On Friday, February 5, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) released new data [PDF] showing that traffic deaths are up. Up quite a bit.
During the first nine months of 2015, 26,000 Americans were killed in traffic collisions—a 9.3 percent increase over the same period in 2014. According to Autoblog, that would work out to the highest one-year percentage increase in traffic deaths since the 1940s if the trend continued through the end of 2015.
The most obvious reason is that cheap gas is prompting people to drive more. Indeed, during the first three quarters of 2015, drivers logged 80 billion more miles than the same period the previous year—a 3.5 percent increase.
That means the increase in driving doesn’t account for all the increase in fatalities. One theory, courtesy of David Levinson at the University of Minnesota, is that when gas prices fall, collisions rise faster than mileage because people who don’t ordinarily drive much, like teenagers, start driving more.
In its messages, NHTSA keeps hammering “behavioral” issues, like drunk driving and failing to wear seatbelts—which certainly are big contributors to traffic fatalities. But when you get down to it, driving itself is the source of risk, and NHTSA won’t address the systemic factors that compel Americans to drive instead of taking transit, walking, or biking.
You’ll never see NHTSA mention the disaster that is low-density, single-use zoning, which lengthens the distances people have to travel in cars. Or the way state DOTs keep building bigger highways even though they don’t maintain the roads they already have.
In a statement, U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said the new data “is a signal that we need to do more,” but he did not specify what, exactly, we need to do more of.
Portland will soon be a bona fide arts neighborhood. Today, the University of Louisville announced that it would locate its Master of Fine Arts program in the historic neighborhood in an old warehouse on the corner of 16th Street and Rowan Street.
The University will lease 27,000 square feet from a development group renovating the building—about a third of the total space in the overall complex. The UofL Foundation will lease the space for ten years, according to a press release.
The Rowan Street facade of the complex. (Courtesy WorK Architecture + Design)The area marked in red belongs to Rowan Downstream. (Courtesy LOJIC)
The development team, operating under the name Rowan Downstream, includes Gill Holland, a long-time supporter of rejuvenating the neighborhood and founder of the Portland Investment Initiative; Jacob Brown and Justin Brown of the Marian Development Group, Chad Middendorf, Ashley Blacketer, Gregg Rochman, Matt Gilles and Jonathan Bevan.
Conceptual rendering of the MFA Program interior. (Courtesy WorK Architecture + Design)
“We’re very excited about this project—it’s been about a year we’ve been working on this,” Justin Brown told Broken Sidewalk. “We think it’s going to be incredibly transformative for the neighborhood and the city. It’s rewarding when you get to do something like this, especially when there’s such a great team involved.”
The one- and two-story 1600 Rowan Street structure, dating to the 1800s, features an enormous central spine with clerestory windows 30 or more feet up. A mezzanine level overlooks the central corridor.
1 of 7
(Tom Fougerousse)
(Tom Fougerousse)
(Branden Klayko / Broken Sidewalk)
(Tom Fougerousse)
(Tom Fougerousse)
(Courtesy Google)
(Courtesy Google)
“A lot of the history of the building is lost,” Mitchell Kersting, principal at WorK, told Broken Sidewalk. The University said in a press release that the structure previously operated as a floor-covering distribution center, a storage warehouse, and a senior nutrition center, among other uses.
“This one was obviously designed to be a warehouse,” Kersting added. The structure was built with a steel structure on its interior with brick exterior walls. “When you walk in the door, it’s a three-story clerestory. It feels pretty tall.” Kersting said the structure is in “relatively good shape” for its age.
Conceptual rendering of the MFA Program interior. (Courtesy WorK Architecture + Design)
According to preliminary renderings released by the University, renovation work will clean up the interior while maintaining its industrial open feel. “We’re trying to be the least invasive as we can,” Kersting said. “The natural lighting in there is amazing.”
Because of its rough industrial past, the warehouse offered Kersting a blank canvas with which to craft the new MFA Program. “There’s not much to the building architecturally—it’s a basic warehouse,” he said. “We’re still going to restore the architectural elements that are still there.”
