If a crossing guard isn’t safe on Louisville streets, there’s little hope for the rest of us. On Thursday, February 18, a person was struck by a motorist in front of Male High School, 4409 Preston Highway, around 7:00a.m.
The incident was reported by WDRB, WAVE3, and WLKY. According to those reports, the unidentified person was not injured and declined to be taken to the hospital. Thankfully this case did not result in more serious injuries.
(Courtesy Google)
The local media reports were short with few details, but no one used the term accident. Only WDRB treated the collision as a traffic story, not a public safety story. “Preston Highway is all clear… Traffic that had been backed up quickly cleared,” WDRB wrote.
A large turning radius allows motorists to enter Male High School parking lot at high speeds. (Courtesy Google)
To be sure, this area is a pedestrian nightmare. Male High School is set far off the street that itself straddles the 12-lane Interstate 65 (18 lanes if you count the shoulders). Sidewalks generally exist here but are poorly and dangerously designed. Crosswalks are scant and even the turning radius to enter the Male High School parking lot has been designed to allow speeding motorists to take the turn at high speeds.
The speed limit along Preston Highway is a whopping 45 miles per hour, which would kill a person nine times out of ten. Such speeds also greatly reduce the visibility of motorists, increasing the risk a pedestrian could be struck.
When Massachusetts-based smart trash can company BigBelly announced plans last year to convert New York City’s rubbish bins into super-fast Wi-Fi hotspots, the international media took notice. Engadget, CityLab, Gizmag, HuffPo, and Popular Science all ran with the story.
But while New York’s trash can proposal appears to have been carted off, Louisville has made the concept a reality. Mayor Greg Fischer says two new trash can Wi-Fi hotspots are a world first, and they’re located in the Russell neighborhood around the planned West Louisville FoodPort.
Officials celebrate Phase 2 of the Russell Wi-Fi project. (Courtesy Mayor’s Office)
Fischer joined community leaders including Councilwoman Cheri Bryant Hamilton and Chief of Innovation Ted Smith on Wednesday to celebrate the second phase of the so-called West Louisville Neighborhood Wi-Fi Project, which is bringing free internet to the area. Grants supporting Metro Louisville’s Innovation Team funded the two 4G Wi-Fi hotspots along Market Street, which are being leased from BigBelly.
“The neighborhood WiFi project consists of placing access points in strategic locations along key corridors in efforts to create a mesh network for residents and businesses to have access to wireless coverage,” Charles Booker, director of strategic partnerships at Seed Capital Kentucky, the developer of the West Louisville FoodPort, wrote in a post on the company’s website.
A pair of BigBelly units installed in Russell. (Courtesy Louisville Democratic Caucus)
Booker said that the project aims to increase internet access as one way of addressing the “holistic needs in the community” and to “help bridge the digital divide.”
The first two solar-powered BigBelly trash and recycling units with 4G internet are located at TARC’s Route No. 15 bus stops on Market Street at 25th Street and at 28th Street, making the wait for the bus a little more pleasant.
According to a press release, Route No. 15 is among the five top-used transit routes in Louisville with more than 2,200 average weekday trips. Among other things, the city said the Wi-Fi access will help riders check transit schedules and get real-time bus arrival information.
But because the BigBelly trash cans are solar powered, their Wi-Fi signal is only available with sunlight, Ted Smith told Broken Sidewalk. “It’s a tricky situation—we’re limited by the sun,” Smith said. “As the days get longer, the hours of operation will get longer.” That means more Wi-Fi in the summer and less in the winter.
Each Wi-Fi hotspot broadcasts about 100 feet in all directions, and will operate between 8:00a.m. and 6:00p.m., the city said (with extended hours in summer months).
Ted Smith tries out a Russell Wi-Fi hotspot. (Courtesy Mayor’s Office)
That systemic weakness is also its strength, Smith added. He said that the units—the first outside Downtown—can be easily set up without relying on telephone poles or fiber infrastructure. Instead, these trash cans connect with cell towers, acting as a boosted mobile hotspot seen on many phones.
“Symbolically what we’re trying to do is systematically and consistently build out this kind of Wi-Fi accessibility in a community that has low broadband access,” Smith said, noting that for many, the only places to get Wi-Fi are at the library or fast food restaurants. “It’s not supposed to be a silver bullet. It’s a low end disruptor and it’s certainly moving us from zero to one—now we have something.”
