It’s hard to miss the ghoulish screaming face jutting from the facade of 807 East Market Street in Nulu. It’s the site of what will eventually become a bar and lounge called The Taj. And it’s been a long time coming.
Dating to the late 1840s, the three-story brick and stone structure once housed a grocery store with a residence above. That business closed in the Great Depression and the upper two floors were converted to three apartments in the late 19th century. More recently, the storefront housed Old Louisville Antiques in the 1970s through the ’90s before sitting vacant for a number of years.
807 East Market Street. (Branden Klayko / Broken Sidewalk)
In a slow and tedious process, Maloney deconstructed the bowing brick facade and rebuilt it, adding back dormers that are believed to have once been on the building. In a similarly exhaustive process, Havens says Maloney’s friend Ken Blackthorn is behind The Taj, which has been under construction in some form or another for since 2014.
Photos teased on social media show a bar that’s part speakeasy, part steampunk dive, and part rustic hideaway. Reclaimed wood and shutters cover the ceiling, pivoting bar stools that Havens says are reclaimed from an elevator, Edison bulbs, plenty of local art, and who can miss the intricate steel awning and the screaming ghoul presiding over the entry.
Insider Louisville’s Caitlin Bowling previously reported on the project in July 2014 before the new facade details were installed. Bowling then said Todd Moore, owner of Construction Consultant Services, was behind The Taj. Moore said then that he hoped to have sidewalk tables, small cold plates (as there will be no kitchen), and that the venue will be more affordable than surrounding bars and restaurants, with drinks topping out at $9.
Checkin in again in August 2015, Bowling noted that Moore had taken on “a couple of unnamed private investors” to help get the apparently stalled project up and running. By then, the new facade had been installed, and Bowling noted that the “consensus at the recent NuLu Business Association meeting was less than glowing.”
It’s welcome news that The Taj is moving forward and has an opening in sight. Another bar can only help Nulu’s nightlife, which is approaching a critical number of bars that can sustain walking and hopping from one place to another. What do you think?
Branden Klayko’s recent article about the Fincastle Building reminded me of many warm feelings, even though I don’t think I have set foot in the building in at least twenty years.
When I was a child, our family’s internist, Dr. George N. Schuhmann, had offices on the fifth floor of the Fincastle Building. I can remember looking out the windows of his waiting room when I was six or seven and clearly being impressed with the two matching Weissinger-Gaulbert Apartment buildings across the street. One of them was torn down not too long afterward.
Weissinger-Gaulbert Apartment buildings and the Heyburn building across Broadway from the Fincastle Building in 1930. (Courtesy UL Archives – Reference)
In those days, the late 1950s, Broadway was at its post–World War II peak, boasting tall buildings, a grand hotel, and one of the city’s top movie palaces where the road-show hits like Around the World in 80 Days, South Pacific, and Ben Hur ran for months at a time.
Stairwell in the Fincastle Building when it opened in 1928. (Hesse Photographer)
On the ground floor, the Fincastle had a kind of luncheonette with a counter, sandwiches, Cokes, etc. Besides a polished brass bannister (which may still be there) going down the stairs, what I remember about it was the old-fashioned telephone with a receiver that you held to your ear and the horn you spoke into. If the visit to the doctor went well, we usually got a snack—Hostess cupcakes or something like that.
There was an arcade on the first floor, just like so many other major downtown buildings—the Heyburn, the Starks, and the Commonwealth. These arcades were elegant walks lined with shops, restaurants, druggists, etc. and were standard features.
A postcard view of the Sign of the Pine Tree in the Fincastle Building. (Credit Unknown)
The Fincastle’s prime commercial tenant must have been The Sign of the Pine Tree, a very elegant interior decorator’s showroom. It had showcase windows facing both Broadway and Third Street. What I loved best about looking into the those windows was the large brass sculpture of a boxer dog, maybe a lab, that, over the years, had turned a rather brownish green.
