Access Louisville
The latest news on Louisville, Kentucky from the staff of Louisville Business First. We look at trending issues in the Derby City from a business perspective. Join us each week!
Access Louisville
Downtown building sells for cheap
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Our next live podcast: Residential real estate trends are redefining Louisville's growth and neighborhoods. Join us for a live Access Louisville recording as we dive into the latest market insights. The event includes networking, breakfast and a spirited discussion of the latest news in our area. Our panel includes: Stacy Durbin, Semonin Realtors; Jakeeva Lee, Greater Louisville Association of Realtors; and Jon Mand, Lenihan Sotheby's. Tickets and registration are available here.
The Starks Building project, which aims to add residential housing at the corner of 4th Street and Muhammad Ali, could be huge for Downtown Louisville. We go over the latest with the long-delayed effort on this week's Access Louisville podcast.
Senior Reporter Joel Stinnett is on the podcast this week to tell us about the recent sale of 315 W. Muhammad Ali Blvd., which is next door to the Starks, and how it could fit into the project. A group of investors including developer Jeff Underhill (who's behind the Starks project) just bought the building for $300,000. Amazingly, that purchase price is down from $2.5 million just a year or so ago.
Stinnett notes that the developers have yet to secure financing for the Starks redo. But Underhill said the purchase of 315 W. Muhammad Ali adds several advantages to the project, if and when it gets off the ground. For one, the inclusion of 315 W. Muhammad Ali in the project creates the potential for a rooftop bar or recreation area on the fifth floor roof, something Underhill said would be unfeasible on the taller Starks Building.
More detail on that story here.
Also on the show we also talk about a new entrepreneurial space in NuLu, the latest with the Highlands "moist" vote and a new burrito joint heading to St. Matthews.
Access Louisville, sponsored by Baird, is a weekly podcast from Louisville Business First. You can also follow it on popular podcast services including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
We're going to talk about the latest with what I think is a very important project. That's the Starks Building. That's up next on Access Louisville. Thanks for joining us. My name is David Mann, and joining me today are Zach Owens.
SPEAKER_01How's it going out there?
SPEAKER_02And Joel Stennett.
SPEAKER_03Hello, everyone.
SPEAKER_02Access Louisville is a weekly podcast from Louisville Business First. Each week we bring you the latest news and plenty of sharp opinions about what's going on here in Louisville, Kentucky. A few things before we get into it. First, this podcast is sponsored by Baird. Discover the Baird difference at rwbaird.com slash Louisville. We'll hear more from Baird later in the show. Also, our next live podcast is coming up soon on July 30th. We're calling this one How Louisville Lives. We're going to talk about the ins and outs of residential real estate with a panel of local experts who will be on the show. Of course, the housing market is a constant conversation around town. So I hope you can join us and we'll talk about what's next in the market and where it's going. I'll leave a link in the notes of this show where you can buy tickets to that event. But let's talk about a commercial real estate project today, and that's the Starks Building. Uh Joel, you just wrote a story recently about a building that is next to the Starks Building that just got sold, and that deal could have implications for the uh for the long-running Starks building. So I guess just give us a little background on that.
SPEAKER_03It's 315 West Mohammed Ali Boulevard. Uh some people might know that as the former home of the Jefferson County Child Support Division, or hopefully maybe you don't know.
SPEAKER_02The fewer people who know that, the better.
SPEAKER_03But that's the building that the uh Underhills recently purchased. It uh backs up to the Starks building, which has uh was announced, I mean it's been about five years ago now, that the Underhills have been trying to develop for a while into uh a first is gonna be artist lofts, affordable housing for artists. And now they've kind of abandoned that plan, it appears, and it's gonna be more market rate housing or apartments that they're trying to get financing for. But the way this building uh fits into that is it's a five-store building right behind the Starks building. That would enable uh the Underhills to put a rooftop bar on that building instead of on the 14th floor, which um is uh apparently um impossible um the way it is right now. It also would give them an extra loading dock. Uh I spoke to Jeff Underhill and uh almost exclusively. Yeah, and he said that uh by four uh what was the restaurant that was in there? I can't think of the name of the uh Jeff Ruby's no no no.
SPEAKER_02Eddie Merlows.