Conceptual rendering of the MFA Program interior. (Courtesy WorK Architecture + Design)
In the end, Kersting said it was an easy sell. “We walked through with Gill [Holland] and the department stakeholders from UofL, and as soon as we walked in the door, they saw it was perfect,” he recalled. “Someone completely unfamiliar with architecture could walk in and think this is a fantastic space for a creative use.”
Conceptual rendering of the MFA Program interior. (Courtesy WorK Architecture + Design)
Kersting said the new space represents an expansion from the MFA Program’s current Hite Art Institute facility on the Belknap Campus. Currently housed in a mid-century building, Kersting said the old space feels cluttered and cramped compared to the open warehouse.
WorK put together some drawings and met with University stakeholders to figure out what the department’s needs would be in the new building. “It was a fun exercise,” he said. “What would your preferred space look like?”
Inside the structure. (Tom Fougerousse)
The University should be applauded for its forward-thinking commitment to the Portland neighborhood. The MFA Program will stand as a strong anchor tenant for an already burgeoning arts scene in surrounding blocks.
To the west is WorK’s office on Boone Square Park, the Tim Faulkner Gallery sits a couple blocks north, a furniture maker is already located in the building, an art studio backs up to the building, and other artists and furniture makers are located within surrounding blocks. Just down Rowan, the Habitat for Humanity ReStore might provide materials for students’ art projects.
“Adding the University of Louisville program to the neighborhood is key to enhancing the cultural vitality and economic revitalization of Portland,” Holland said in a statement.
Looking east along Rowan Street with 1600 Rowan at right and a rain garden bioswale at Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore at left. (Branden Klayko / Broken Sidewalk)
“The MFA students and faculty will enliven the redesigned space and contribute to the area’s positive growth,” Holland continued. “It shows great leadership on the part of our state’s leading institution of higher education to establish a presence west of Ninth Street.”
A steady stream of students, faculty, and artists will bring a new vitality to Portland’s sidewalks. “We’re trying to engage and bring the public to Portland and to this building,” Kersting said. “This little area is really becoming a creative artists district. There’s a lot of enthusiasm down here about the arts.”
The structure will be designed to engage with the street. (Courtesy WorK Architecture + Design)
The development team is still looking for the right tenants to fill the rest of the building, but Brown said they’re keeping an eye out for groups that fit with the neighborhood and their vision for the building with the University. That could include retail space if the demand arises. A furniture manufacturing company currently located in the structure will remain for the foreseeable future, he said.
That same view from above today. (Courtesy Google)
The University launched its MFA degree program in studio arts and design in 2014. “The 60-credit-hour program is intended to be selective, rigorous and professional with small classes to ensure participants have substantial access to studios and faculty members,” UofL said in its press release. Courses include ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, design, mixed media, and interior architecture, among others.
“We are excited our MFA studios will be part of the larger renewal of a unique community,” Ying Kit Chan, fine arts department chair, said in a statement. “Portland is a meaningful place for Louisville, rich in historic landmarks and in close proximity to downtown and the river.”
The project is expected to be complete and operational for the spring 2017 semester.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan “until a lower court has resolved the legal case against it,” Curtis Tate reports for McClatchy Newspapers.
“Under the plan, states would have to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by a third by 2030,” Tate wrote. “But states that rely heavily on coal to produce electricity, including Kentucky and West Virginia, had argued that the plan was unconstitutional.” West Virginia and Kentucky are second and third to Wyoming in coal production and get the vast majority of their electricity from coal.
The court’s order means that the states that sued to stop the rules, which are aimed at greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change, won’t have to comply while the legal battle is being fought in a lower appellate court.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said, “The Clean Power Plan is based on a strong legal and technical foundation, gives states the time and flexibility they need to develop tailored, cost-effective plans to reduce their emissions, and will deliver better air quality, improved public health, clean energy investment and jobs across the country, and major progress in our efforts to confront the risks posed by climate change.”
States suing over the rules, ranked by percent of their electricity that comes from coal, as of Oct. 23, 2015. (Courtesy Climate Desk)
Production of Central Appalachian coal—mainly from West Virginia and Kentucky—was 40 percent below average between 2010 and 2014, and a decline in coal jobs has led West Virginia to have the negative distinction of being the only state in the U.S. where more than half of adults are out of work.
