Opening the time capsule. (Jessica Albe / The Record)
In January, we reported on the demolition of the Holy Family convent on Poplar Level Road to make way for the new headquarters of the Louisville Catholic Archdiocese. In Bryan Grumley’s report, he lamented not just the loss of a historic three-story brick structure but also the embodied energy the building represented and the larger throw-away culture that has made it easy to toss old buildings in the landfill.
But since the structure has been razed, an unexpected but of history has surfaced in the form of a recovered time capsule. According to Jessica Albe of the Catholic newspaper The Record, the capsule, dating to 1949, was hidden inside the structure’s cornerstone.
Aerial view of the Holy Family campus. (Courtesy Google)
The time capsule, a surprise to church leadership, was opened by Deacon Patrick Wright, according to Albe, who found a Mass card and other items that shed light on the culture of Holy Family in the late ’40s.
“When I hear people talk about the convent, they connect it with the sisters and the school. It’s always been a part of the landscape there,” Wright told Albe, noting the bittersweet feelings about tearing down the building. “In a sense, a piece of history is gone with the building. The time capsule helps to reconnect some of the history of the building.”
The convent before demolition. (Bryan Grumley / Broken Sidewalk)
The Catholic Church saved two small elements of former convent: a stained-glass section once suspended over a doorway to the former convent and the cornerstone previously mentioned, which will ultimately end up in a garden space on the parish campus.
The site of the former convent will make way for the new , housing offices and other departments for the church. A new time capsule will be included in the new building.
In an effort to increase street safety in Downtown Louisville, the city is making changes to the timing of traffic lights to promote slower speeds and to give people longer to cross the street.
According to a report by WDRB’s Danielle Lama, those changes went live last week at 70 intersections in the core city. The main change is to give pedestrians a walk sign four seconds before the traffic light changes.
About 70 intersections within the indicated area now feature Leading Pedestrian Intervals. (Montage by Broken Sidewalk)
In traffic engineering lingo, those four seconds are called the Leading Pedestrian Interval (LPI). By letting people walk first, it makes them more visible to motorists and and drivers are typically more likely to yield the right of way.
“It’s a proven safety measure that improves pedestrian safety,” Metro Public Works Assistant Director Jeff Brown told WDRB. “We get them out in front of the vehicles before they have a chance to go, so the pedestrian is clearly visible to any car that’s stopped at the intersection.”
We all know how successful the Big Four Bridge has been already in terms of drawing crowds, but in Jeffersonville, development on the ground is is still just getting started around the foot of the bridge in Big Four Station park.
The Rose Hill Elementary School site will be rebuilt as a hotel. (Courtesy Google)
Elizabeth Beilman at the News & Tribunereported last week that the developer, ARC (formerly API), is finalizing an agreement with Marriott Hotels to bring a $15 million, 93-room Towneplace Suites to the site. She said demolition of the old school should take place within a month of the final agreement.
The hotel structure will stand three stories tall and is designed with a facade meant to evoke a series of row buildings built over time rather than one large new structure built all at once.
Hotel site plan.
“If you can envision a lot of the older buildings in downtown Jeffersonville along Spring Street that really fit the community,” ARC President and CEO Alan Muncy told WAVE3 last year, “imagine taking all of those facades and pushing them together.”
Aerial view of the site today. (Courtesy Google)
In addition to the 17,800-square-foot hotel, plans call for 1,200 square feet of retail space along the sidewalk. Also planned is a 93-spot parking lot.
The former school was at one point going to be repurposed as retail and residences. (Courtesy Google)Renderings of the former proposal for the site. (Courtesy ARC)
According to Beilman’s earlier report from last September, ARC purchased the 30,000-square-foot school property in 2013 and proposed renovating the structure into a mix of residences and retail called the Loft at Big Four Station. That plan was scrapped, but called for 18 residences and 5,000 square feet of commercial space.
The new hotel is being custom designed and Beilman reported that developers plan “to incorporate the names of the cities that inspired the Big Four Bridge — Cleveland, Chicago, Cincinnati and St. Louis — into the hotel’s design.” The structure was originally proposed at four stories, but was cut down to three after neighbors objected to the height.
The Towneplace Suites is expected to open by April 2017.
[Editor’s Note: We added a site plan of the hotel to this article.]
In December, we raised the concern that due to that move, there may be an impending preservation battle on the site of the former Connection nightclub at Floyd Street and Market Street. Bryan Grumley reported for Broken Sidewalk then that the structures dating to 1925 or earlier were at risk.
“The fate of these two historic buildings, and the urban streetscape they create, is unclear,” Grumley wrote. “The site appears to have been sold to an out-of-town investor… Once again, preservation and planning advocates find themselves forced to play another game of catch-up.”
