Businesses in downtown Louisville say they're struggling to get people in the door. There's less foot traffic due to the pandemic many storefronts have been boarded up for months.
"I think that's one of the misperceptions, that downtown is closed and it's not. If you go downtown, businesses, restaurants, shops and museums are all open," said Doug Owen who is the Senior Vice President for JLL Commercial Real Estate in Louisville.
In the last five years, our downtown area has been completely transformed. Owen says the pandemic as well as the boarded-up businesses isn't going to affect our progress. "In PNC tower a large law firm, multi-floor law firm just re-upped and made a long term investment into the building," said Owen.
Baird has also confirmed that they're investing more than 20 million dollars into a Downtown project. They're taking the top 5 floors of the 500 West Jefferson Building. "And you simply would not see these businesses making this type of investment if leadership did not have confidence that downtown was a safe and great place to be," said Owen.
One company that is moving from Downtown is the Accounting firm Dean Dorton, they're going to the Shelbyhurst campus at the end of the year. They're CEO and President, David Bundy, said it was an opportunity they've been looking at for a while. "We by no means want to abandon downtown. We do think it's easier for us from a strategic standpoint to be all together and we have all the confidence in the world that Downtown will come back," said Bundy.
That confidence shared with many. "People are going to go right back and I think memories are short and I think downtown will be even better than it was before," said Owen.