Coal was also an issue in the November election in Kentucky, where Republicans tied Democrats to Obama’s energy policies, Tate writes. Since Obama took office in 2008, “Republicans have shut Democrats out of the governor’s mansion, both U.S. Senate seats, and five of the state’s six House seats.”
Kentucky Coal Association President Bill Bissett said, “While there is much more work to do this ruling is the first step to restoring coal as the affordable, reliable electricity source that has powered both Kentucky and this country.” West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said, “Make no mistake—this is a great victory for West Virginia,” reports The Associated Press. “We are thrilled that the Supreme Court realized the rule’s immediate impact and froze its implementation, protecting workers and saving countless dollars as our fight against its legality continues.”
Wyoming’s Gov. Matt Mead also applauded the decision, AP reports: “This is a big win for Wyoming and the nation. It puts on hold this very bad policy based on a deeply flawed process while the legal issues are being addressed. I couldn’t be happier.”
[This article was cross-posted from the Rural Blog. Top image of LG&E’s Can Run coal-fired power plant circa 2013 by DL Duncan / Flickr.]
To get a better understanding of what other cities like about Louisville, we asked Mayor Greg Fischer what his administration is hearing from other mayors around the country. What is Louisville doing so well that others are taking notice?
Mayor Fischer got back to us over email to share his thoughts on what makes Louisville a great city. And what other cities his administration looks to for ideas.
Broken Sidewalk: A new report from Boston University and the U.S. Conference of Mayors says that a lot of other cities are looking at Louisville for inspiration. Have you heard from other mayors that they like what they see in Louisville? What are they telling you they like about the city?
Mayor Greg Fischer: Our city has become a source of inspiration for other cities. The common theme behind most of the inquiries we receive is innovation, whether it is social innovation like compassion, education innovation like Cradle to Career, performance innovation like LouieStat, or our built environment innovation like Resurfaced.
Mayor Fischer cited initiatives like Resurfaced have other cities asking questions about Louisville. (Courtesy Resurfaced)
Most of the principles behind our innovation work derive from my private sector experience. For example, I believe we were the first city in the country to create the position of Chief for Civic Innovation, and to establish an initiative like LouieStat, which added private sector improvement techniques, such as Lean and Six Sigma, to traditional government stat programs.
People are increasingly interested in our efforts around compassion, which I consider social innovation. More and more cities are adopting compassion charters. When I was first elected and made compassion one of three guiding pillars for my administration, some people warned it would make me—and our city—look weak. In fact, it has made us stronger—when social challenges arise, we’ve got the “social muscle” to power us through. And other cities are taking note, recognizing in part that compassion is also good for business.
I asked the CEO of Computershare what made the difference between his company choosing us or the other finalist city when deciding where to locate his business and 250 jobs. He said one reason they chose Louisville is that they liked our city’s focus on compassion.
A screen capture of the LouieStat website.
Specifically (policies, initiatives, or otherwise), what are the kinds of things other cities are coming to Louisville for advice or inspiration on? What are you hearing from other mayors?
Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer. (Courtesy Office of the Mayor)
There is a range of initiatives, from our focus on data, as evidenced by the LouieStat initiative and our Office for Performance Improvement, to our inclusion of compassion as a guiding pillar.
Our work around performance improvement and innovation was highlighted when Governing magazine and my administration co-hosted the first ever Summit on Performance Improvement & Innovation in 2015, with a follow-up seminar scheduled for later this year.
Our Open Data Policy has received national attention—including from the White House—and is being modeled elsewhere. Our policy includes a strong “open by default” provision, which means that all information that is legally accessible is proactively disclosed online. That includes data on police/citizen interactions.
Other cities also are looking at how we use data to tackle big challenges of a community like air quality and city heat differentials. For example, we were among the first cities in the nation to do a heat island study and a tree canopy study. These studies are turning into real long-term solutions—this year, we will be announcing tree planting goals, for example, which will impact Louisville for generations to come.
Mayor Fischer and community members load water to be shipped to Flint, Michigan. (Courtesy Office of the Mayor)
Our involvement in Asthmapolis is another good example of where we smartly use data and innovative technology to improve people’s lives. More than 100,000 people in the Louisville area suffer from asthma. Ted Smith, our Chief of Civic Innovation, got us involved in the Asthmapolis research on “smart” inhalers—every time a participant uses their inhaler, a sensor sends information to researchers and records the information for the patient and his or her doctor. That helps the doctor identify patients who need more help controlling the disease, and helps us identify community-wide asthma triggers that can be improved or eliminated.
