The nighttime and weekend entertainment concentrated at Fourth Street Live! has reenergized Louisville’s downtown and helped jump-start a residential and tourism resurgence. The project turned a city-owned liability into a tax- and job-generating asset. How it came to be developed is an instructive story that involves the convergence of political will, developer savvy, and stakeholder cooperation around a civic need.

Riding the wave of urban regeneration in the late 1990s, downtown Louisville was making progress, but it was missing one critical element—an entertainment district. Downtown had scattered entertainment venues, a solid supply of hotel rooms, restaurants, a popular convention center, and even an aboutto-be waterfront park along its Ohio River frontage. And it had a not-so-old enclosed mall, the Louisville Galleria, that looked vacant—even if it was eking out a survival—and stood as a physical and psychological symbol of downtown’s hard times.

Owner/Developer
The Cordish Company
Baltimore, MD

Architects
Beyer Blinder Belle
New York, NY

Bravura Architecture
Louisville, KY

Principal Author
David Taksuye

ULI Awards for Excellence 2005 Winner