SPEAKER_03Eddie Merlow's Eddie Merlow's Eddie Merlows had to bring um you know all their supplies and everything through the actual lobby of the Starks building when it was open, but no one cared because it was pretty much empty otherwise.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, except for business first was upstairs. Yes.
SPEAKER_03So this this building would give the Starks an extra loading dock so that you could bring in uh supplies uh from that area and also would allow um them to move some of the cooling uh apparatus and systems down to that fifth story roof so you could uh cool and heat uh the bottom seven floors from that uh fifth floor roof and the top seven floors of the Starks from the top of the Starks. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So the price of buying this building, that's what got me. Uh it was about $300,000, but that was way down from what it had sold for before, and even before that.
SPEAKER_01That's insane. The office should have gone in on this.
SPEAKER_02Uh no, that's what you were saying. It's like, man, we could have bought that one.
SPEAKER_03But uh yeah, how much was it before? Yeah, sold for $300,000. Uh back in 2025, it sold for two and a half million dollars. That's crazy. And in 2016, it sold for $6.14 million. Yeah. So yeah, it uh it basically cratered. Uh Jeff said that, you know, when the especially when they bought it for $6.4 million, you know, there was uh a nice rent rent uh income coming in there, which just doesn't exist anymore, which was also the main reason why he purchased the building. He said if it cost two point million, two point five million, or even probably two or one million dollars, he would have he never would have bought it. But for 300 grand, he felt like it was a good investment uh if they ended up doing the Starks project.
SPEAKER_01Did you get any sense of uh the condition inside?
SPEAKER_03Uh not the uh not the the child support building. No, I didn't uh not sure about that one. I mean the Starks, we talked a lot about the condition of that, which is still, you know, he talks about the lobby or the the atrium, how beautiful that is. Um but not we didn't really talk about the condition of the the the child support building.
SPEAKER_02The Starks isn't in terrible condition. Like we had been in there recently to get some photos, and the atrium is still beautiful. It's like I think that's why that project's important to me, is just because our our office used to be there in on the second floor of the Starks building, and uh it was a really pretty place. They had um, like we were saying, Eddie Merlot's was down downstairs. Uh there was a few other offices and stuff in there, but not that many. Um and uh, you know, it's just right at the corner, you know, fourth Muhammad Ali, right in 4th Street Lab. It it seems like and it's got historical value too, so it just seems like a very you know significant place in Louisville's history. I don't I can't remember how old the building is, but it's definitely uh definitely been there for a long time.
SPEAKER_03It seems like momentum is is going in Starks' favor. The the the Brown and Williamson building being sold and being renovated into a JW Marriott, yeah, Mininger Tower right across the street from Starks, having been sold to the same company to Kenmarr. Yeah. Um so it's in Kenmar's uh long-term financial interest to do something with Mininger and make that a viable produ uh property. So I I think uh Starks will get the funding and backing this time to be able to do something with it.
SPEAKER_02I hope so. Um he also mentioned uh Jeff Underhill also mentioned uh Opportunity Zone 2.0, uh, which is a uh it's a tax break basically for uh people who invest in um I guess troubled areas. Now I guess it just depends on whether this is defined as a troubled area or not, which that's still up in the air whether that that is. Um but uh it should be interesting. I think the other interesting uh and significant thing about this project is downtown, as say, if it lacks the one thing it lacks is just market rate housing. Um, a lot of the you know, waterfront park place tower, beautiful place. I don't know who can afford to live there, but but uh um you know there's not a ton of just really accessible housing. Now, this isn't gonna be cheap like it at one point they were saying this was gonna be a cheap place to live. They're not saying that anymore. But I think even market rate is better than an empty building, you know.
SPEAKER_03So absolutely.
SPEAKER_02Um, all right. Well, uh, you know, it kind of begs the question this used to be an office, it's empty. We talk about the price, the price gone down because no one rents office anymore. Do you think office space will ever come back?
SPEAKER_03I think it if you're talking about specifically about downtown office space, I think it will. I think it's gonna take some time. Um, I when I talk to brokers a lot, they talk about amenities, right? And what downtown has is say like an office park out in the East 10 doesn't have is that you can walk, or ideally, is that you can walk to a restaurant or you can walk to a coffee shop or when you go off work, there's a bar you can just walk to and get happy hour. Right now, Louisville's downtown Louisville's lacking that a little bit. Don't have quite the dining options that may say New Lu does, which you know you've seen actually new office construction going on in Nulu for that reason, because you have a lot of restaurants and coffee shops and bars that you can go to. Downtown's lacking that a little bit, but I think with if these hotels especially get done, a lot of that stuff's gonna come as a result of that. A lot of the restaurants. So tourism, ironically, might actually bring back the office market a little bit downtown.