Other initiatives getting notice include Code Louisville, an innovative public-private partnership that teaches citizens of all ages the software coding skills essential to high-tech jobs. That’s an area our business community highlighted as an urgent need.
Our work around black male achievement is significantly ahead of many cities, as we started in May 2012 with work that culminated in creation of our Office for Safe and Healthy Neighborhoods. Many cities have just started focusing on this in the past year.
Other areas of interest include how we’re rebuilding our Downtown and surrounding neighborhoods with infill developments, and our Cradle to Career program. And of course, there’s our partnership with Google Fiber, which other cities would love to have.
What does it mean that Louisville is listed as a source of inspiration at the same level as other cities like Seattle, San Francisco, or Portland, Ore.? Is Louisville being “discovered” or has this been going on behind the scenes a while?
We are a city in transformation with tremendous momentum, and the way people view Louisville is definitely changing. My main focus when I took office was to create a sense of entrepreneurism and “can-do” into our city. I felt we had work to do to make our city more compelling and forward-looking.
Our city has great bones with our neighborhoods and built environment. Today, our downtown is surging with a score of new hotels, a soon-to-be expanded convention center, and many new residential options. Our music and arts scene is booming. We have created our city’s first ever 365-day-a-year tourism experience around bourbon and local food tourism, also known as Bourbonism. The IdeaFestival and the Festival of Faiths now have a global reputation.
Move over, Portland. America has new hipster capital – Louisville. So says today's London Times (yep, as in England) pic.twitter.com/fNDvZTxaN4
Look at the national rankings from 2015 alone: No. 2 on the USA Today list of Best Local Food Scenes. We’re on Time magazine’s list of America’s Best Music Scenes. We are the New Hipster Capital, according to the London Times. Our transformation into one of the world’s great travel destinations has been trumpeted in Time magazine, USA Today, Travel + Leisure, and many, many others.
That kind of publicity helps us compete for global business and talent. And that, in turn, prompted Site Selection Magazineto list us among Top 10 cities for Economic Development.
If you’re trying to draw in a young, educated workforce—and we are—it’s a very good thing to be mentioned in the same breath as Seattle, San Francisco, and Portland.
The knowledge workers who power the new economy, and the companies that employ them, want a city with a great quality of life, signature arts and cultural events, diverse food and music, multi-modal transportation options, and one-of-a-kind parks. This shows we compete well in these areas.
Food trucks in front of the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts. (jpellgen / Flickr)
What does it mean for Louisville that it’s being held up as a model for others? What responsibility does that give us? What do we need to do to stay in front as a point of inspiration for years to come?
My team’s responsibility is to maximize the potential of our city. If other cities are modeling us, that’s great. But we are not content with measuring progress against ourselves. We want to be recognized as one of the great cities in the world. To do this, we will continue to innovate around and leverage our authenticity and our competitive advantages; that’s how we grow jobs, boost our economy and create a healthier city of lifelong learning and increased compassion.
The biggest issue that will determine the future of Louisville is how well we do around our city value of lifelong learning. If we have a creative workforce ready for a rapidly changing global economy, our population will grow and opportunities will proliferate. It is a virtuous cycle.
A ribbon cutting ceremony for a new bus stop in the SoBro neighborhood. (Courtesy Office of the Mayor)
Advances in lifelong learning, guided by our Cradle to Career mission, will lead to advances in our other two guiding city values – health (physical, mental, environmental), and compassion (respect for all of our citizens so that their human potential is flourishing).
It is important to me and my team that all citizens have an opportunity to benefit in our city’s successes, and programs like Cradle to Career help ensure that by creating pathways to skill building and workforce development.
And of course, we will continue working to increase our international presence and attract more skilled immigrant workers. For Louisville to prosper and maximize opportunities for all citizens, we must do more than keep up with global change – we need to leap ahead. And foreign-born citizens will help make that leap.
What three cities are you looking at for inspiration? What are they doing right that you think Louisville can learn from?
San Francisco is doing some great work around innovation.