Broadway retail in the Fincastle Building circa 1947. (Courtesy UL Archives – Reference)
I don’t think my mother ever took my brother and me into the store. She surely was afraid we would knock something over. But I remember years later, when I got married, we got some lovely gifts from the Sign of the Pine Tree, which had moved to St. Matthews on Chenoweth Lane and was being run by my wife’s cousin, Dace Brown Farrer and her husband, Bruce.
The Medical Arts Building on Eastern Parkway. (Courtesy Google)
Dr. Schuhmann moved out to the brand-new Medical Arts Building on Eastern Parkway in 1959—the year it opened—which is still a showplace and ought to be on the National Register.
This is an interesting sociological factoid: Many of the doctors in the Medical Arts were Catholic. They practiced at the old St. Joseph Infirmary at Preston Street and Eastern Parkway. In those days, there still was a stratification of medical practice and hospital by religion. Jewish doctors and patients went to Jewish Hospital. Protestant (especially Episcopalian and Presbyterian) doctors were Downtown—often in the Fincastle Building—and practiced at Norton Hospital and later also at Methodist.
In 1979, I switched to Dr. William Blodgett, after Dr. Schuhmann retired. Dr. Blodgett was in the Fincastle, head of the prestigious Fincastle Medical Group, and he was also chief of staff at Norton’s. His firm moved out in the mid-’90s, and I’ve had no occasion, sadly, to return to the building, but it’s great to know it is going to know a new life as apartments.
[Top image of Third Street looking north between the two Weissinger-Gaulbert Apartment buildings circa 1956. Courtesy UL Archives – Reference.]
Sharrows are the dregs of bike infrastructure—the scraps cities hand out when they can’t muster the will to implement exclusive space for bicycling. They may help with wayfinding, but do sharrows improve the safety of cycling at all? New research presented at the Transportation Review Board Annual Meeting suggests they don’t.
A study by University of Colorado Denver researchers Nick Ferenchak and Wesley Marshall examined safety outcomes for areas in Chicago that received bike lanes, sharrows, and no bicycling street treatments at all. (The study was conducted before Chicago had much in the way of protected bike lanes, so it did not distinguish between types of bike lanes.) The results suggest that bike lanes encourage more people to bike and make biking safer, while sharrows don’t do much of either.
Ferenchak and Marshall’s study divided Chicago into three geographic categories using Census block groups: areas where bike lanes were added between 2008 and 2010, areas where sharrows were added, and areas where no bike treatments were added. They then looked at how bike commuting and cyclist injuries changed in these areas over time.
They found that bike commute rates more than doubled in areas with new bike lanes, compared to a 27 percent increase in areas with new sharrows and a 43 percent increase in areas where nothing changed.
Meanwhile, the rate of cyclist injuries per bike commuter improved the most where bike lanes were striped, decreasing 42 percent. Areas that got sharrows saw the same metric fall about 20 percent—worse than areas where streets didn’t change (36 percent), although the difference was not great enough to be statistically significant.
One caveat with the study is that measuring bike commuters who live in a given area is not the same as measuring the number of people who actually bike on those streets. Still, the results strongly suggest that sharrows are ineffective as a safety strategy.
Ferenchak told Streetsblog sharrows seemed to have a small effect on encouraging people to bike but provide no additional protection. This is in line with what Dutch bike planner Dick Van Veen told Streetsblog about sharrows in the Netherlands: They should be used in tandem with significant traffic-calming measures—on a street with fast traffic, to put down sharrows alone would be considered “unethical.”
“I think our main takeaway is that we need appropriate infrastructure,” Ferenchak said. “Sharrows don’t dedicate any space to bicyclists.”
[Editor’s Note: This article has been cross-posted from Streetsblog USA. Broken Sidewalk is part of the Streetsblog Network and a founding member of Streetsblog Southeast. Top image of a sharrow on Louisville’s Second Street / Clark Memorial Bridge courtesy Louisville Metro / Flickr.]