SPEAKER_02That's interesting. And residential too.
SPEAKER_03I mean, if there's more residential, then there's more of those coffee shops and stuff you mentioned. I think it'll come and it might be not as quickly as we want.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. How about you, Zach? You think office is coming back?
SPEAKER_01I hope it does because I love working downtown. I was just thinking this the other day, uh out for a lunch break walking out Fifth Street. I walked into you know three old colleagues, had great conversations, walked down, got lunch, ate in that awesome plaza outside of P and C Tower. It just felt I don't know, it felt so surprisingly vibrant. Hmm. More so than uh it it has in the past. So uh I don't know. I feel like the energy is down here. I really hope the market recovers.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, I had a similar experience a few weeks ago. Was working, went and met my wife for dinner, and it was a convention in town, and it just felt very lively. There was a lot going on. Of course, that wasn't, you know, people working down here, it was conventiers, but uh still was nice to have that kind of like lively downtown feeling, which you get in the summer because there's a lot of travelers here, but you don't get so much in the the winter months. You know, it's usually pretty the streets are pretty bare then. But speaking of office, you just mentioned Nulu, and uh there's this new development, Nulu Marketplace, that opened, and uh you just wrote about a deal they have with Amplify. So what's going on there?
SPEAKER_03This is uh Mo Delju's new development, uh Nulu Marketplace North, right across the uh Billy Gut Strut alley um from the original Nulu Marketplace. And what uh uh Mo's firm, Noveen Development, has done is they're they're partnering with Amplify, which already has an office in that complex, and to kind of create a place for startups and tech companies to be able to interact and um share ideas and uh kind of create an ecosystem where people with new ideas and startups can come and get uh funding, get some advice and and build companies. Yeah. Um it reminds me a lot of in Nashville, they had uh the National Entrepreneur Center. Um I don't think it's gonna be quite that yet where you can just walk in with any idea and they'll just help you build it. But um this is just a place where you know Louisville startups where ideally you're gonna want to be where there's an exchange of ideas where there's a lot of attracting some you know young talent to either stay in Louisville or come to Louisville and work for these companies.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah, there definitely seems to be an appetite for that kind of collaboration in the startup space to you know have a place to go to talk to other people. I don't know. If I had a startup and I had some brilliant idea, I wouldn't be sharing it with other people. I'd be like keeping it close to the best, but there probably is some opportunity to collaborate, you know, if you just want to talk about, you know, just if you need to get expertise from someone who's you know in a different in a different market.
SPEAKER_03So this isn't like a co-working space is all per se, but it does like sh one of the things that can attract some of these startups or tech companies is you have like a shared conference room to where you don't have to have your own, you know, yeah, pay for that square footage or like there's a media room, there's uh uh for press conferences and things like that, and just different amenities there. There's a podcast room. Yeah, podcast room. Yeah. Uh different amenities that that way you don't have to, you know, especially if you're a startup, spend that cash on uh, you know, extra square footage that uh you would love to have, but can't afford.
SPEAKER_02Um all right, cool. Well, let's switch gears here. Let's talk about uh Zach, the ongoing saga of uh the Highlands. I think we've we've managed to address this the last four or five shows. Hopefully this is the last time around. I think this is the hopefully this is it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I think it's kind of uh come to a conclusion.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it seems like it's come to at least uh this this chapter seems to have closed, but uh I guess a deal has been reached. Uh there was the threat of this moist vote, which would have uh restricted alcohol sales only to restaurants or establishments that's that derive most of their revenue from food. Um that was a threat. That threat is now looks like it's off the table uh because of a deal that was reached. So what was the deal?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I I think momentum in that whole situation started to shift after Jack Fry's, which is kind of like an institution. An institution and the elder statesman of Fine Dining in the Highlands put out a strongly worded post on Facebook opposing the deal. Basically, they laid out the fact that this would hurt way more than bars. Basically, if you are uh a restaurant entity in that precinct, you would have been done.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Uh so I I think that really changed a lot of opinions in the neighborhood.
unknownUh-huh.
