LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A team aimed at reviving downtown Louisville as the state lifts COVID-19 restrictions has released their action plan.
The Downtown Revitalization Team presented their plan to Mayor Greg Fischer on Tuesday.
Team members said their plan focuses on clean and green efforts, safety, improving the Louisville River Walk and Bike Trail from 3rd to 7th Street, planning downtown events and replacing streetlights.
"I'm happy to see it," Marquesha Gordon said. "I've seen that they’ve been trying to change the community and stuff and I said okay they’re trying to get it together."
The city has already made strides in revitalizing downtown by cleaning up graffiti and collecting 5,000 pounds of litter and debris>
“The action plan presented today will keep Louisville on its path to build back better together following 15 months of the COVID-19 pandemic and continued calls for racial justice,” Fischer said. “The Downtown Revitalization Team’s work isn’t about bringing downtown back to what it was; it’s about making it better by ensuring that our downtown is vibrant, clean, safe, equitable, and inclusive, so that everyone feels like an essential part of, and is welcome in, downtown.”
The 2022 fiscal year budget includes $14.5 million worth of projects for downtown, including $8 million for phase four of Waterfront Park.
"I don’t think you can bring downtown back without people," Todd Underhill, Managing Partner at Starks Building, said.
The Starks Building is one of three old buildings in the downtown area that will be repurposed outside of the Downtown Revitalization Plan.
"We’ve had a love for Louisville and for historic preservation in this town for many years," Underhill said. "I think the Starks building is probably the most outstanding example of a building that is of a historic character that needs to be renovated and needs an adaptive. Ill call it an adaptive reuse of the property"
The building will be repurposed into apartments, artists spaces and will have an upscale restaurant, Eddie Merlots.
Its set to open in Spring 2023.
Click here for Full Downtown Revitalization Plan.
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