When I was a kid, no, well into adulthood, I’ve loved climbing trees. Always fascinated with architecture, trees are a sort of natural skyscrapers and a forest is nature’s downtown. A campaign launched by TreesLouisville seeks to bring that joy of playing in and around trees to students at Maupin Elementary School’s Early Childhood Development Center in the Parkland neighborhood by relocating a 35-year-old climbing tree to the school grounds.
The Contorted European Beech tree. (Courtesy TreesLouisville)
The Contorted European Beech tree might not tower as high as the Oaks on Eastern Parkway at only 15 feet tall, but it does feature a 25-foot-wide canopy and plenty of twisting limbs to help youngsters develop spatial reasoning, mapping, and planning skills. The tree has reached its top height, but TreesLouisville says it will continue to expand outward over time.
A crowdfunding campaign has been launched for the project on IOBY, a Brooklyn-based platform that stands for In Our Back Yard.
Kids playing in a tree. (Courtesy TreesLouisville)
“We hope to raise the full cost for the project with enough time left to move and re-plant the tree during the spring 2016 planting season, before school is out for the summer,” the group states on its IOBY page.
The group continues:
You are likely aware of the physical benefits of a climbing tree—grasping, pulling, pushing and reaching—assisting large and small muscle development. However, there is also a lot going on cognitively when kids are climbing trees—mapping, planning, divergent thinking and spatial reasoning. Added to these benefits are some emotional capacities that are strengthened as kids take risks, push limits and build resiliency. While climbing, children achieve self-satisfaction and a feeling of success. Kids are literally ‘climbing to new heights’ and often facing fears. Success is a key emotional experience we want kids to have, as it drives motivation and willingness to take on challenges. Social skills development through cooperation and collaboration are also benefits.
The tree would be located within a fenced in playground at the school on Catalpa Street.
Maupin Elementary from Catalpa Street. (Courtesy Google)
The idea for crowdfunding the play tree came from Mayor Greg Fischer, TreesLouisville said on its Facebook page. The campaign has a March 31 deadline to raise the $25,621 needed for the project. As of this publishing, $6,340 has been contributed.
To learn more about the project and to contribute funds, head on over to this IOBY page. TreesLouisville is “an initiative formed to help reduce our city’s heat island by increasing the tree canopy in targeted areas of greatest need,” according to its website.
With the Water Company Block now just a footnote in history, the massive $300 million Omni Hotel & Residences, half publicly funded, is ready to move forward. And we’ll wager that the Texas-based company and top city and state officials will spare no expense with an upcoming groundbreaking ceremony scheduled for Friday, January 29 at 10:00a.m.
The Omni site a decade ago. (Branden Klayko / Broken Sidewalk)
The hotel, parking garage, convention center ballrooms, residences, and a handful of retail outlets are to be built on the northern two-thirds of the block bound by Liberty Street, Second Street, Muhammad Ali Boulevard, and Death Valley. Sorry, Third Street.
The leveled Omni site at the end of 2015. (Courtesy Tipster)
The official ceremony will take place at the corner of Second and Liberty streets with a VIP reception following at Christ Church Cathedral across Second Street. That’s an odd location for the celebration of a controversial development that divided the Louisville community throughout the past year.
Given Broken Sidewalk’s critical stance on the design and public approval processes throughout 2015, it’s not much of a surprise that we didn’t get an invitation to the groundbreaking, nor the VIP reception. Sheldon Shafer at the Courier-Journal did, noting that it asks attendees “to reflect upon the future” at the event, because, well, you know.
The 30-story slab tower and its podium base are expected to be complete by 2018. And we’ll be there, of course, to bring you updates along the way.
[Top image showing the planned view of the Omni from Second and Liberty, by HKS Architects.]
Construction is well underway on Bardstown Road’s newest bar and pub, HopCat. We last checked in at the site in October when crews were really starting to dig in, but now, the second-story addition is clearly visible on the streetscape.