SPEAKER_01Uh but was it last week or earlier this week when this happened?
SPEAKER_02Uh I believe it was this week. I think it was Monday.
SPEAKER_01Well, Ben Reno Weber, the councilman for the district, announced in a news release that uh the pet petitioners had agreed to drop their petition uh in exchange for a few things. So uh part of the agreement is that the city summer task force patrols will continue beyond the summer. So whatever L and P D is doing right now uh in the neighborhood to put an end to these team takeovers will be in place. I'm not exactly sure what that looks like. I have an idea though. Uh you know the old Highland Coffee strip where urban outfitters used to be.
SPEAKER_02They should set up shop and put an LMPD substation. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01There's nothing in there right now. Yeah, they've got some good use.
SPEAKER_02Um That is an idea.
SPEAKER_01That's just one idea. Um there will be a District 8 fund for Bar Center safety improvements along with the continued enforcement against establishments that are causing recurring problems. Uh and ABC uh apparently has agreed to consider neighborhood concerns when reviewing 4 a.m. alcohol licenses.
SPEAKER_02So I think that's quietly the big one because I think they're not going to be renewing those 4 a.m. Like I think under the table they're just gonna be like, let's make this a two a.m. Yeah. I don't know if they'll do that, but I don't know what the rules are. Uh but anyway, yeah, that that's uh it's good. I guess they made a deal. I think the moist vote from almost everybody I talked to um in my circle anyway was saying that's too far. Like you should try the 2 a.m. licenses instead of uh instead of this moist vote, because I think it was just a lot of businesses that would have gotten hurt and um maybe necessarily weren't necessarily the problem. I thought of Outlook In. Like, how long has Outlook In just quietly been there on Marchdown Road, like not causing any trouble? And it's not a restaurant, it's a bar, but it's you know, um, but it's just one of those places that's been around for God only knows how long that place has been there. So um, but uh let's see here. I guess we'll move on, we'll talk about some restaurant news, even though Michael's not here. I promise I'll get Michael on the show next week. He had a very busy day. Uh he's had a lot of restaurant news. But Zach, you just had a cool story about a new burrito joint coming in called Hot Head Burritos, which this is the first ever heard of Hothead Burritos. So where is it going?
SPEAKER_01Uh it's going in uh on Shelbyville Road, not far from uh Mall St. Matthew's. Uh if you know where that little strip of businesses is, there's a Starbucks and uh a yoga studio right next to Thornton's right there. Yeah. That's where it's going. Uh I've not heard of Hothead Burritos either, but apparently uh it is one of the fastest growing companies in uh Dayton, according to our Sisor publication. All right. The Dayton Business Journal. Uh they have uh 88 locations across eight states. And apparently this will be at sixth Kentucky location. Uh it sounds a lot uh like it shares a lot of DNA with Qdoba and Chipotle, customizable burritos, bowls, tacos, and nachos, what have you. But uh the restaurant's expected to create about 12 to 15 jobs.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, nice. And uh yeah, it seems like a lot of people, a lot of consumers really appreciate that customizable and online ordering type with joint. So that's a big that's a big winner for me. I don't want to wait in line. I don't want to order something, I just want to like run in, grab it, and leave.
SPEAKER_01It's such a great innovation.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, it's definitely the definitely uh definitely has changed the restaurant uh industry. Um, all right. Well, uh anyone got a uh tip on the best burrito spot in town?
SPEAKER_03I mean, for me it's always it's La Bamba. Yeah. Burrito's as big as your head. Represent, yeah. That's the old school one. Yeah, I mean uh you know, I don't know if I've ever eaten those sober to know if they're good.
SPEAKER_01Just regularly but Shavan Hoy would agree with that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, he would uh he would suggest this.
SPEAKER_01The breakfast burrito con huevos is pretty insane. There you go. Yeah, that's a good place.
SPEAKER_02I'll I'll I'll throw a shout-out for uh Bandito.
SPEAKER_01It's actually a tackeria rather than a burrito joint, but uh they're one of the few that does like a legit California-style burrito with the fries and everything. Oh, nice.