Map showing Russell Wi-Fi hotspots. (Courtesy Mayor’s Office)
Besides broadcasting a Wi-Fi signal, the solar panel on top of the BigBelly units also compacts the trash or recyclables inside, increasing their capacity by five times over a standard bin of the same size. The units also broadcast a signal to Metro Louisville Public Works when the bins are full, to reduce maintenance costs by up to 70 percent annually.
BigBelly solar-powered trash and recycling bins made their debut in Louisville in 2011 with a pilot project of the Louisville Downtown Management District, now part of the Louisville Downtown Partnership.
Broken Sidewalk reported last year that the first phase of the project brought Wi-Fi nodes to several Russel locations including 2910 West Jefferson Street, 2927 West Market Street, and 2501 West Market Street. So far, the city says almost 1,000 people have accessed the phase one hotspots, using more than 100GB of free data.
“The impact of this project is anchored by the FoodPort development,” Booker wrote. “Our rationale was simple: the FoodPort has the potential to be a transformative catalyst in a distressed neighborhood. Recognizing this, the Innovation Delivery Team raised the argument that bringing such a major development to a struggling area must be accompanied by efforts to empower the community.”
A large mixed-use apartment project is one step closer to construction with this week’s design approval from the Bardstown Road/Baxter Avenue Overlay Committee.
The $52 million project by Columbus, Ohio–based Edwards Companies calls for 280 apartments over 30,000 square feet of retail on the acute triangular corner of Baxter Avenue and East Broadway known as the Phoenix Hill Tavern site.
Site plan. (Courtesy Edwards Companies)
According to the Courier-Journal‘s Sheldon Shafer, that could mean up to 12 commercial tenants on the Baxter Avenue side of the building. Shafer added that rents in the complex could range from $800 to $1,700 a month.
The northern extents of the overlay. (Courtesy Metro Louisville)The overlay approval process.
Still, the committee had some reservations about the Baxter Apartments project, according to Samantha Chatman’s report at WDRB. Those included its overall height of four stories.
“Our concerns are making sure the scale of the overall overlay is respected,” Committee chairman John Warmack told Chatman. “We’re trying to maintain a character and a sense of scale and comfort along the corner.”
The overlay guidelines generally limit new construction on the corridor to three stories, but remains flexible. “New structures greater than three stories high may be permissible if taller portions are set back from the street frontage so that overall sight lines are compatible,” the guidelines read, “and if the increased height is not intrusive towards adjacent structures.”
Given the project’s location at a prominent intersection and across the street from two cemeteries, this is one of the best locations in the entire corridor for such density. We’d say this is a clear case of a situation where flexibility is in order. The developer’s attorney, Bill Bardenwerper, also said the project requires four floors to make it financially viable.
The East Broadway side of the building. (Courtesy Edwards Companies)
The Baxter Apartments project still has a long way to go before full approval. With the design approval in hand, the the developer must now coordinate design details such as signage with Metro Planning & Design, according to Shafer. In the next couple weeks, the overlay committee will again debate the project as it moves toward full approval, according to Chatman. Shafer added that the site must also be rezoned, requiring approvals from the Board of Zoning Adjustments and then the full Metro Council.
A block west on Broadway, Edwards Companies is also developing the former Mercy Academy site into nearly 200 apartments. That project has already been approved, but, according to Chatman, Bardenwerper said the two developments’ viability is closely tied together.
“We’d like to see this one across the goal line before we make a total commitment to that one,” he told Chatman, upping the stakes of the overlay committee’s decision. That line could just be a scare tactic, as Shafer reported that Edwards Companies’ Vice President Jeff Wood said construction on the Mercy Apartments could begin this spring, well before final approval for the Baxter Apartments comes through.
Growth of Louisville's Urban Bike Network over time. (Chart by Pat Smith using data from Bicycling for Louisville and Bike Louisville)
Until now, Louisville’s Urban Bike Network (UBN) meant more on paper than on pavement—but that’s changing fast. “The bike lanes in town didn’t make up a network until the past few years,” Chris Glasser, president of the nonprofit Bicycling for Louisville, told Broken Sidewalk. “Everything was very disconnected—a bike lane here, a bike lane there.”
A chart provided to Broken Sidewalk shows just how much the network has grown over the years, creating a network of bike lanes and Neighborways that makes meaningful connections for cycling safely around the city.