Last week, HopCat released a new rendering and a few more details about the project. The structure at 1064 Bardstown Road will house one enormous bar with a capacity of 600 people, according to a company press release.
HopCat Louisville under construction in late December. (Branden Klayko / Broken Sidewalk)
Pfeffer-Torode Architecture of Nashville is overseeing the ground-up, $4 million conversion of a former Studebaker showroom into the bar and restaurant. The property last housed Spindletop Draperies, which relocated to the border of Phoenix Hill and Nulu on Jefferson Street. Nashville developer Priam Ventures is spearheading the project.
The new rendering differs slightly from the previous iteration, showing a main entrance off Bardstown with a mural on the south side of the structure.
New rendering of HopCat Louisville. (Courtesy HopCat)
The Louisville location “will feature the state’s largest selection of craft beers on tap, a full menu of ‘food your mom would make if she loved craft beer,’ two private event spaces with private bars, [and] a deck and outdoor seating,” the company said in a press release.
HopCat Louisville is expected to house the largest selection of craft beer in Kentucky, with at least 30 beers made in state and another 100 from around the world. The bar will also be stocked with 100 varieties of whiskey, but no Miller, Bud, or Coors products will be available.
HopCat Louisville under construction in late December. (Branden Klayko / Broken Sidewalk)
HopCat said it’s committed to reducing waste at its Louisville location, with a goal of composting or recycling at least 90 percent of its waste.
Hiring for about 150 jobs at the Louisville HopCat location is currently underway and the project is expected to open at the beginning of September. HopCat Lexington opened last October.
I’m rarely on Poplar Level Road, and must admit I’d not really noticed this building before.
It’s part of the Holy Family campus in Louisville’s Camp Taylor neighborhood, whose modern sanctuary is readily recognizable by its copper-topped tower.
From left to right: The Holy Family Convent, school, and sanctuary. (Bryan Grumley / Broken Sidewalk)
Just south of this newer landmark is the recently-shuttered circa 1952 Holy Family School, built onto the front of a much older school building. Beyond that is the former Holy Family Convent, built in 1950 and most recently enlisted as the Holy Family Child Development Center.
The convent and a view from its elevated terrace in 1957. (Courtesy UL Photo Archives – Reference)
That convent, 3940 Poplar Level, cost $82,000 when it was built in 1950, replacing a wood frame structure that may have been part of the original World War I barracks at Camp Taylor. The structure was designed by Louisville’s Thomas J. Nolan & Sons Architects to house 20 Sisters of Charity of Nazareth. The brick and stone-trim structure was officially blessed by Reverend D.A. Driscoll, rector of the Cathedral of the Assumption, on January 7, 1951.
The current headquarters of the Archdiocese on College Street. (Courtesy Google)
These latter two buildings are now owned by the Catholic Archdiocese of Louisville, and are soon to become this entity’s new central headquarters, once relocated from their present offices at 212 East College Street in Smoketown.
Demolition is imminent at the Holy Family Convent. (Bryan Grumley / Broken Sidewalk)
The Holy Family School, beloved by former students and their families, and familiar to all who live within or pass through Camp Taylor, will be renovated and reused. But the fate of the convent, called locally the Nuns’ Home, is not so rosy, as made rather obvious by the yellow excavator currently parked out front.
A fair number of us Louisvillians have grown weary of the sight of demolition machines, as have so many others, over decades of demolition around the city. But as those years have marched by, redevelopment practices that once might have been considered misguided could now be considered irresponsible.
The back of the building. (Bryan Grumley / Broken Sidewalk)
Because here’s the deal. We know better now.
This example out on Poplar Level is but one of a multitude of demolitions that will occur this year across the city. And while the Archdiocese certainly is not alone in swinging the wrecking ball, it’s been only months since the last church-owned property was unceremoniously taken down.
Phoenix Hill shotgun house demolition, before and after. (Courtesy Google; Branden Klayko / Broken Sidewalk)
In July 2015, a nice brick shotgun house on Gray Street in Phoenix Hill was demolished around the corner from St. Martin of Tours Church on Shelby Street.