A variety of designs for larger Cambria Suites hotels in other cities. A local architect is designing our version, so it will likely look very different from these. (Montage by Broken Sidewalk)
Now the Courier-Journal‘s Sheldon Shafer is out with the scoop that the Connection site will be redeveloped as a Cambria Hotel, part of Maryland-based Choice Hotels, after Stinson and Lewis’s company, SLS Management, told the land.
The new hotel is planned at eight to ten stories in height on the former Connection site.
Two historic buildings at the Connection site. (Courtesy Google)
“The Connection nightclub will be razed in the heart of downtown Louisville,” Shafer wrote, leaving open the question of what will become of two historic structures on the Connection property.
Local architects Tucker Booker Donhoff + Partners and engineers at BTM are working on the project, Shafer reported, but no design or site plan details have been released and the project has not yet been submitted to the city. The hotel is being built by Maryland-based Choice Hotels.
The former Connection site. (Bryan Grumley / Broken Sidewalk)
There appears to be a strict confidentiality agreement, according to Shafer’s report, with architects and Stinson declining to comment to Schafer referencing such a clause.
We’ll be watching for more information on the hotel’s design and site plan as it becomes available.
According to Shafer, the Vu Guest House will open by mid April with the event center, theater, and nightclub opening by mid July. Two new restaurants are also planned on the Smoketown campus, Shafer reports. A casual concept is to be called Spoonful and a more upscale Italian venue will be called Table 817.
It looks like we’re going to have to dust off our old tag, #HolyCondoWatch, eh Pip? Let’s call it #HolyApartmentWatch.
That’s because a developer plans to convert the former Calvary Lutheran Church at 1838 Bardstown Road in the Deer Park neighborhood into high-end apartments. Tyler Smith, executive vice president with PRG Commercial Property Advisors, recently shared on Instagram that the church has finally been sold. “The most exciting four letters in real estate #SOLD,” Smith wrote.
(Courtesy PRG Commercial Property Advisors)
Facing Roanoke Avenue, the 17,234-square-foot church was listed at $845,000, but according to Marty Finley at Business First, the property sold to NCS Properties III for $550,000. Finley reported that the initial asking price was $950,000 when the property went on the market last September. The seller was the Indiana-Kentucky Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
The church property includes a surface level parking lot across an alley, bringing the total site area to .55 acres.
(Courtesy PRG Commercial Property Advisors)
Smith told Finley that the developer, NCS, is considering 15–20 apartments in the structure, but details are limited at this time.
Louisville has seen a number of reuse projects for historic church structures. Just down Bardstown Road, the Edenside Christian Church is being converted into a coworking space called 31e.
Hancock has served as the president of AASHTO, the American Association of State Highway & Transportation Officials, for several years. “Hancock ascended to the organization’s top position in July 2010, after spending more than 30 years within the organization,” AASHTO wrote at the time.
At the time of his appointment, Hancock stated he was concerned with “uncertain Federal funding” for transportation expenditures. “A top priority for our nation must be to achieve economic stability through a strong and sustainable level of transportation investment,” Hancock said in 2013.
Hancock was appointed as the head of KYTC by Governor Steve Beshear in 2010.
Greg Thomas. (Courtesy KYTC)
Greg Thomas was appointed acting secretary of the KYTC. He was previously appointed as the department’s Deputy Secretary on February 2 of this year by new Governor Matt Bevin.
Thomas previously worked for LG&E and KU (Kentucky Utilities) Energy. According to Thomas’s LG&E profile from 2013, he had accumulated “nearly 33 years of experience in the electric and natural gas industry.”
It’s unclear how Thomas’s experience in utility delivery will affect his tenure at the KYTC.
The press release announcing Thomas’s appointment made much ado about his ability to manage large and complex projects while working for utility companies.
“At Louisville Gas and Electric (LG&E), Thomas was responsible for the safe, reliable and strategic operation of the statewide electric distribution system and related regulatory and compliance functions,” Thomas’s page on the KYTC website reads. “His responsibilities included overseeing the installation of service for new customers; enhancing, maintaining and operating the electric network; system restoration and mutual assistance efforts; substation construction and maintenance; and vehicle fleet operation and the federal Department of Transportation compliance.”
Thomas has spent most of his professional life in Louisville and Lexington since graduating from the University of Tennessee with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, the press release said. He lives in Louisville with his wife and two sons.
[Top image of the KYTC headquarters building in Frankfort courtesy EOP Architects, who designed the structure.]