The pace began to pick up in 2013, when Bicycling for Louisville Board Member Dave Morse delivered a report to Mayor Greg Fischer making the case for investing in an urban bike network. “In June of that year, Fischer announced that his budget would include $300,000 for ’30 miles of bike lanes’,” Glasser said.
You can explore the growth of Louisville’s Urban Bike Network using the interactive map above.
Before 2013, the state was building the bike lanes piecemeal and not doing a great job of it. “Most of their facilities were pretty bad,” Glasser said. “Bike lanes that were very narrow, like on Poplar Level Road, or with no door zones next to parking zones, like on Market Street.”
Since 2013, the city began to take bike infrastructure seriously. “In the time since, we’ve averaged about 15–20 miles of bike infrastructure per year,” Glasser said. “Some of these miles are your classic bike lanes, some are what the city calls Neighborways, and which nationally are called ‘bike boulevards’ or ‘neighborhood greenways’.”
Glasser said the Neighborways program is ideal for flat, gridded streets like those commonly found in West Louisville. “We’ll have one on 23rd Street stretching from Northwestern Parkway in Portland all the way to Shively.”
A buffered bike lane with bollards on Fourth Street near the University of Louisville. (Courtesy Bike Louisville)
Downtown, wider streets make bike lanes more appropriate. “In many cases, we can add a 7-foot bike lane without having to remove any driving lanes,” Glasser said. Such examples include facilities on Sixth Street, Seventh Street, Muhammad Ali Boulevard, and Chestnut Street. “This is great for biking but also great for traffic calming and pedestrian safety.”
Glasser applauded the progress the city has made with a shoestring budget. “It’s a testament to how really not a lot of money can have a big impact on the city,” Glasser said. “In total, we’ve spent less than $1,000,000 on these additions. That’s nothing.”
“Day-to-day, week-to-week, it feels like it’s coming pretty slow. It can be pretty frustrating, honestly,” Glasser said. “But after three years, it’s really gratifying looking at a map and seeing how much has changed.”
We also heard from several tipsters about the history of the building, including one who shared this view of the structure in 1890 following the Great Tornado that wrecked a good portion of the city on March 27 of that year.
The Alexander Building destroyed by the tornado. To the east, the Carter Dry Goods Building, now housing the Kentucky Science Center, has yet to be expanded. (Sam Thomas’ Views of Louisville Since 1766 / Courtesy Tipster)
Needless to say, the structure was rebuilt exactly how it appeared before the tornado, with three stories of limestone facade over a cast-iron ground floor.
Half a block west, the two-story building today housing the Sons of the American Revolution wasn’t so lucky. When the tornado sheared off its top two floors, the structure was capped at its modern diminutive scale. You can see more photos of the devastation on the tornado monument at the northwest corner of Eighth and Main.
That photo of the Alexander Building spurred us to do a little more digging into the history of the Alexander Building, and we turned up some interesting finds—and a little more confusion.
The Hotel Mystery
Three locations with changing names in the 19th century. (Montage by Broken Sidewalk)
There are three historic hotel sites—Eighth & Main, Ninth & Main, and Seventh & Market—that share the same names over the years, perhaps suggesting the dynamic nature of the 19th century hotel business, but also complicating tracking down history.
The Eighth Street facade of today’s Alexander Building viewed in 1925. (UL Photo Archives – Reference)
An advertisement from early 1867 lists the hotel as the St. George Lodging House, “a new house with nicely furnished rooms” costing only $1 a day.
Five years later, another ad labeled the venue as Alexander’s Hotel, catering to business in the city’s wholesale district. “Furnished and fitted new throughout in the best of style,” according to the February 24, 1872 advertisement. Then, a room cost $2 a night.
That 1872 ad said the property at Eighth and Main was previously known as the Alexander House and then, briefly, the National Hotel (itself with various locations over time).
In February 22, 1996, a report in the Courier-Journal noting a new piece of public art (more on that below) said today’s Alexander Building was built in 1857 as the Phoenix Hotel and later renamed the Alexander.
But advertisements from 1868 show that Phoenix Hotel stood at the northwest corner of Main Street and Ninth Street, a block west. By 1882, another ad shows that the Main & Ninth venue had changed its name to the Planters’ Hotel.