SPEAKER_02Um, all right. Well, with that, we'll get a word from our sponsors, and we'll be back after that to give you something to think about.
SPEAKER_00I'm Jim Allen, vice chair of Baird. For over a century, Louisville families have relied on Baird to provide customized financial solutions. In addition to wealth planning and trust services, Baird also offers extensive investment banking capabilities to clients ranging from large corporations to family-owned businesses. Finally, our public finance team provides valuable advice to municipalities, school districts, and academic institutions in need of capital. Yes, Louisville, Baird has you covered.
SPEAKER_02All right. Well, uh I guess uh this final portion of the show we like to just throw out just a grab bag item, something to pay attention to. Um Zach, why don't you start us off? Give us something to think about.
SPEAKER_01So if you're listening to this podcast, I'm assuming you're a pretty savvy media consumer. One thing I think is interesting, a certain media outlet in town has been labeling their stories left and right as exclusive. Now as someone who's been in this business for nearly 20 years, uh they are not using that label uh correctly.
SPEAKER_02Right. Typically It used to mean something. It used to mean something.
SPEAKER_01It used to mean that uh you uh secured like a sole access to something that no other outlet in town could have, or you were the first to report something under a clear arrangement with the source.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Just because you go out and do some original reporting just yeah, original reporting isn't exclusive, it's just original reporting. So you that's what you that is the baseline of what you should do.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. So under what we do, we could probably label 75% of our stories exclusive if we wanted to.
SPEAKER_02Because a lot of them are original reporting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. So just be on the lookout for that if you're you know reading your daily news elsewhere. Just be pay attention to what's labeled exclusive and question if it really is. All right, Joel. That's my hot take.
SPEAKER_02That's a good hot take. I love it. That's real hot. Joel will give us something to think about.
SPEAKER_03Uh I had uh coffee yesterday morning with uh my former colleague and uh and fellow ACB Jer Adam Sitko. Oh yeah. Um at Quill's in Nulu. Um he was in town to go pick out some bourbon uh along with some other people, ACBJers. Uh but he used to cover commercial real estate in Nashville for several years, um, and he still covers economic development and those sorts in Nashville. And he just commented on you know just how much Louisville had changed. Um he actually interned at the Courier Journal, so he's familiar with Louisville, uh, how much Louisville had changed in recent years since last time he was here, um, and just all the kind of the energy down in Nulu and and uh just uh and I kind of filled him in on all the projects. So he was really impressed by what's going on in Louis, and I think we talked a lot about uh a lot about how Louisville gets down on itself very often, but and how we compare ourselves to Nashville or other places. And here's somebody from Nashville who's talking about how much he likes Louisville. So uh we should hold our channel maybe a little bit higher there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's definitely true. We're definitely way too too down on ourselves. We don't we don't appreciate the cool things we do have. So uh I will uh I'll give you something to think about here with uh John Neese. He's a local uh investor. He has uh he his company's called Nice Ventures, and they've got a lot of different um different brands under their belt. John Neese is also the uh investor, one of the key investors in Loose City FC and Racing and False City Beer and several other brands. And he just this week uh an announcement was made about it and an investment by him into Copper and Kings distillery. And I just gotta say, I wish there were just more people in Louisville like John Nees, just out there like doing, I wouldn't, I don't know if I want to call these risky ventures, but these are exciting, like consumer-facing ad consumer-facing ventures that people can appreciate. People have pride in, people have pride in Copper and Kings, they have pride in Fal City Beer, they have pride in the soccer team. And I just love that he's out there doing that. So I just wish there was more people like that that were out there, you know, instead of just taking your money and putting it in it in a very safe trust fund. Uh, I guess I see the uh argument for that because you know, a safe investment's a good vehicle. But I just love that that Nice is out there just like putting his money into these things that are really just symbols of the city.
SPEAKER_01And yeah, investing in cool outward-facing brands. That's how I'd do it if I had money.
SPEAKER_03For sure. So I'm really good at spending other people's money.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So just a hat tip to him. I love what he's doing. All right, well, that is our show this week. If you like what you hear, please consider following us on any of the popular podcast services, including Apple or Spotify. Thank you very much, Zach. Thank you, Joel. Of course, thank you, Baird, for the support, and all you guys listening to us out there, and we will see you next time. Bye-bye.