I moved back to Louisville nearly three years ago from New York City to find a slower pace and a better quality of life. In this boomerang town — a lot of Louisvillians go away for a time, only to return — my journey is not uncommon. In the past few years, however, with broad-based community discussion of a "brain drain" and the need to remain competitive with peer cities, the appeal of the city to knowledge workers and young professionals has become something of a local obsession. I write about architecture, design and urban planning for local and national publications and I’m still in my 20s, so I guess I qualify as one of those sought-after knowledge workers.
Graduate studies will take me away again in the fall, and though I love Louisville and hope to return in a couple of years, the viability of that option is directly linked to how the city shapes itself in the future. As an architecture writer, I have a personal and professional stake in the physical landscape of the community, so I’ve been watching various development plans with great attention over the past few years.
I returned to the city where I grew up because I sensed that, after a long slumber, Louisville was starting to think big and address some of the problems that have been holding it back. Former Mayor David Armstrong (1999-2002) supported downtown housing, the continued development of Waterfront Park and the creation of the Extreme Park — and all were having an impact when I came back. Fourth Street Live was under construction, as was the Muhammad Ali Center. Ground would soon be broken on the 21C Museum Hotel. Change was coming to downtown, bringing with it a sense of optimism.
As I settled back into Louisville, Mayor Jerry Abramson had ascended to his bigger throne as the head of the newly merged county government, and the stakes seemed to grow to match our new identity as the self-proclaimed "16th-largest city" in the country (the Census Bureau now has us at number 26). With grander plans come greater consequences, and a number of projects — such as the proposed arena, Museum Plaza, the bridges and the expansion of Spaghetti Junction, and the City of Parks initiative — will change the course of the city for decades to come.
How these projects complement or detract from one another has been rarely discussed in the media. Each project seems to exist in ad hoc isolation, in spite of the fact that most of them are located within a few square miles of each other in and around downtown. It became clear to me that some of them are in conflict and that, viewed in combination, their impact may not be coordinated. So here I will attempt to look at how these projects work together or at cross-purposes.
Circle of Green
Many civic leaders credit the merger of city and county government for propelling the community beyond the provincial thinking of city versus county, South End versus East End, small city versus large, etc. "We have a post-merger vision," says Mary Lou Northern, county government’s cabinet secretary for neighborhoods, parks and cultural affairs. Northern points to the City of Parks initiative as an example of bold, comprehensive thinking. She’s right.
At more than 1,000 acres, the City of Parks plan is the largest park-building program since the establishment of the Olmsted parks in the 1890s. A narrow linear park will follow the perimeter of Floyds Fork outside the Gene Synder Expressway. Land will also continue to be added to Jefferson Memorial Forest, which, at 6,000 acres, is already the largest municipally owned forest in the country. In addition to adding new parks in developing suburban areas, the city has invested more than $5 million to upgrade existing parks and is continuing to expand Waterfront Park and the new Riverview Park in southwest Louisville. A 100-mile bicycle loop will circle the county. "We have paid attention to all parts of the city, based in long-range, strategic planning," says Northern. Right again. City of Parks is one of the most exciting civic projects to come along in decades, and it recognizes that, with rapid development happening on the fringes of Jefferson County and beyond, the time to aggressively acquire open space is now, while it lasts.
The initiative came together through the work of Daniel Jones and his father, David Jones, a co-founder of Humana Inc.; former Lt. Gov. Steve Henry, founder of the Future Fund; the mayor; and numerous donors. In addition to preserving open space, it will guide future development in positive ways. "Just as areas developed around Cherokee that open onto the park, new development will benefit from being near parkland at Floyds Fork. It will build value over time for the entire community," says Northern.
Building on the Olmsted legacy, City of Parks will make Louisville attractive to newcomers and distinctive from our peer cities. "We will be a destination for recreation, for biking and hiking, nationwide," she says. "People see the tradition of parks in Louisville and they want to preserve and continue that tradition. They get it right away."
The City of Parks initiative follows the recommendations of a 2002 report commissioned from the Brookings Institution, "Beyond Merger: A Competitive Vision for the Regional City of Louisville." In its widely circulated findings, Brookings urged the acquisition and upgrading of parkland: "Louisville needs to ensure that [parks] and other community assets are preserved and constantly enhanced, and that new resources are appropriately targeted to develop greens spaces, community facilities, and other amenities that make the city a fun and attractive place to live and work," the report stated.
Paved Pasta
If only the transportation picture were as progressive as the city’s commitment to open-space preservation. By jettisoning plans for a light-rail system while opting to build two new Ohio River bridges — one downtown and the other in eastern Jefferson County — and dramatically expand Spaghetti Junction, Louisville’s transportation planning has become dangerously unbalanced.