Alexander’s Hotel visible in the 1892 map, but by 1905 the site is a clothing factory. (Courtesy Kentucky Virtual Library)
Then, a February 18, 1903, report in the Courier-Journal notes that the Phoenix Hotel, formerly the Alexander Hotel, (this time at Seventh & Market) was being dismantled to make way for a clothing factory. The report noted that the hotel had operated for some 30 years, but did not offer locations.
The earliest reference we could find to the Seventh & Main location was from 1868 when the site was advertised as the Alexander House.
Sanborn insurance maps from 1892 and 1905 shows that the structure at Eighth and Main was in use as an industrial building, noting the corner as a wholesale liquor company.
Phoenix Rising
Back to that public art. In 1980, a group including Dennis Clare, Ted Strange, Creighton Mershon, Alex Talbott, and Glenn Schilling purchased the Alexander Building, using it as various office uses including space for Metro Louisville’s real estate division. According to the 1996 C-J report mentioned above, the group commissioned a grand, eight-foot-tall sculpture by Berea artist Kenneth Gastineau called Phoenix Rising.
Gastineau’s sculpture depicted the “mythical phoenix taking flight” to honor the original hotel, the C-J reported. We reached out to Gastineau via email requesting additional information on the sculpture but haven’t heard back. Anyone remember exactly what it looked like?
Whether or not the Alexander Building at Eighth and Main ever housed the Phoenix Hotel remains uncertain, but it does stand as an important piece of Louisville’s history during the steamboat era and beyond.
Know more about the building? Please share in the comments below.
Vote!
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And now, vote for what you’d like to see fill the Alexander Building once it’s sold. You can choose more than one option from the list above.
While a proposal to widen Chenoweth Lane to three lanes is officially off the table, there’s still a push for change along the St. Matthews thoroughfare. Those changes could include adding sidewalks, bicycle facilities, turning lanes at intersections, and drainage work.
The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) has scheduled its next public meeting on the project for Monday, February 29 from 5:00 to 7:00p.m. at the Broadway Baptist Church, 4000 Brownsboro Road.
The meeting site highlights the larger mobility problems in the area. Broadway Baptist Church sits on a busy stretch of four-lane arterial street with no sidewalks. There are two TARC bus stops out front, marked only with slender metal poles. Brownsboro Road is dangerous by design.
Two TARC stop son Brownsboro Road highlight the pedestrian dangers along the street. (Montage by Broken Sidewalk)
TARC Route 15 stops on each side of the street in front of the church, but if you’re taking the Market Street–bound TARC, you’ll have to dash across four lanes of arterial street with no crosswalk—a dangerous move for even an agile adult. If you didn’t want to cross here, you’d have to walk over 2,000 feet in a drainage ditch to Chenoweth Lane and back to get to the nearest crosswalk. Please be careful if you go.
“This meeting is to get input from the public on potential changes to Chenoweth Lane between Shelbyville Road and Brownsboro Road,” District 9 Councilman Bill Hollander wrote in an announcement. “Representatives from the KY Transportation Cabinet and their consultants will be available to answer questions.”
Hollander was among the supporters of removing the three-lane redesign from the table.
“We are currently in the process of discussing potential ‘Improvement Alternatives’,” wrote Judi Hickerson of KYCT’s District 5 office in a letter to a constituent. She added that the KYTC’s project team has been finalizing alternatives including “sidewalks, bike lanes, a shared use path, drainage improvements, turn lanes, increased traffic capacity, etc.” and that the group will present their findings at the meeting.
Even though the overall widening is off the table, it’s very important that you show up to express support for quality street design in Louisville. There’s still plenty of room to improve or cause harm to the design of Chenoweth Lane.
If you cannot attend the meeting, you can still submit a comment to the KYTC District Five Office, Attn: Judi Hickerson, Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, 8310 Westport Road, Louisville, KY 40242.
[Editor’s Note: Louisville has made some pretty amazing achievements in its first 238 years—but it’s made a few blunders along the way, too. This week, we’re launching a new contributed mini-series documenting eight of the best and eight of the worst decisions, ideas, or projects that have profoundly affected the city. This list is by no means complete—and you may have strong opinions of your own about what should be on the best or worst lists. Share your thoughts in the comments section below. Or check out the complete Best/Worst list here.]
A world-class architectural landmark, the Humana Building, sets a high aesthetic standard for Downtown Louisville.
