Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.
Issue link: https://loumag.epubxp.com/i/669874
50 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 5.16 on the lofts — Te Post on Goss, Lydia House in the former Flabby's at Hickory and Lydia streets, and Monnik, where a bar called Zeppelin Cafe was previously — and more are on the way, including a Craft House, which will serve beer from local breweries; a dive-bar-style place from Silver Dollar owner Larry Rice and his team; a cocktail lounge in the former Groucho's karaoke bar; and Finn's Southern Kitchen at the former daycare on the Germantown Mill Lofts lot. Paristown, a major entryway to downtown, is getting a boost with $28 million in public and private investment that includes a renovation of 200-year- old Louisville Stoneware, a Goodwood Brewing Co. brewhouse with a rooftop bar and a Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts mixed-use venue. Te Art Sanctuary, at the corner of Shelby and Lydia streets, rents studio space to more than 30 artists and hosts visual-, literary- and performing-arts events. Mark Foxforth, an architect who lives and works on Lydia Street, has designed a set of 640-square- foot, cube-like homes made out of shipping containers to be constructed at the corner of Ash and Shelby streets, right in the backyard of the Germantown Mill Lofts. Some investors plan to plop down six of the so-called tiny homes on the lot, unless zoning restrictions limit them to three. Community-led projects have energized the area, too. A couple years ago, Jennifer Chappell led a beautifcation project at Tree Points, where Schnitzelburg, Germantown and Shelby Park meet, with a mural and landscaping. Te Schnitzelburg Area Community Council and the German-Paristown Neighborhood Association have been working to get public funding for things like new street signs, landscaped medians and updated trashcans to help restore the area's charm — on Goss avenue especially. Downtown and U of L have been growing on either side of Germantown and those who might have looked to buy a house in the Highlands have been priced out. A boom was inevitable. "Even four years ago, a lot of my investors were like, 'No, I don't want to mess with Germantown,'" says Julie Broghamer, a realtor and investment specialist with Keller Williams Realty. She has been fxing houses in the Germantown area and other older Louisville neighborhoods for 15 years, and she has built a team of investors under her called Property Pros Louisville. "I wanted them to hold and rent," she says. "I'm like, 'I'm telling you: couple of years.'" I meet with Broghamer one early-spring afternoon at a house on Mulberry Street in the center of Schnitzelburg that she listed for $278,000. With two stories and 2,400 square feet, the house is much bigger than most homes in the neighborhood. Te original unpainted wood-and-tile mantels remain and the shutters are intact. Te team Broghamer worked with on the house, BVC Design, put in a claw-foot soaking tub and what Broghamer calls a "blinged-out" shower — spacious, two heads, sleek tile — to raise the value even more. Her crew works on the old shotguns from the inside out, adding insulation and replacing old electricity, plumbing, roofs and HVAC systems. Tey'll move walls around for a more desirable layout. "Large square footage can live very small and small square footage can live very large if it's well-laid-out," she says. Te Mulberry house was in the same family for almost 100 years. At the open house, which drew about 75 people, Broghamer talked to a 90-year- old woman who remembered getting piano lessons in the place when nine or 10 kids lived there. A little over a year ago, a widow sold it to DSO Holdings LLC for $78,000. Now it's one of the most — if not the most — expensive houses in the neighborhood. "As soon as I put this one pending, a bunch of houses went up over $200,000," Broghamer says. On April 11, after several ofers, the house sold for $265,000. "You can see people, younger people, moving (into the neighborhood)," Broghamer says. "Tey're excited about it. Tis is like the Highlands used to be, but more afordable" — although the high demand has people in bidding wars and each house lists higher than the last. "I don't think it will make it unafordable because there's always going to be someone who can aford that," Broghamer says, "but to the buyers that we had last year in this area, yes. I took so many phone calls on this house. Tey see the size, they see it's renovated and they want to know how much. I ask, 'What's the price range you're shopping in?' 'About $150,000' — which I get, because nobody would expect last year to pay $200,000 right here. You've now got two-bedroom, one- to two- bath houses selling for $179,000 to $200,000 and they're selling right away. We're probably gonna scare away some of the buyers that would have looked here, but you know what's gonna happen is they're gonna start moving into another neighborhood and they're gonna start increasing the value in that neighborhood and improving those properties." Tere's already increased interest in the Smoketown/Shelby Park neighborhood. Some of it, according to several people that I talk to, has to do with churches and volunteer groups encouraging investment in the neighborhood. In 2010, Travis Provencher bought a house on South Jackson Street from the bank for $6,000. It needed, well, everything, but the rare shotgun had a historic front, brick exterior and original millwork. He moved in and has since put $150,000 into it, not including the value of his time and labor. He added a two- story addition to the back, bringing the square footage to 2,570. "It's the quality of what you fnd in Norton Commons," says Provencher, a Nashville native who says he was a green builder before it was fashionable. He looked at comparable real estate and is putting it on the market it for $257,000. It seems high for the area, but at $100 per square foot, it's considerably less than where Germantown is right now, which is approaching $200 a square "This is like the Highlands used to be, but more afordable," says realtor Julie Broghamer — although the high demand has people in bidding wars and each house lists higher than the last. Opposite page: Ann Lorimer in her living room at the Germantown Mill Lofts.