Both the Brookings Institution study and a supplementary report by the Harvard Graduate School of Design, "Metro Louisville Moving Forward," found fault with the current thinking. Brookings noted that, though population growth has been relatively modest, road building has been rapid and widespread, far outpacing road construction in our peer cities. This tr/files/storyimages/is encouraging consumption of open space and population dispersal: "The region’s aggressive road-building strategy may not necessarily improve mobility. . . . But rising congestion and increasing vehicle miles traveled combined with deteriorating road conditions are clearly making it harder for Louisvillians to get around. Meanwhile [mass] transit remains a limited option for most residents, thanks to the region’s intense focus on freeways and arterials. Taken together, these trends pose a serious threat to the region’s quality of life."
The Harvard study had a more specific criticism of our transportation priorities: "The team questioned the priority of allocating $1.9 billion for highway improvements [the Kentucky and Indiana bridges project] while leaving the funding of a light-rail system to be addressed at a future time."
Louisville officials def/files/storyimages/the city’s road-building emphasis. For Barry Alberts, executive director of the Downtown Development Corp., the bridges and the expansion of Spaghetti Junction are necessary fixes to keep access, by car, to downtown speedy and efficient. "The decision to fund both bridges was a good one, and it is necessary to keep the overall transportation system working," he says.
This incorrectly assumes that access by car is the only viable or desirable mode of transportation into the central city. While Alberts says he would welcome light rail in downtown, he doesn’t feel the community is ready to take that step. "For a variety of reasons, light rail has not been high on the community’s agenda," he says. "Cities that develop strong transit networks have higher densities or demonstrate a desire to change the way people think about transit and transportation. The public has not demonstrated this desire." Alberts acknowledges, however, that transportation enhancements also require political leadership, and public officials have been willing to push the bridges, estimated to cost $1.9 to 2.5 billion, while they have been less willing to support light rail. "The enormity of funding the bridges project has made it easy to say that we can’t afford both," he says.
Alberts dismisses the widely publicized "8664" plan — a rollback of freeway development downtown being promoted by local businessmen Tyler Allen and J.C. Stites — as "unworkable," though he declines to site any specific study that demonstrates this point. But he is quick to note that bridges project engineers are working to limit impacts on Waterfront Park, the Extreme Park, east downtown and Butchertown. "Is it too big, too many lanes, too ugly? We’ll deal with those questions as best we can," he says.
Simply put, it is too big, too many lanes, and too ugly. Currently plans call for Spaghetti Junction to be expanded — there’ll be a total of 23 lanes — and moved closer to Butchertown alongside the floodwall. An additional downtown bridge will require that existing buildings be demolished and will create a larger barrier between downtown and the developing East Main/East Market residential and commercial district. Flyover ramps will be enlarged over the Extreme Park and the Slugger Field parking lot adjacent to the stadium. The "roof" of Interstate 64 that crosses over the Great Lawn will also be widened. This massive expansion of transportation infrastructure is incompatible with the goal of creating a vibrant downtown at the street level, and may undo much of the progress that has already been made.
The Brookings study urged caution on this front: "Weigh very carefully the likely impacts of any Ohio River bridge plan on the region’s metropolitan form and development patterns. . . . [G]reat caution should be exercised in advancing this major infrastructure initiative to ensure that the project does not lead to an excessive decentralization."
Underscoring the limitations of Louisville’s long-term transportation thinking, a recent study by SustainLane, a sustainable-living website, placed Louisville at the bottom of a list of 50 U.S. cities for preparedness in the case of an oil crisis. Louisville ranked 49th, behind peer cities like Nashville (42) and Charlotte (23). Only Oklahoma City ranked below Louisville, though most of the cities in this region fared poorly. Cities at the top of the list have extensive transit networks. With gas prices settled at nearly three dollars a gallon, committing to an automobile-only transportation network is shortsighted. How much will gasoline cost 20 years or more from now when the bridges project is complete?
Residential Status
The continued growth of housing downtown is reason for optimism. Housing construction is proceeding at a steady rate, and officials have recently raised their near-future target goal of 2,500 new downtown residents to 5,000. "More is still good," says Alberts. "We’re not at a point where projects are in competition." Housing options range in price from affordable to upper /files/storyimages/in both new construction and adaptive reuse.
Prior to the recent influx of new residents, the Brookings report found that downtown was becoming increasingly racially segregated — and predominantly African-American. Alberts says that divide is being reduced. "We have a strong and diverse downtown," he says. "People are attracted to that diversity."
The East Main and East Market areas are being filled in with a fine-grain mix of housing, businesses and office space near Slugger Field and Waterfront Park. A variety of developers are working at various scales, creating an eclectic, organic neighborhood. The Clarksdale Housing Project was leveled and the property redeveloped as a mixed-income neighborhood called Liberty Green, which will reduce the concentration of poverty in the area and make it more attractive to new residents. Additional housing is being built elsewhere downtown, including in the Old Henry Clay Hotel, also known as the old YWCA building, as well as on the West side of downtown in the planned Museum Plaza. This development also follows almost exactly the recommendations of the Brookings report, which said: "The Regional City should support the provision near downtown of desirable housing and quality amenities for middle- and upper-income households — while bolstering struggling neighborhoods in the area."