Wendell Cherry and David Jones announced on May 28th, 1982, at Actor’s Theater, that New Jersey–based architect Michael Graves (1934–2015) had won a competition for their company’s headquarters—and was widely applauded.
Graves beat other high-profile firms including Helmut Jahn of Chicago, Ulrich Franzen of New York, Cesar Pelli of New Haven, Conn., and Norman Foster of London.
(Courtesy Michael Graves Architecture & Design)
The resulting 26-story, 525,000-square-foot structure was notably clad in pink granite. It exceeded all expectations, despite some initial criticism.
“Louisville is a pleasant, friendly, slow-moving town of 298,000 that is certainly not known for being at the cutting edge of architectural design,” began a harsh review from the Chicago Tribune‘s critic Paul Gapp in 1985. “[A]lthough Graves has turned in a strong performance here, the Humana building still suffers serious visual flaws.” Or so the culture of the mid-’80s architectural world thought.
(Courtesy Michael Graves Architecture & Design)
Still, Gapp was an astute observer of Louisville’s urban situation, noting, “The biggest construction mistake made in postwar Louisville is an expressway that runs along the edge of the river and cuts off the downtown area from its greatest scenic and recreational asset.”
Gapp called the project “radical Postmodernism” for the structure’s non-boxy facade and detail that related to its surroundings along West Main Street. It was this boxy architecture that Graves eschewed.
The Humana Building on the Louisville skyline viewed from the Belvedere. (Jason Meredith / Flickr)
In fact, Graves said in a lecture at the Humana Building on its 25th anniversary that he often quipped how the neighboring National City Bank tower by New York’s Harrison & Abramovitz was the box that the Humana Building was delivered in.
But it was this attention to composition and massing that made the Humana Building such a win for Louisville. The tower related in scale well to nearby cast-iron warehouses along West Main Street, to its interior marble rotunda, and the design is well-thought through-out the entire structure.
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The 25th floor offers a phenomenal layout containing an exquisitely detailed auditorium and a magnificent exterior overlook of the Ohio River. On the south side is a curved staff lounge area for each of the upper floors.
The entry loggia has cascading water fountains set within a massive granite colonnade recalling the Falls of the Ohio. High above, a prominent steel truss on the north facade echoes the structural framework of nearby bridges.
An original floor plan of the tower shows it was designed with retail space.
At that 25th anniversary lecture, Graves was clearly proud of his buildings—one of the most important structures of the 20th century. He said he would only change one thing: that the stone behind the entry waterfalls be a darker color to better show off the cascading water.
The Humana Building is a sensory overload of color, shapes, materials, and experiences. And Louisville is fortunate to have it.
Michael Graves created numerous iconic projects across the country and the world—at both large and very small scales. Some of his best known buildings include the Portland Building in Portland, Ore., the Disney Headquarters, the Denver Public Library, the San Juan Capistrano Library, and the Swan & Dolphin Resorts in Orlando.
At the other end of the spectrum, Graves designed countless household goods including an iconic toaster and tea kettle for the likes of Alessi, Target, J.C. Penney among others. He also has designed housing for disabled veterans and medical equipment meant to make time spent in hospitals easier. Graves himself was paralyzed and bound to a wheelchair.
Time has shown that critics like Gapp, who claimed “Graves spoiled the totality of his design effort with the failed facade,” missed the bigger picture of the Humana Building. It’s one part of what makes the Louisville skyline so distinct without ignoring the fact that it touches the street as well.
Construction is ramping up at 111 Whiskey Row where a fire tore through three historic structures last summer. “We are under construction,” Valle Jones, a member of the development team called Main Street Revitalization, told Broken Sidewalk. “We’ve been working on it for a while, but the first few months were debris removal.”
Since cleanup and stabilization wrapped up last fall, the team has been reworking the project’s structural system. A crane has been on site for a month lifting construction material up and over the existing party walls.
(Ted Tarquinio)
“What was left was not structurally strong enough to build on,” she said. Now, the team is finalizing a design for an “internal skeleton” of steel that will support the development inside its historic walls.
“We’re driving subsurface micro-piles to create a foundation,” Jones explained. The new structural system will be anchored on this foundation to support new floors inside the historic brick walls. “The overall shape will be virtually the same,” Jones said. “Inside it’s new, but on the outside it’s old.”