We are benchmarking our summer youth employment progress against Boston.
Nashville has done a great job creating a can-do, positive creative vibe for their city.
Pillow fight! This Sunday, February 14—that’s Valentine’s Day—Louisville is hosting a “Fight for Love” pillow fight in the middle of Fourth Street. That’s right. Grab a pillow and as many friends as you can wrangle and head on over to Fourth Street and Chestnut Street, where the feathers will be flying.
1 of 6
(Jos Contràz / Flickr)
(Chris Chin / Flickr)
(korafotomorgana / Flickr)
(Keith Wendling / Flickr)
(Mark Guim / Flickr)
(ERiKA / Flickr)
The event was announced today by the Louisville Downtown Partnership, which is using it as a multi-pronged approach to get people out shopping and generally enjoying Downtown‘s South Fourth Street retail corridor.
In recent years, the partnership has shown a growing interest in rethinking the way we use our city and interact in public space. The group is among the organizers of the popular Resurfaced project, which repurposes underutilized spaces to show their potential for more active roles in the community.
Bring your pillow here for Louisville’s Valentine’s Day pillow fight! (Courtesy Google)
Sunday afternoon’s “Fight for Love” pillow fight will take place at 3:00p.m. at the intersection of Fourth and Chestnut street. Participants must be at least 18 years old to participate and you should bring your own pillow.
This is a wonderful chance to get out and experience public space in Louisville in an entirely new way, where you won’t be dodging oncoming traffic, only oncoming pillows. If you stop by, don’t forget to snap photos or videos and send them to tips@brokensidewalk.com or tag them #brokn502 on social media.
Louisville joins a growing roster of cities embracing pillow fights in public spaces, including New York City, Minneapolis, Toronto, Washington D.C., London, and Chicago, among others. There’s even an International Pillow Fight Day (this year scheduled for April 2) that promotes the idea globally.
Shops along the retail corridor include Art Eatables, Craft(s) Gallery, Regalo, Block Party Handmade Boutique, Gifthorse, The Mysterious Rack, and Cellar Door Chocolates. South Fourth Street is also home to the Hilton Garden Inn, 8-Up Restaurant and Lounge, Sicilian Pizza, The Mercury Ballroom and Palace Theater.
[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.]
So-called New Urbanism is a modern day planning term that refers to old-style methods of community design. In other words, New Urbanism integrates a mix of residential and commercial functions into the same development, just like core city neighborhoods when they were built a century or more ago.
Think the corner stores in Old Louisville, the varied streetscapes of the Cherokee Triangle, or the commercial streets of the Highlands. New Urbanism is city building the way we used to do it.
Master plan for Norton Commons.
While New Urbanism is first and foremost about a pattern of building in a compact, walkable way, the term often brings to mind traditional building aesthetics that populate older city neighborhoods. While there’s nothing that says a New Urbanist development couldn’t be packed with cutting-edge modern architecture, most developments use the old styles as way to connote the traditions of decades past.
In fact, a lot of Norton Commons is meant to evoke a sense of history even though the neighborhood is still quite new. Besides historic architectural styles, even street names set the tone. Meeting Street, the main drag through Norton Commons, is clearly a nod toward the main street of historic Charleston, South Carolina.
(Courtesy Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company)
Norton Commons is Louisville’s preeminent New Urbanist development. It was designed by architecture and planning firm Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company (DPZ), headed up by the husband-and-wife team of Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk.
DPZ is the foremost practitioner of this form of planning. The firm also created the nation’s most recognized New Urbanism town: Seaside, Florida, which you might recognize as the set of the movie Truman Show. Duany and Plater-Zyberk have crafted dozens of similar communities around the country since then.
The downtown area of Norton Commons continues to be built out. (Courtesy Google)
A walk (or drive) through Norton Commons is like being transported back in time to the late 1800s when life was simpler and houses actually had front porches for people to sit out and foster a sense of community. While plenty of Louisville’s great older neighborhoods have already mastered these principles of urbanism, the way we build today has largely forgotten them.
While this style of building was taken for granted a century ago, it has required a lot of effort and scrutiny to bring back today. Designers have created “pattern books” that describe how buildings should relate to the street—i.e. how far from the sidewalk a porch can be to allow people to talk comfortably—and how scale should relate to one another.
