Episode Transcript
Well, happy holiday season two. A lot of people are
bolting now to head to wherever they're going, and they're
kind of looking back at their year and thinking, you
know what, it turned out. Okay, it's all right. So yeah,
I feel that way about our city. Things are going
well in Louisville. The Queen of Downtown is back, Rebecca.
It's nice to see you.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
So good to see you, Terry, Rebecca fly Checker.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
I call her the Queen of Downtown, but it's Louisville
Downtown Partnership and really nothing happens unless she green lights it.
So that's what I say.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Thanks for that. I'm not sure that that's entire but.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
You don't need to throw that correction in there. Just
say things.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
A lot of people that make this work.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Thanks for the props, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Miks Terry, good.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
To see you. We visit throughout the course of the
year and we talk about things that are coming up,
and that's always exciting, and then there's a lot of
things that have been achieved.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Yes, it's years.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
She'll tell me something about twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Like you said, this is like when we start wrapping
everything up and looking back and saying what did I accomplish,
and we Downtown is in great shape. I think it's
better than it's been for I'm going to say since
twenty eighteen, nineteen even we are looking at two and
a half billion dollars of investment that is currently underway
or announced.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
So good. Doesn't that feel good? To say billion billion.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
With a B which is basically twice as much as
it was two years ago. That's crazy. We're waiting for
the interest rate to drop. I think a lot of
things will happen.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
When that happened, I could incur.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
But in twenty twenty five, we had eighteen development projects
be completed, which is three hundred and thirty three million
dollars of investment, and just in our downtown.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
I think that's significant.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
We had eight new offices located to downtown. We had
eight new offices relocate within downtown. So there are people
who are willing to recommit. They had to leave where
they were, new lease, different space, whatever, and they stayed
they wanted to stay in downtown. So that's sixteen companies
that are putting money in and deciding that downtown is
(01:57):
where they want to put their stamp, their flag, which
I think is really, really important. We've got almost a
thousand residential units being developed, which is super important. You
will hear me talking about that for the next decade.
That is where we really need to stress our development.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Yeah, we've got to have more people living downtown and
obviously have the amenities they need to thrive exactly.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
And that's part of what we That's part of the
whole story about what you want in your downtown.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
So that's the long game.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
We're working on tools and working on incentives to help
developers be able to make that justification for neutralizing basically
the cost of developing in downtown, so you're not going
out to a green field and using up just you know,
a flat piece of land.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
We've got the infrastructure here.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
It makes all the sense in the world to take
advantage of existing sew or existing sidewalk, existing electric, et cetera.
But we need the people to want to move here.
And what makes you make a decision like that is
that you've got things around you that make you feel
good and that you're in a neighborhood, and downtown is
a neighborhood. We just don't have all the amenities would
have having a suburban neighborhood. Which will never have obviously
(03:02):
it's an urban space, but i'd like more green space.
I would like more art, more color, more things that
dare I say it? A market, not a grocery store.
We'll probably have a couple of markets within a couple
of years.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Is that the word I'm supposed to be?
Speaker 2 (03:15):
What you should be saying?
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Market?
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Oh, grocery store from your downtown.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Not bodega, but a market.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Bodega is a great word. That's even smaller than a market.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
It is it's a corner.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Yeah, so I'm thinking, like.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
I don't know, fifteen to twenty thousand square feet at
the most. A bodegg is like two thousands.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Right, and everything's packed in there and you can barely
see the person working.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
There, and you don't get two choices of anything. You
get here's catchup.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Here's what I got.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Yeah, that's exactly it.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Anyway, it's been a great year. We expanded our Business
Improvement District. That's where you see our Ambassador's walking by
three blocks and that is just extra special level of
care that we give to downtown. We were participated in
financing a housing loan fund and commercial fund, so we
helped open up two different commercial developments such as Five Iron.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Have you been there yet? On Forest Street? It's so cool.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
It's it's their second location there. They're one of the
new Los, a little bit bigger. But you can just
walk right down for Street Terry and like.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Pick up some golf clubs.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
I passed the one in New lou headed into a
restaurant a couple of weeks ago, but I didn't have
time to stop and investigate.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Well, I have decided that even I will go over
there and try to hit some balls.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
And we were working on a couple of projects ourselves
where we're finishing up some landscaping on for Street. You're
going to see some new string lighting on Forest Street
in March when the when the weather breaks, it will
be the first time you see it on an open
public street where you've got cars can still drive on
it and there will be string lighting across it like
other big cities we see.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
And we were going to be playing with the big dogs.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
When can we get a big flashing face of Steve
Bass somewhere in this city here. He's done so much.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
That your gas has been amazing.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
He's been so great with the Louisville Metro Police Foundation.
I was just talking to him not too long ago.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Regnificant presence on the foundation, and kudos to his work
because I think he's made the foundation a bigger deal.
I made it more publicly, more publicly aware of what
is happening there.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
When you see old photos though of people crossing the
bridge from Indiana and I said, gateway to the South Louisville, Kentucky,
I think a big flashing Steve bass face would be
more welcoming than worse.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
I love that, and I love it when you bring
up someone's name who you know we got to work
together to fix a problem. It was pretty easy, but
someone just had to make some calls, and you know,
things happen fantastic.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
I know, you get things done. There are those kiosks
that are very helpful.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
By the way, I've noticed there's more of those. Did
I imagine that?
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Are there mores there?
Speaker 1 (05:45):
There's one right down the end of the street here.
Oh that was not new.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
None of them are new Terry. They have been there
for tool well.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
I know the one down and fourth when we were
on Chestnut Street. I saw that. That was one of
the first ones I ever heard.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
You're right, they got retooled, they got new faces and
they they look better, very sharp. Therefore wayfinding and advertising
and it's a way for if you like there for
PSA's we put stuff on there about our events all
the time.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Yeah yeah, and it does also add color to the street. Yeah,
I might.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
I was the host of the Christmas Parade a few
weeks ago and we had a great turnout. Light Up
Louisville was fantastic, another big success.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Were you dressed up? Did you have an ugly sweater on?
Speaker 1 (06:25):
I'm really a low key announcer. I don't believe that
I stand behind the Christmas tree. I don't even want
people to know where the voice is coming from. I
just shout a little bit as each of the groups
comes by. That's that's great fun.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
You shout at them so well.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
No, I'm just shouting my yeah. Yes, I'm amplifying the
Christmas spirit. That's all. That's all good.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Before you kick me out of here, I also want
to tell your listeners that we are hosting the third
annual Downtown Hometown Tourist Week, which is the week of
January twenty three through February first, where Kentucky and Indiana
residence can get half off admission participating venues, and we
want people to take advantage of it. If you live
(07:06):
in Louisville, you should know what's in your downtown. So
come and take advantage of these savings.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
I love the sound of that. Okay, all right, Queen
of Downtown. We'll have a great holiday season, and then
we'll see again in the next year and there's going
to be even bigger and bolder plans for downtown.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, we're working on a lot of
stuff already.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
So Rebecca fly Shaker, Queen of Downtown Louisville, we're back
in a few you're on news radio. Wait forty whas
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