But to be fair, we must recognize that the Catholic Church in Louisville does maintain numerous historic structures, many of which are treasured landmarks. For that, credit is most certainly due. And even on Poplar Level, one of the two structures—the Holy Family School—has been granted a new lease on life.
The Holy Family site. (Courtesy Google)
According to the Archdiocese’s spokesperson, Cecelia Price, the initial goal in the project at Holy Family was to renovate and incorporate both the School and the Nuns’ Home into a connected headquarters building. But the latter building’s structure and configuration was deemed unsuitable, and the decision was made to demolish and replace with a modern, energy-efficient building. There’s even mention of a green roof. (No renderings were available as of press time.)
From that document, when the Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) of a structure—i.e. its total environmental and human health impact, all things considered—is tallied, several simple conclusions can be made from the data:
“Building reuse almost always yields fewer environmental impacts than new construction.” And the savings here can be huge—up to 46 percent—when comparing a reused vs. newly-built structure with the same intended use (as is the case in the example of the Holy Family site).
“Reuse-based impact reductions may seem small when considering a single building. However, the absolute carbon-related impact reductions can be substantial when these results are scaled across the building stock of a city.” In the case of Portland, Ore., reuse instead of demolition could account for 15 percent of the total carbon reduction goal over a period of ten years. That’s significant.
“Reuse of buildings with an average level of energy performance [i.e. the Nuns’ Home] consistently offers immediate climate-change impact reductions compared to more energy-efficient new construction.” We know that demolition wastes the non-recoverable embodied energy of an existing building. But the data also suggest that a period of 10 to 80 years is required to recoup the losses, too, of constructing a new, 30 percent more energy efficient building.
Chenoweth Lane, running from Brownsboro Road into the heart of St. Matthews, is an idyllic little lane. Lined by mature trees and quaint, well-kept cottages, it’s a reasonably calm, but busy, two-lane street. And, despite a fragmented set of sidewalks, it’s a walkable neighborhood, as evidenced by a healthy amount of pedestrian activity on any given day. There’s even a marked crosswalk near the northern terminus, for goodness’ sake!
On Wednesday, January 13, concerned neighbors held a public meeting at the St. Matthews Community Center to discuss those proposed changes to the corridor, and representatives from KYTC didn’t show up, despite an invitation.
(Courtesy Google)KYTC’s data shows declining traffic through the corridor. (Courtesy KYTC)
Yet, while mode choice along the corridor is indeed limited, KYTC’s own collision data, traffic counts, and projections do not support a need for increased vehicle capacity or other car-centric modifications.
Appropriately, then, KYTC does present a “no build” option. And yet, the option of adding a third (center-turn) lane remains a prominent aspect of the study, accompanied by a variety of a la carte configurations of bike lanes, shared-use paths, and additional sidewalks.
(Courtesy Google)Crash data from the KYTC. (Courtesy KYTC)
But each of these configurations, either with or without the third lane, has a major drawback that many fear is apt to hinder as much as help pedestrian and cyclist safety and multi-modal transport. And is certain to diminish the charm of the corridor itself. Indeed, any improvement also provides an opportunity for KYTC to remove what it considers hazards (and others might consider traffic calmers): streetside fences, stonework, utilities, and mature trees.
The result is a far wider “clear zone,” creating a visually and physically widened corridor, which, in turn, promotes increased traffic speeds and decreased safety and livability for all other users and residents.
These implications are not lost on over 600 petition signatories and the grassroots effort called STOP the Widening of Chenoweth Lane, a group that has launched a strikingly effective defense on this particular front in the larger battle to preserve and/or reclaim a more people-centric version of Louisville’s streets.
(Courtesy KYTC)
During an evening meeting held at St. Matthews Community Center on January 13, approximately 50 citizens—with just a single “pro-progress” dissenter in the ranks—listened to a well-researched and well-reasoned presentation.