It seems simple, but New Urbanism represents a fight by dozens of architects and planners over the past several decades. And in Norton Commons, this new way of city building is on full display. All the amenities of a real neighborhood—restaurants, shops, offices, playgrounds, and more—are within walking distance, creating a comfortable lifestyle for all within its cozy confines.
1 of 10
New Urbanism—and Norton Commons—has its detractors who label the concept as “green sprawl” since this is still new construction in suburbia. Norton Commons, after all, was built on a former horse farm.
Others have derided it as “drive-to urbanism” that does little to cut dependency on the automobile. It can be an excruciating task to drive out to Norton Commons on overcrowded arterial highways just to have a pleasant place to walk and shop.
Still others deride the false sense of history such a place evokes. The neighborhood hasn’t had the luxury of a century of patina as do the Highlands and Old Louisville, and we’re not used to seeing this type of shiny new architecture.
And while there’s some truth to those criticisms, there are valuable lessons taking shape in Norton Commons that we’d do well to learn from in building the rest of the city, whether on the suburban periphery or right in the middle of Downtown.
(Courtesy Google)
While it is expensive, Norton Commons isn’t some whitewashed version of a perfect Mayberry community. It’s a real-life functioning “village” in which residents could, quite feasibly, have nearly all their daily needs met.
More importantly, Norton Commons is teaching many Louisvillians to be urban again. While many a suburbanite might not commit to living in Old Louisville, Norton Commons brings the urban form out to the suburbs—and it teaches a new generation to appreciate walkable living. Living in a walkable neighborhood today, for the most part, requires you to live in a historic property. And while we all love Louisville’s historic architecture, many people do not want to commit to the maintenance and upkeep that a historic house entails.
It also shows builders how to build new structures in the old tradition. And it shows there’s a strong demand for this kind of construction—there’s a reason Homearama is making a repeat appearance in the neighborhood. We’d hope that builders across Louisville could look to Norton Commons for inspiration in building in an urban way elsewhere in the city.
[Top image of Norton Commons courtesy Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company.]
Here’s a stinker of a development proposal for the Clifton neighborhood.
Two 19th century duplexes on at 124–128 Vernon Avenue, long ago carved up into a total of seven apartments, would make way for the so-called 13-unit Conti Apartments. A brick single-story structure would be saved and its three apartments kept in place, but the other structure would be town down for a three-story, ten-unit building, set way off the street.
Site of the Conti Apartments. (Courtesy Google)
The project was proposed by Tami Conti, a real estate broker based off Dutchman’s Lane, under the umbrella of Brown Conti Company. Rebecca Brown is also listed as an organizer of the company and Bruce Kramer is listed as an officer, according to the Kentucky Secretary of State website.
This structure, seen here in 2007, would be demolished. (Branden Klayko / Broken Sidewalk)A house on Frankfort Avenue circa 2007 before renovation into the Comfy Cow. (Branden Klayko / Broken Sidewalk)
Milestone Design Group drew up a site plan submitted to the city Monday. No building design details or elevations have been submitted.
An application to rezone the property claims the story-and-a-half wood structure proposed for demolition is in “severe disrepair,” necessitating its removal.
Given this is Clifton, it’s pretty difficult to argue a building is too deteriorated to be saved. Take the case of the Queen Anne–style wooden house on Frankfort Avenue that’s today the centerpiece of the Comfy Cow Ice Cream Parlor.
The new building at the Conti Apartments measures 70 feet by 60 feet, with 4,200 square feet per floor. Combined with the existing 2,200-square-foot structure, the entire project covers 14,821 square feet.
The Conti Apartments site plan overlaid on an aerial view of the site. (Metro Louisville; Google; Montage by Broken Sidewalk)
The plan gets worse. “The applicant is proposing to remove one building,” the rezoning application reads, “and then construct a drive with parking towards the rear of the property and construct another large building in the rear of the property.”
That 19-car parking lot paves over an otherwise remarkably intact streetscape along Vernon Avenue. A site plan submitted to the city shows the 45-foot-tall, three-story building pushed to the far back of the site, overlooking the backyards of houses on the next block over.
