the crane is a monster. The reason, of course, is that this is a mega-garage…and its site is really quite large.
Yes, 1,700 cars will fill the concrete monster when it is finished in just about 16 months. The garage fills up what once was a vast surface level parking lot and has some ground level retail space, so as far as parking garages go this one will be pretty nice.
Also pictured, the foundation work is well under way on the project. Seen above, dozens of auger-cast piles are beginning to dot the site to make way for some visible superstructure in coming weeks.
Sunergos Coffee Micro-Roastery & Espresso Bar, currently located at 2122 Preston Street, will open a second location in the Beechmont neighborhood near Southern Parkway at 306-308 Woodlawn Avenue. The new coffee shop will replace the former Potatoe Man’s Ballcards & Comics. The expansion is made possible by a $50,000 forgivable loan from the Louisville Metropolitan Business Development Corporation.
In case you haven’t seen or heard of Boom Louisville magazine, the 2008 issue released in mid May is still to be found for free around the city. Boom bills itself as “Louisville’s first annual guide and update on downtown development and revitalization.” The articles in this issue cover the major announced projects in downtown (Museum Plaza, City Center, et al.), updates from community leaders in education and service, and how the creative class is reshaping downtown. The entire endeavor is well done, focusing on what is happening in the downtown area. Pick up your copy in LEO-style boxes on the sidewalk.
Sometime in the last several days a portion of the historic Ouerbacker House’s east wall collapsed. The house sits just blocks west of downtown at the corner of 17th Street and Jefferson Street on a monumental lot overlooking the city’s oldest cemetery in the Russell Neighborhood. An emergency campaign to find a buyer for the house which has been in city hands for almost three years has begun.
The house is for sale for one dollar. That’s 100 pennies. Besides giving the house away, the city has offered to throw in $50,000 for structural stabilization of the damaged east wall. Still not a good enough deal? The city has additionally provided another $50,000 grant toward the overall renovation of the structure. Officials have calculated the cost of renovation could top $1 million, but preservationists say the house is important enough.
The Louisville Historical League has listed the house on its “Top Ten Endangered Properties in Metro Louisville” since 2005. If a party willing to stabilize and renovate the property is not found within a week, metro government will act on an emergency demolition order and Russell’s most grand house will be another memory.
So this mansion is really quite old. Here’s what Metro Housing & Family Services says about the house:
The Ouerbacker House is a two and a half story Ashlar townhouse, built in the Richardsonian Romanesque style, constructed for Mr. George S. Moore. Work began in 1860, and the house was sold five years later to Alexander Gilmore, a steamboat captain. He lived there with his daughter and his son-in-law, Samuel Ouerbacker, a prominent coffee merchant.The 1884 Atlas shows a smaller house. The facade and side were probably added after damage from the great tornado of 1890 which hit this area particularly hard.
This structure is significant as it is one of the finest residences ever constructed in the Russell neighborhood. It is one of the relatively few remaining examples of the Richardsonian Romanesque style of architecture not only in this city, but in this region. The distinguished Louisville architectural firm of Clarke and Loomis designed the building’s facade.
Arthur Loomis designed other well-known buildings in Louisville including the Conrad-Caldwell House on St. James Court and the original University of Louisville Medical School building downtown at Second and Chestnut Streets.
The Ouerbacker House is just the latest preservation battle in Louisville. Recent months have seen the near destruction of both the American Standard Building near the University of Louisville and the Vogt Mansion on Norton Hospital’s campus on East Broadway. The East Village continues to struggle with preservation issues surrounding Wayside Christian Mission’s proposed expansion. Stay tuned for more about this story.
The Legacy Lofts, the brainchild of architect Mark Isaacs, recently was named the “2008 Green Multifamily Building of the Year” by the National Association of Homebuilders. Isaacs is president of Legacy Development who specializes in Near Zero Carbon construction and was on hand to accept the award in New Orleans this May.
“We are thrilled with the recognition from such a prestigious award,” said Isaacs. “We hope Legacy Lofts will become a model to the nation for Near Zero Carbon Living.” Other cities with projects receiving green awards were Raleigh, NC, San Diego, CA, and Boulder, CO. Louisville officially hangs with the green cool kids. Tours of the development are scheduled for every Saturday at 2:00 sharp outside on the street corner.
The 38-unit mixed use condo project at the corner of Main Street & Campbell Street has already sold 10 of the 19 units in its first phase scheduled to open in September. Isaacs and his wife Sally will be joining the new buyers at Legacy Lofts as neighbors in a building with estimated utility costs of less than $10 per unit. Yes, that’s single digit utility bills. How do they go so low, you ask? Well, the Legacy Lofts use geothermal heating & cooling, photovoltaic cells and solar hot water, structural insulating panels, and insulating concrete forms. That’s you you get Green Building of the Year.
And now, the construction progress of the Legacy Lofts.