A person was struck by a motorist along Shelbyville Road at Flat Rock Road in far eastern Jefferson County early Thursday morning, March 3. The incident took place just before 5:00a.m. near the Eastwood neighborhood.
The intersection of Shelbyville Road and Flat Rock Road. (Courtesy Google)
The unidentified person was taken to an area hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, and WDRB reported that the Louisville Metro Police Department did not send a traffic unit to investigate the collision because the person’s injuries were not serious enough.
Looking west on Shelbyville Road from Flat Rock Road. (Courtesy Google)An example of piecemeal sidewalks in the suburbs. (Courtesy Google)
Our investigation of the crash scene via Google maps reveals that there are extremely limited sidewalks (and no crosswalks across Shelbyville Road) in the area. To find a crosswalk across Shelbyville, a person would have to walk over two-and-a-half miles west to Beckley Station Road—without sidewalks. There are no other crosswalks in Jefferson County in the next two miles east and we presume you’d have to go pretty far into Shelby County to find one.
Newly built sprawl in the vicinity. (Courtesy Google)
Turning radii to side streets are oversized to allow fast-paced turns by motorists and farmland is rapidly being filled up with intermittent residential, commercial, and industrial sprawl making the walkability problem even worse.
While the area may look rural now, at the current pace of exurban development, this area will be filled up with more auto-centric spec homes in no time. And is we look at past precedent, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet will follow in line with road widenings that will make this stretch of Shelbyville even more car-centric and dangerous for people.
The speed limit here is 45 miles per hour, but a lack of signalized intersections and poor street design promotes higher speeds. Just half a mile to the east, the speed limit jumps to 55 miles per hour.
As we know, a person struck by a motorist traveling 45 miles per hour already carries a 90 percent chance of fatality. It’s fortunate that this collision didn’t result in more serious injuries.
Sadly, all three news outlets reported the pedestrian collision as a simple traffic delay, focusing on the road closure from the outset. Take these report introductions: “Shelbyville Road reopened…”, “A portion of Shelbyville Road was closed in both directions…”, and “Shelbyville Road was shut down for a time…”
It’s inappropriate to treat a potentially deadly incident as just another traffic nuisance. And it’s symptomatic of Louisville’s larger street safety problem that the local news looks at street violence with such indifference.
Furthermore, WDRB called the collision an accident and none of the reports indicated that the motor vehicle that struck the person was operated by a human being.
Louisville is currently in the midst of a three-year pedestrian safety campaign called Look Alive Louisville. The federally funded program is in response to the city’s above average pedestrian fatality and collision rate.
As at previous public meetings, the now-revised proposals to update Chenoweth Lane were presented via video, trafficanimations, and stationary displays attended by a variety of contracted and state traffic engineers and representatives. There was no formal presentation, nor opportunity for public Q & A.
Near-unanimous opposition and a lack of supporting traffic data have prompted the removal of an option to widen the corridor with a third center-turn lane, as previously reported by Broken Sidewalk.
The only vestige of this speed-inducing component is a center-turn lane at the intersection with Massie Ave., which was itself met with some controversy.
A flyer distributed at this week’s meeting. (Courtesy Tipster)
Additionally, bike lanes and shared-use paths have been deleted from the proposals.
The remaining discussions focused on drainage improvements, curbs-and-gutters, addition and improvement of sidewalks to ADA compliance, repositioning of utilities, and the like.
Neighborhood advocates expressed cautious optimism related to these outcomes, and the seeming responsiveness of KYTC to community input. Councilman Bill Hollander (D-9) mirrored this sentiment. “I am glad that KYTC listened to the views and concerns of constituents and removed the option of 3-lane widening throughout the corridor,” he said. “This is the way the planning study process is supposed to work.”
The optimist in me agrees with the councilman.
On the face of it, the community spoke up for safe, sustainable, and sensible neighborhood design. The government listened. A compromise was reached. A grassroots neighborhood organization, STOP The Widening of Chenoweth Lane, set an admirable example for organizing to oppose unwelcome and unnecessary government expenditures. And they did it in a way that protected the individual property owners in the neighborhood, but also served the common good of the city—a city struggling to promote fiscally and environmentally sustainable development, safe and livable streets for all users, and independence from an overbearing and unchecked state DOT.
(Courtesy Google)
All the same, I wonder.
I wonder why—in this era of decreasing traffic projections, increasing budget constraints, and a growing focus on complete streets—why this project to widen Chenoweth Lane (and yes, the intent of KIPDA ID #213 was widening, despite KYTC’s party line to the contrary) came to the table in the first place? Money to burn?
And what happens in our other older, walkable, and often less-prosperous neighborhoods, when no one’s really watching? What if there is no organized, dedicated, and persistent resistance as there was in this scenario?