(Courtesy Google)
The application touts the plan’s compliance with the city’s minimum parking requirements—1.5 units per dwelling or 20 in this case (the maximum is 2.5 per dwelling, or 33 in this case). The plan calls for using one on-street parking space plus the parking lot for a total of 20 parking spots. (The fact that the city requires 1.5 spaces for a compact, walkable Traditional Neighborhood form district like this is another story.)
That 7,860-square-foot parking lot would boost the .63-acre parcel’s impervious area from its current 6,415 square feet to 15,045 square feet, or 55 percent of the site.
To handle all that extra impervious surface that would otherwise send stormwater rushing into the neighborhood’s sewers, contributing to the problematic combined sewer overflow issues, the Conti Apartments would build a stormwater retention basin next to its parking lot. Those retention basins are more commonly associated with big box development way out in the exurbs.
Views along Vernon Avenue. (Branden Klayko / Broken Sidewalk)
Meanwhile, because the new structure is built where all trees today exist on the site, the overall tree canopy cover will be reduced by 12 percent, according to the project’s site plan.
Today, large trees cover 27 percent of the site’s area, helping to reduce stormwater runoff and alleviating Louisville’s notorious urban heat island effect. Development plans indicate that the project would clear cut the site during construction and then plant new trees to meet the city’s minimum 15 percent coverage once the project is complete. That’s a reduction of about 3,500 square feet of tree canopy.
The Conti Apartments will face a number of regulatory hurdles, including rezoning the property (from R4 and R5-B to R7), seeking permission to demolish a structure in a Landmarks District, and to build with such a large setback.
A phone call to Tami Conti was not immediately returned, but this article could be updated if we hear back.
It’s no secret that the conversion of the Big Four Bridge into a pedestrian and cyclist crossing over the Ohio River is a huge success. Just glance at your Instagram feed, and you’ll notice just how many views of Louisville are taken from the bridge. Crowds flock to Waterfront Park to climb its signature spiral approach ramps and cross over to Jeffersonville where a new park and a number of new businesses have set up shop around the bridge.
The K&I Bridge connects New Albany and Louisville’s Portland neighborhood. (Courtesy Google)
Could history repeat itself downriver with another bridge conversion?
There’s an opportunity to create a shared-use path for cyclists and pedestrians along the Kentucky & Indiana (K&I) Bridge linking Louisville’s Portland neighborhood with the flourishing New Albany. A group of dedicated leaders from Kentucky and Indiana has been steadily pushing to open a former automobile lane closed in the ’70s on the bridge to create a 13-mile waterfront loop between the K&I and its Big Four counterpart.
This path would be opened to pedestrians and cyclists under long-running plan. (Courtesy Open K&I Bridge / Facebook)
“Greater Louisville Inc. [the city’s chamber of commerce] is making a new push to highlight the bridge’s role in completing an urban trail system that ‘has the potential to become truly regional,'” Green wrote. That organization has listed opening the bridge among its legislative priorities for 2016.
The K&I Bridge circa 1935. (Courtesy UL Photo Archives)
The decade-long effort has, until now, been stymied by bridge owner Norfolk Southern Corporation, which says it won’t open the extra lane due to safety concerns.
The railroad company maintains that the move could endanger people crossing the bridge or create liabilities for the company. “Norfolk Southern’s K & I Bridge exists today for a single purpose—to provide safe transport for freight trains over the Ohio River,” Norfolk Southern spokesperson Dave Pidgeon told Green in a statement. “We not only have safety concerns about public access along active right-of-way but also serious, prohibitive concerns about security and liability.” He added that trains traversing the line carry “both hazmat and non-hazmat cargo.”
Green reported that “despite the railroad’s concern, laws in Kentucky and Indiana generally protect property owners if someone is injured while using a recreational trail.” He added that Norfolk Southern and other railroad companies operate similar trails next to active rail lines in other states.
Citing a report by the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, Green reported on a remarkably similar conversion project in Memphis, Tenn., where the Harahan Bridge over the Mississippi River will open this year with a pedestrian and cyclist lane next to an active Union Pacific Railroad line.
Green went on to note that Norfolk Southern itself operates seven rail lines next to shared-use trails, including one along the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia.