KYTC’s data showing decreasing traffic count projections, relatively few fender-benders, and an acceptable level of service (even at peak hours!) were employed to make a compelling case for scrapping a three-lane proposal.
The issue of peripheral improvements—completed sidewalks, bike lanes, shared-use paths, drainage upgrades, ADA-compliance, and other pedestrian amenities—also were addressed. Despite favoring several of these features, STOP has taken the position that any intervention by KYTC is unwelcome. Bike lanes are specifically opposed for Chenoweth, which did promote some discussion and disagreement.
(Courtesy KYTC)
Included in the discussions were State Representative Tom Riner (D-41), State Senator and Transportation Committee Co-Chair Ernie Harris (R-26), who fielded questions, and Councilman Bill Hollander (D-9), who made remarks following the initial presentation. In addition, mayors and representatives of several of the surrounding small cities, including Rolling Fields, Druid Hills, and others, were in attendance.
Interestingly, officials from larger surrounding cities—most notably, St. Matthews, but also Indian Hills—were neither present at the meeting, nor have taken a position. It’s been suggested that opposition from the latter may have contributed to the abrupt cancellation of the Brownsboro Road diet extension, based upon car commuters’ throughput concerns. As the Chenoweth Lane proposal addresses the same issue, one might be reasonably curious about their stance on the proposal.
The most notable absence at the January 13 meeting was the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. Their office reportedly declined an invitation to attend. However, a follow-up call to Judi Hickerson, of KYTC District 5 which covers the Louisville area, confirmed that another KYTC-sponsored Public Input Meeting will be scheduled for late February 2016.
(Courtesy KYTC)
Subsequent to completion of the current Planning Study, a Final Study will be released in late summer 2016. Were an option other than “no build” chosen, the project would then enter Phase I design.
More information regarding the project, including contact information for governmental officials, may be found at STOP the Widening of Chenoweth Lane’s Facebook page, and at KYTC’s document from its November 2015 informational meeting, here and here. You can also read up on previous Broken Sidewalk coverage of the project here and here.
[Top image of Old Staebler Avenue at Chenoweth Lane facing west, showing Colonial Village, circa 1942, courtesy St. Matthews Historical Society / KYTC.
Correction: A previous version of this article states incorrectly that representatives from Rolling Fields were not in attendance. The article has been updated.]
When local developer Frank G. Breslin first eyed the corner of Third Street and West Broadway in the early 20th century, he had visions of skyscrapers in his mind. What ended up on the corner is one of Downtown Louisville’s grandest buildings by today’s standards, but surely Breslin and his contemporaries wanted much more than the six-story structure today known as the Fincastle Building.
The northwest corner of Third Street and Broadway in 1926. (Courtesy UL Photo Archives – Reference)
Back in Breslin’s day, the corner of Third and Broadway was one of the last remaining vestiges of a much older Louisville when Downtown’s streets were lined with elegant mansions and proud townhouses punctuated by larger corner commercial buildings. A 1926 photo, pictured, shows that the corner was occupied by a pair of townhouses facing Broadway with a three-story mixed-use building on the corner. All of these structures were built in Louisville’s now-rare vernacular architecture—the design of the city from the mid-19th century often when no architect was involved—and by the ’20s were showing their age in a rapidly modernizing era. An electric traffic signal suspended over the intersection was not yet active and a police officer can be seen directing traffic.
West Broadway circa 1931. (Courtesy UL Photo Archives – Reference)
To Breslin, the corner would have looked downtrodden and shabby. Broadway was quickly becoming Louisville’s most modern street, with the completion of the YMCA Building (now St. Francis School) in 1913, the Weissinger-Gaulbert Apartments in 1912, the Brown Hotel in 1923, its adjacent Brown Theater in 1925, and the Heyburn Building in 1928. It’s pretty easy to see why the intersection of Fourth and Broadway was known locally as the Magic Corner. Louisville was booming.
