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The project is facing some delays, could it end up being the highway of the future?
We’ve reported on the trickle of money and residents out of suburbs and back into cities (1, 2, 3). It’s not a definite trend yet, and depending on what you read, suburban blight is either an imminent social shift or the side-effect of a fad.
The move away from suburbs is related to the economy. The right urban areas can be more affordable than homes, especially for cash-strapped singles or professional couples putting off having children.
If suburbs shrink, then the businesses of suburban America will likely struggle, too. The Morning News has a photo gallery of malls that–for whatever reason–have been abandoned. It’s eerie.
(link via Boing Boing)
Broken Sidewalk has partnered with SeeClickFix to provide the municipal problem mapping service on the site.
SeeClickFix is a mapping site that allows users to post the locations of potholes, broken public restrooms, insufficient bike racks, or in the case of Louisville, a misspelled street sign on Beringer.
Click over to Broken Sidewalk to check it out. If someone has already posted a problem you first noticed, you can still show support for the repair.
This week, Metro Parks and the Department of Health and Wellness will release a walkability study of West Louisville. The walkability studies are part of the Mayor’s Healthy Hometown Initiative.
The study will be unveiled at an open house Thrusday at the Shawnee Golf Course between 3 and 7 PM.
Business First reports that the open house will also an include an update on the Louisville Loop project:
About 23 miles of the 100-mile project are complete, according to the release. The finished section, known as the Ohio River Levee Trail and the Riverwalk, extends from Waterfront Park in downtown Louisville to Riverside, the Farnsley-Moremen Landing, in southwest Louisville.
Planned segments of the Louisville Loop include:
• A route from the Ohio River Levee Trail and Riverwalk to Bardstown Road, near McNeely Lake Park;
• The Floyds Fork Greenway, from Bardstown Road to Shelbyville Road, passing through new parks being developed by 21st Century Parks;
• A route from Shelbyville Road to River Road;
• A route along the Ohio River corridor, leading from the northeast suburbs to Waterfront Park;
• And paths along the Olmsted Parkways — Algonquin Parkway, Cherokee Parkway, Eastern Parkway, Northwestern Parkway, Southern Parkway and Southwestern Parkway.
The group assigned to create guidelines for where a homeless shelter can be built is complete.
This group’s decision will affect the Wayside Hotel. That is, if JCTC doesn’t get the building through eminent domain.
Louisville Mojo (among others) has the list:
* Dolores Delahanty, formerly with Metro Housing Coalition
* Deb Delor, Louisville Downtown Management District
* Ken Herndon, Louisville Downtown Management District
* Sue Ernst, Planning Commission
* Jack Francis, Neighborhoods Coalition
* Anna Wooldridge, Neighborhoods Coalition
* Marlene Gordon, Coalition for the Homeless
* Cathy Hinko, Metro Housing Coalition
* Debby Levine, citizen
* Victoria Markell, League of Women Voters
* Virginia Peck, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
* Maria Price, St. John Center for Homeless Men
* George Unseld, Metro Council
* Leah Stewart, Board of Zoning Adjustment
* Stephanie Warren, Kindred Health Care
* Regina Warren, Metro Housing & Family Services/Urban Government Center
* Lee Weyland, CITY Properties Group
* Ed Wnorowski, St. Vincent de Paul Society
* Jon Baker, Jefferson County attorney’s office
* Theresa Senninger, Jefferson County attorney’s office
* Dustin Wallen, Jefferson County Attorney’s office
* Rebecca Fleischaker, Metro Economic Development Department
* Chris Brown, Planning & Design Services
* Chris Cestaro, Planning & Design Services
* Chris French, Planning & Design Services
* Dawn Warrick, Planning & Design Services
Bill Weyland, the architect who redeveloped the Henry Clay building at 3rd and Chestnut is leading a group who just purchased the Guthrie Coke Building one block west of the Clay. Both buildings are next to the Louisville Public Media headquarters, and I talked to Weyland (though his interview didn’t make the cut) and a Henry Clay resident for a feature on suburban decay.