In both cases, the shared-use trail is separated from the rail line by a fence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5j6kGIvSTP8
Louisville could do the same thing. And affordably. David Karem, president of the Waterfront Development Corporation, told Green that because the bridge already has approach ramps on both sides of the river, infrastructure costs would be greatly reduced.
But Karem added that efforts to date have been met with “complete resistance” despite a powerful list of supporters.
Over the years, Green wrote that top officials including current Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer, former Mayor Jerry Abramson, former U.S. Representatives Anne Northup of Kentucky and Mike Sodrel of Indiana, former Jeffersonville Mayor Rob Waiz, former New Albany Mayor James Garner, and former New Albany Councilman Steve Price have issued support for the project through letters, meetings, resolutions, and more.
The K&I Bridge with its approach ramp at the center of the shared-path plan. (Courtesy Wikimedia Commons)
Even with threats of using eminent domain to acquire an easement along the bridge, Norfolk Southern has yet to budge on its position. But Louisville is pressing on.
“In my mind, there’s no question but ultimately that bridge is going to be used for pedestrian (and) bicycle connection,” Karem told Green. “I just think it’s so utterly logical and there’s so much momentum going in that direction. There’s got to be a way.”
The Louisville Water Company's pumping station at River Road circa 1870-1880. (Courtesy Metro Louisville)
[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.]
Louisville has great drinking water. It’s no secret that our water supply regularly rates high in quality and has been recognized by several surveys as the best in the United States and even North America. Recently, a national television program selected Louisville’s water as tops in a blind taste test of drinking water samples from around the country.
(Courtesy Metro Louisville)
The Louisville Water Company (LWC) is no stranger to high standards, not only in its water supply but also in the design of the infrastructure that keeps the water flowing. For the last 155 years, the company has been creating exceptional buildings across the city.
An architectural drawing for the Zorn Avenue pumping station.
In 1860, LWC engineer Theodore Scowden designed the Greek Revival classic Water Tower at River Road and Zorn Avenue. He could have built a generic, basic structure since few residents in Louisville would ever view or visit the tower—it was located far from Downtown in that horse-and-buggy era.
An engraving of the Louisville Water Company’s pumping station on River Road in 1875. (Courtesy Metro Louisville)
But Scowden wanted to use impressive architectural imagery to persuade potential customers that “piped” water was superior to that drawn from wells or creeks.
His magnificent complex served as another marketing purpose, as well. With many people traveling south on steamboats along the Ohio River seeking a better place in which to live, the Water Tower was a beacon signaling Louisville as a progressive city and good location to call home. You might compare it to today’s St. Louis Gateway Arch.
Gatehouse at the Crescent Hill Reservoir circa 1889.A drawing of the Gatehouse.
Under the leadership of the innovative designer Charles Hermany, LWC built in 1879 the ornate Gatehouse at the reservoir in Crescent Hill, which was just beautifully restored to its original historic grandeur last year. The reservoir is also one of the city’s most popular exercise walking destinations.
In 1910, architect Theodore A. Leisen gave the company another design boost with a gleaming new headquarters on Third Street in Downtown Louisville. The buff brick structure, recently demolished for a parking garage, featured strong proportions and simple design that contrasted sharply with the LWC’s former Victorian home at the same location.
The modern home of the Louisville Water Company by Louis & Henry Architects.
To bring LWC into the modern age, a new headquarters building opened in 1998. Designed by Louis & Henry Architects, the exterior contains references to the LWC’s heritage buildings on River Road. Inside, a large lobby space creates a light-filled atrium.
1 of 9
Two cast-iron Cornish steam driven pumps. (Courtesy Metro Louisville)
Excavation of a 10 million gallon reservoir circa 1858 required 500 laborers, 50 quarrymen, 50 stone cutters, and 40 cart drivers. (Courtesy Metro Louisville)
Water Company Building along Frankfort Avenue. (Courtesy Arrasmith Judd Rapp Chovan)
Water Company Building along Frankfort Avenue. (Courtesy Arrasmith Judd Rapp Chovan)
At any point in its history, the Louisville Water Company could have easily constructed ho-hum industrial-looking facilities, but it chose the design high road. Fortunately for us today, its buildings have the same aesthetic quality as its water.
[Top image of the Louisville Water Company’s pumping station at River Road circa 1870-1880. Courtesy Metro Louisville.]