Late last year when the public began to learn about plans for Museum Plaza, a massive proposed mixed-use development between West Main Street and the Ohio River, the project seemed to have come from another planet, or at least another continent. The vision of Laura Lee Brown, Steve Wilson, Steve Poe and Craig Greenberg calls for a major injection of 24-hour activity in a part of downtown that many see as marginal. Though its form looks unconventional, in truth it is a pragmatically programmed building that reflects the potential of the local market and the goals of the developers. "We were prepared for much more skepticism than we received," says Wilson. "We researched the public’s reaction to the Humana building, which was much more negative initially. I think people in this community are more will to take a chance than they used to be."
With the opening of 21C, also developed by Wilson and Brown, Louisvillians may be getting a small taste of what’s to come. The boutique hotel, contemporary art gallery and restaurant have injected a new level of urbanity and energy into the graceful blocks of West Main. Designed by the noted New York architect Deborah Berke, the project weaves together five 19th-century warehouse buildings, juxtaposing historic and contemporary elements. While the project exudes sophistication, it seeks to surprise and evolve over time rather than feel staid or elitist. From the changing exhibitions and unconventional installations (such as video art in the bathroom mirrors) to the presence of cotton candy on the restaurant’s menu, 21C is anything but stuffy.
Plans for Museum Plaza put this amiable urbanity on a larger scale, with a mid-size hotel, office tower, luxury and mid-price condos, a museum, and retail and restaurant uses. The modular design allows for any piece to grow, or be eliminated, in response to changes in the market. The building’s core is a "sky lobby" 22 stories in the air that contains the museum and shared public spaces such as conference rooms, gym facilities, a bar, etc. An angled escalator will take visitors from West Main to the sky lobby. Though questions remain about street-level conditions and how the building will function in the streetscape — and whether a project this costly can get built at all — I remain sanguine because it would be such an asset for downtown. Let’s hope the street-level area functions well, because Museum Plaza would dramatically alter the city’s skyline and, therefore, the city’s notion of itself.
Picture Perfect?
The debate about a location for the planned arena points out a common thread among many of these projects: the value of seductive images in rallying civic support. Proponents of the now-favored "L G & E site" along the riverfront at Main and Second Streets have praised the location’s "wow factor" and dismissed the "Water Company site" — bounded by Second and Third streets and Muhammad Ali Boulevard and Jefferson Street — as a visual no-man’s-land behind the Marriott Downtown hotel. Proponents of the Water Company site, however, and I would count myself among them, have argued that, in addition to smaller infrastructure costs, this location is embedded in the city, surrounded on four sides by various hubs of activity including the Marriott and nearby Fourth Street Live.
Unfortunately, advocates of the wow factor appear to have won. A riverfront stadium, though it would make for a pretty picture, is best viewed from Indiana or from speeding down the interstates rather than from on the ground, where real urban and economic activities happen. The wow factor, in this case, is driving the debate, rather than a real discussion of how the arena will function downtown. Similarly, the public debate over choosing bridge designs obscures their impact on existing neighborhoods, such as the East Main and East Market areas, which are frequently sited as part of downtown’s renaissance. Splashy renderings of bridge designs are used in large public meetings and regularly appear in the Courier-Journal, as if building bridges were a game show where the public votes on their favorite contestants.
At some level the bridges project, Museum Plaza and the arena all rely on the wow factor. Smaller scale developments like 21C, East Market and East Main — and landscape projects like City of Parks — are less reliant on seductive renderings. They work because they respond to existing conditions rather that remaking the city. Alberts sees the wow factor as a necessary ingredient to bring new development and activity downtown. "A lot of buzz is on the wow factor," he says. "I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, as long as the result is good for the street. We maximize the impact on the street."
For Museum Plaza, the wow factor is driven by the project’s unconventional design and challenging plan for a currently unoccupied site. With the "winning" site for the arena, however, the wow factor is being used to justify increased public expenditures due to infrastructure relocation and the demolition of an existing office building. Meanwhile, to my mind, the less expensive, unoccupied and better-located (though less photo-ready) site has been discarded.
Choices and Consequences
In the end, I know we can’t have it all. Just as the arena- and bridge-builders might like to stamp Louisville with several more "wow" projects in their quest for commerce and attention, those like me who focus on street-level synergies and small-scale growth will wish for more quiet victories.
When I look ahead two years to the /files/storyimages/of my graduate program and a possible return to my hometown, I’ll be noting if my greatest fears for a livable Louisville — centered right now on the massive disruptions of the planned Main Street arena and the downtown interstate projects — will be dominating developments. My hope is that more organic improvements such as increased downtown housing, better mass transit and further parks planning will, at the very least, share the stage.
While my decision is not significant in the larger life of the city, my beliefs reflect those of a lot of the young professionals and knowledge workers this city claims to want to attract and retain. In the meantime, I hope a deeper conversation takes place about how these major projects will support or undermine the future of Louisville.
Alan G. Brake, a frequent Louisville Magazine contributor, has written for Architectural Record, Landscape Architecture, Metropolis, the New York Times and other publications. A graduate of Atherton High School and Vassar College, he begins work this fall on a master’s degree in environmental design at the Yale University School of Architecture.