The latest transportation development plans represent a frustratingly persistent mantra which equates pavement to progress, and a stack of highway regulations and industry-funded studies supporting regulations which are too-often antithetical to safe and livable neighborhoods. Which other city streets might suffer the fate of “improvements,” which, at best, are one step forward and two steps back?
(Courtesy Google)
And, from a broader perspective, why is this always such a battle? Why is it vastly easier to snuff out a road diet (think Brownsboro Road from Ewing to Hillcrest, think Lexington Road from Grinstead to Liberty) than it is to stop a road-building binge?
How many levels of malfunction within our various federal, state, and local transportation and planning agencies does it require to justify spending $1.8 million to widen a neighborhood thoroughfare that works just fine as it is?
I’m reassured, somewhat, by Chris Glasser’s recent piece at Broken Sidewalk regarding a new way to look at funding for Louisville’s streets—streets which prioritize the safety of all users. Will our transportation agencies get on board?
In the meantime, shift your focus down Frankfort Avenue to Stiltz Avenue and Hillcrest Avenue. That unique, neighborhood-defining, traffic-calming node is on the list (KIPDA ID #287), too, with a stated budget of over $1.4 million. Not that a few safety improvements there wouldn’t be welcome. But we know how that goes.
Public comment remains open for the Chenoweth Lane project. More information available here.
Back in the summer of 2012, a trio led by Griffin Meredith purchased a ragged row building at 514 South Fifth Street and planned a complete overhaul. By the end of this month, that project should be complete, with a retail tenant signed on Wednesday.
The development team, organized under the name Downtown Bound, includes brothers Griffin Meredith and Andrew Meredith, and Tanner Watkins.
“It all went relatively smoothly,” Griffin Meredith told Broken Sidewalk. “It took time because we did it ourselves. For the most part, we ended up doing exactly what we set out to do.” Work included abating lead paint and asbestos in the 7,000-square-foot structure, tuck-pointing the entire building, and installing a new electrical system. “”We took our time and tried not to get stressed out,” Meredith added.
Before and after at 514 South Fourth Street. (Courtesy Griffin Meredith)
Filling the full block between Fifth Street and Armory Place, the development includes a ground floor office space and retail space with three apartments, already leased, above. A law office took the office space at Armory and a high-end barber is now under construction along Fifth.
Beards & Bears is the creation of long-time hair cutters Lindsay Doogs and Melissa Gray. Doogs told Broken Sidewalk that the concept combines “quality haircuts for men” with craft beer. She has been a barber for 12 years, most recently at Market Street Barbers in Nulu.
“One day after work, I had a great day cutting hair, and I had an ‘aha moment’ with the name,” Doogs said. Beards & Beers combines the duo’s hair-cutting skills with craft beer for a growing population in Downtown. The shop accepts appointments and walkins.
While you’re getting a haircut or if you get there early and have to wait, Doogs said patrons will be able to sip bottled craft beers at a window bar looking out onto Fifth. “If they would like a craft beer while the services are being done, we’ll give them a craft beer bottle,” Doogs said.
Doogs and Gray in front of their new storefront. (Courtesy Beards & Beers)
“In addition to keeping their products local to support Louisville’s economy, the team at Beards & Beers has partnered with local craft breweries to provide you with a unique and redefined barbershop experience,” Doogs and Gray wrote of the business.
With a lease signed this Wednesday, construction is in full swing for a March 31 grand opening. Lindsay’s husband, Chad Doogs, is a contractor and will build out the space. She said he previously worked on the Hub and Copper & Kings.
Doogs said the aesthetic would be “industrial but warm at same time,” and fitting with the overall concept of a “barbershop steeped in tradition for the modern man.” Walls will show off exposed brick, a window-bar faces Fifth Street, and benches and a reception desk will fill the front of the space.
An opening night reception is scheduled to introduce neighbors to the concept. Beards & Beers just launched its Facebook page and a full website is expected soon.
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Above, three apartments fill two upper floors. Those include two, two-bedroom units and one, single-bedroom unit. Rents for those units range from $1,400–$1,900 per month.
Meredith and his team worked with Lexington Architect Jack Stewart of Stewart Architecture on the project along with RKO Architects following a $50,000 facade loan from Metro Louisville’s facade design program. A new storefront was added and two balconies installed for the above residential units.
Griffin Meredith lives just down the street at 550 South 5th Street where he’s working on a solo project to convert another street-level space into 2,700 square feet of retail. “We want Downtown to be a place that people want to be, and not just from nine to five,” Meredith told us in 2012. This project should help move the needle on that goal.