Weyland told the CJ it may take a year to start work on the $1.2 million purchase, but plans are in the works now:
He envisions a mixed-use project, perhaps with retailing, office or other commercial uses on the street level and 20 or more dwellings, probably apartments, on the upper three floors.
“We are going to hold it until we’ve got an opportunity to redevelop it as a full-blown, historic rehab,” Weyland said, adding that “we have some existing tenants in the building who will continue to be there, until we are ready to redevelop.”
The Weyland group is inheriting three leases. They are with the Roseland Beauty Supply store, the Essence clothing store and System Parking, which manages the 26-space lot on the property just west of the building along Chestnut.
Until fairly recently, one other ground-level retail space was occupied by the Olive’s on Fourth restaurant and catering business.
Weyland said an unidentified business has expressed interest in leasing the space vacated by Olive’s.
The Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development have teamed up to form the Federal Interagency Partnership for Sustainable Communities.
This EPA-DOT-HUD FIPSC is more than alphabet soup. It’s a program designed to enhance suburbs, making them less car-centric and easier to travel in and around.
What does this have to do with Lousiville? It’s coming here.
Two study areas were chosen for their level of development on Louisville’s suburban fringe and for their adjacency to the planned City of Parks initiative around the Floyds Fork stream corridor which is expected to draw new development. According to Metro Louisville, “Fern Creek, an unincorporated area just on the edge of the Floyds Fork area, presents a suburban context where a ‘business as usual’ pattern of growth threatens the community’s quality of life and long-term livability.”
The process of retrofitting existing suburban areas isn’t going to be easy. The area is already largely developed and is split in two by a major Interstate highway. The city won’t be able to force existing development to change, but instead seeks to make recommendations on how growth and redevelopment happens in a “new suburban paradigm.”
While the study will emphasize the Bardstown Road corridor in Fern Creek, strategies will also be created to guide the largely rural Billtown Road corridor. Combined, both areas represent about 2,000 acres and “possess the greatest potential for creating compact, mixed-use centers,” according to Metro Louisville. Strategies developed for these areas can later be adopted for other suburban areas around the city.
I’m anxious to watch this all unfold.
This graph (via Wikipedia and Sociological Images) shows commuting habits in major American cities. New Yorkers are the least likely to commute alone in cars, and Oklahoma City residents are the most likely.
Louisvillians are less car-reliant than residents of Indianapolis, Memphis and Nashville, but we use public transit less than workers in Charlotte, Los Angeles or Las Vegas. Here’s a high-res image.
Joe Ley, who owns Joe Ley Antiques on Market Street, has hired Village Solutions to develop a long-term plan for his property.
Connectivity will be emphasized. Like the concept plan at both the Creation Gardens site and at Gill Holland’s planned farmers’ market on Jefferson Street, reuse of the alleyways is strongly considered. Hill says Billy Goat Strut could provide a great pedestrian texture to the area and activate an otherwise underutilized space.
Broken Sidewalk previously declared that Nulu has landed.
More than any other individual part of Louisville, Nulu has emerged as the urban neighborhood in only a matter of years. The signs are all around from new businesses to new public and private development, to grand visions and green aspirations. The neighborhood that was born as a gallery district is organically transforming into a well-rounded urban place with emphasis not only on art but also sustainability, food, and community.
It seems like every time I go to or through Nulu, I see something new coming up. (Lots of rhymes in that last sentence.) Do you live in the area? What does it need, if anything?
Wayside Christian Mission is running a hotel. It can continue to do so as long as it gets a permit within 10 days of opening. That means they have to be approved by next weekend. Rick Redding reports on the preparations.
In fact, this afternoon Wayside personnel are meeting with members of the local Board of Health to go over the requirements to remain open.
According to state law, Harrison said, Wayside must apply for and be granted a permit from the state within 10 days of opening. The process will require inspections for safety and cleanliness. Once approved, hotels are inspected annually.