(Ted Tarquinio)
Bob Haffermann, a principal at Louisville’s K. Norman Berry Architects, is leading the design team. He previously worked on other historic renovations including the Frazier International History Museum and the 21c Museum Hotel. Main Street Revitalization includes Jones, attorney Craig Greenberg, and others.
“We previously provided shoring with steel bracing and temporary floor bracing,” Jones said. That process took several months. “We couldn’t just get in there with a backhoe,” she continued. “It was a very complicated process of taking down unstable bricks by hand.”
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Despite the damage, the team was reluctant to discard any materials from the historic buildings. “Anything that has come out of the building has been hand sorted and salvaged,” Jones said.
Despite the structural changes, the program remains the same in the three structures. Plans call for restaurants on the two floors facing Main Street and Washington Street, a layer of offices on the third floor, and two floors of apartments above that. Jones said that no tenants have been finalized, but the development team is in discussions with several interested groups.
“The apartments will lease very quickly,” Jones said. She expected leasing to begin in spring 2017. If all goes to plan, the project will open in the summer of 2017.
The Downtown structure’s inheritors, the estate of Julian Goldberg, have now listed the building for sale with Commercial Kentucky with no asking price.
The structure covers 10,260 square feet on three floors, according to the listing. Like other buildings in the area, the structure features an additional street-facing level on Washington Street as the city’s topography drops off toward the Ohio River.
639 West Main Street. (Branden Klayko / Broken Sidewalk)
“The building was home to G&K Surplus for 78 years,” the listing by broker Sam English reads. “Essentially in original condition. This is an opportunity to create something new on vibrant Main Street.”
What’s most fascinating about this structure is that it’s a sort of time capsule on West Main Street. The building was built—or rebuilt rather—in 1892 after a devastating fire wrecked the street between Fifth and Seventh streets.
Details of the pre-fire building are hard to find, but this is the block where it was located. A 19th century “skyscraper” is seen on the right. (Courtesy UL Photo Archives – Reference)
The structure that preceded the 1892 building was a four-story stone-clad building standing 54 feet tall. The three-story structure that was rebuilt with cast iron stands 46 feet tall. An atlas from 1905 shows the structure was operating as a wholesale grocery company. That means today’s 639 West Main is 124 years old.
(Courtesy Kentucky Digital Library)
The infamous fire of December 8–9, 1891 began in the Boone Paper Company building, proving to be one of the deadliest in Louisville’s history. The fire broke out early in the morning, and several people sleeping in the structures were able to escape. A falling wall killed four firefighters from the No. 1 Hook & Ladder Company. Four buildings were burned in the inferno.
Drawing of the Menne Candy Shop Fire.
With the Boone Paper fire still smoldering, another building exploded a block east around 8:00 that day. The gas explosion ignited the F.A. Menne & Company’s “wholesale candy and fancy grocery house” in the 500 block. Some 40 girls were at work wrapping candies when the fire broke out, and eight were burned alive.
“But once before has Louisville been stricken with such a disaster as that which befell the city yesterday,” the Courier-Journal wrote the following day, comparing the fire to the Great Tornado of 1889.
The site became a solemn spectacle for the city. “The wrecked buildings were the interesting centers, and at times the crowd became so dense that the police found it necessary to enforce the move-on law,” a December 14, 1891, Courier-Journal report noted. Still, the crowd was silent. “The shattered walls were a forcible reminder of the sad fates of the twelve victims, and everybody talked in suppressed tones.”
Following the 1891 fire, Louisville Fire Chief Hughes, himself injured in the fire, lamented to the Courier-Journal about poor construction of the “skyscraping” buildings along West Main Street that made fighting fires dangerous.
“If all buildings were properly constructed and properly equipped, and were not over five stories high, we would have less destructive fires,” Hughes said. “The construction of many of the biggest buildings in the city is faulty,” he continued. “Take the stores along Main street…The walls are defective in many of the buildings. Think of only thirteen-inch walls! No wall should be erected less than eighteen inches.”
But for most of the 20th century, 639 West Main sat in a state of limbo, untouched by renovations and used mostly as storage for the retail shop below. This certainly makes it unique among the buildings lining the street, and could offer inspiration for the buildings future uses. What would you like to see the building converted into?
A block to the west, the cast-iron and stone Alexander building at Eighth and Main streets was also recently listed for sale by the city, so another chapter will soon be written along one of Louisville’s most storied streets.