The Breslin Building in 1928 with a very different Louisville skyline in the background. (Courtesy UL Photo Archives – Reference)
Breslin, himself a general contractor, built his eponymous office building with help from Joseph & Joseph Architects in 1927 during Broadway’s heyday. The six-story structure was no slouch next to its taller neighbors in terms of design. The structure is clad with tan brick and terracotta with Renaissance-style bas reliefs, a specialty of Joseph & Joseph, according to the building’s National Register listing prepared by Marty Hedgepeth. (The listing was written in 1983, but the structure was not placed on the National Register until 2013 due to an objection by owners at the time.)
The Breslin Building (today the Fincastle Building) circa 1928. (Courtesy UL Photo Archives – Reference)
According to the National Register listing:
The lower floor is sheathed in terracotta with entrance in the western-most bay. The entrance consists of an arch with incised, classical motifs, the large keystone is adorned with an acanthus leaf. The arch is flanked by two columns with twisted rope-like shafts and stylized acanthus leaf capitals.
Details on the Breslin / Fincastle Building. (Courtesy Wikimedia Commons)
The second and third stories are also sheathed in terra cotta. The bays are articulated by fluted pilasters with stylized Ionic columns. The two end bays are more elaborate in treatment with rope-like columns. The wall surface is adorned with bas-relief motifs of shields and griffins. The end bays have three coupled windows on each floor and the central bay has paired windows. This pattern of fenestration continues on the fourth and fifth floors. The wall area of these floors is sheathed in buff brick. Terra cotta panels adorned with shields, ribbons, and torches articulate the windows of the two floors. Above the fifth floor windows are terra cotta panels with cartouche, ribbon, and cornucopia motifs. The sixth floor fenestration pattern repeats that of the lower floor and is sheathed in terra cotta. Between the bays are large terra cotta panels are Hermae-like figures (female form rather than that of Hermes). On the parapet is a central panel with a fleur-de-lis and rinceau decoration and two panels with wreaths and sways.
A modern view of the Fincastle Building. (Courtesy Loopnet)
Two years later, though, and Breslin wanted more. In March 1929, he announced plans to top the structure with nine more stories, bringing the building to a total of 15 floors. The $675,000 addition, according to a Courier-Journal article at the time, would “be used by doctors and dentists and [the building] renamed the Medical Arts Building.” The structure’s original foundation was designed to handle the expansion years before (similar in fashion to how the now-demolished Commonwealth Building added a skyscraper to Fourth and Broadway.) Those plans were quickly dashed by the economic collapse and ensuing Great Depression of the 1930s, and today, we see only the original 1927 design.
A montage of an enlarged Breslin Building and a rough rendering from the ’20s. (Wikimedia Commons; Broken Sidewalk; Forgotten Louisville)
A mystery remains about the design of the enlarged Breslin Building. According to a rendering published in Gary Falk’s 2009 book, Louisville Remembered, the taller tower would have reconfigured the block, which doesn’t appear to be the case based on news accounts in the ’20s. The rendering shows the building’s base as similar to how it appears today, but with three-story Ionic columns and a reconfigured number of bays and window arrangements.
Perhaps this rendering predates the original building or was simply a marketing tool—or perhaps it’s flat out a different building. But nonetheless, we decided to see what the structure might look like had it simply been stretched up or reconfigured as the rendering shows. Take a look at the results.
The structure in 1983. (Courtesy National Register)
The Fincastle Building’s owner, Taurus Capital Management, and investor Amar Khadey plan to lease the first apartments in the building by the end of the year, according to Shafer. Khadey owns the Weissinger-Gaulbert building across Broadway. The project was brokered by Gant Hill. Taurus purchased the structure in 2006 for $4.3 million, Shafer noted, and has not asked for any public subsidy for the project.
Still, developers aren’t revealing many details until more work is complete. The one- and two-bedroom units don’t have a rental price yet, but Hill told Shafer the units will be market rate and geared toward students and young professionals. The ground floor will continue as retail use. No architect has yet been named for the project.
