Louisville Magazine

MAR 2013

Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.

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My Vision We���ll have to update some ordinances ��rst Sell abandoned properties (for $1) to neighborhood groups who will garden them. Build a boardwalk on the river in Shawnee and Portland, to complement the waterfront parks. Possible locales: near the old K&I; bridge (but clear of the McAlpine Locks); the area around 35th and Rudd; the old Fontaine Ferry Park land. Turn residential one-way streets into two-ways. Renovate homes, yes, but tear down houses that aren���t worth mxing up. Not everything can be saved. Or should be. Ban new liquor store licenses. Encourage artists to move in with mixed-use zoning laws. Artists can be like magnets in neighborhoods, attracting people and businesses. Oh, hey, Mr. Private Investor��� Open a movie theater. Slow ticket sales and creditor problems caused Broadway Cinemas to close in 2004 after only mve years in business. Shall we try again? ���Sell abandoned properties for $1��to neighborhood groups who will garden them.��� ��� Robert Blair, founder, West End School ���Buy 100 shotguns (homes), mx them up, paint them different colors, make them sustainable and get folks to move there to walk or bike to their downtown job. Then invest in the downtown Portland shopping district ��� it feels like a great USA main street of the 1950s already ��� to get more amenities. And then, phase three, create the warehouse district around 15th Street. Make it like Tribeca.��� ��� Gill Holland, ���mayor��� of NuLu ���We don���t teach enough people to make their passion into a business. They have to know all the ropes and tax laws. Sometimes they feel like the risk is way too high. If you build a respectable business, you���re going to have a good response. Learn to understand the market, the community. There needs to be education on how to do a business ��� a legal business.��� ��� Ben Jones, owner, Better Days Records ���We need to follow the lead of forward-thinking cities like Memphis, whose Double Green program allows shoppers to get double the value for their food stamps when they purchase their fruits and veggies at farmers��� markets.��� ��� Valerie Magnuson, the People���s Garden Can we get another slice of federal bread? ���Daylight��� historic streams. Right now many are underground drains. Bringing some of them back to life could inspire activities and economic development. Build local bridges at the end of Broadway or Garland. Extend I-265 across the Ohio River to Route 111. Build a theme park to replace Fontaine Ferry. Develop a business strip similar to Bardstown Road or East Market at any of the following: Muhammad Ali, West Market, Broadway, downtown Portland. All it takes is another Gill Holland with vision and, well, dough. Short of that, how about a bunch of stubborn visionaries just bygawd determined to make it work. Construct a public market like those in Boston and Seattle, or the French Market in New Orleans ��� part farmers��� market, part nea market, part food court �����loaded with vendors and food trucks and artists selling wares. (Come to think, how about a Flea Off Market one Saturday in west Louisville?) Make energy and power thousands of homes with solar panels in former industrial sites, empty spaces and rooftops. The areas of Park Hill, Portland Rail and Shippingport Island have more than 700 acres of space that could power more than 25,000 homes. Extend River Road to Northwestern Parkway, connecting east and west. Construct a new interchange from Broadway directly onto I-264, thus nowing trafmc in and out of west Louisville. Reconstruct the Ninth Street interchange to lessen the physical barrier ��� aka, ���the wall��� ��� between west Louisville and the rest of the city. Bring back a streetcar to run along Muhammad Ali Boulevard the way one did years back when Ali was known as Walnut Street. Call it the Ali Trolley. Provide tax incentives to lure a Zappos or an Amazon. The West End is loaded with underused industrial sites. That���s rad, man Build an 80,000-seat football stadium on the old National Tobacco property near 30th and Market streets. Hey, if Jacksonville, Fla., can attract an NFL franchise.... And did you know the population of Green Bay, Wis., home of the Packers, is about 106,000? (There were once 147,000 people in the West End alone.) NBA arena, anyone? Oh, if only Louisville had its own Jay-Z. Construct a canal from one point on the river bend to the other, creating a shopping/ entertainment district similar to San Antonio���s River Walk. Create a mixed-use, commercial-residential corridor along Muhammad Ali from Ninth to 13th streets instead of having that entrance to west Louisville nanked by housing projects. Open a casino ��� pending proper legislation, voter approval and constitutional amendment of course ��� either at 15th Street or at the old water company property on Third Street to bring jobs to the area. 3.13 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 6 1

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