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Access Louisville
Two big bets on Louisville
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We discuss a pair of major investments in Louisville on this week's Access Louisville podcast.
GE Appliances announced a $1 billion investment at Appliance Park, including plans to move dryer production from Mexico to Louisville. Meanwhile Amazon is opening a new same-day delivery facility near Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport, which will help support its expanded rapid-delivery network.
We also dive into the latest developments at Brown-Forman on this week's show.
LBF Digital Editor Zak Owens tells us about criticism from members of the Brown family over the company's strategy, including the growth of flavored Jack Daniel's products. And we break down comments from outgoing CEO Lawson Whiting during the company's latest earnings call.
Plus, we talk about Yum Brands' decision to complete the sale of Pizza Hut as the Louisville-based company sharpens its focus on other opportunities.
Later in the show, Senior Reporter Joel Stinnett shares the story behind a mysterious door along Lexington Road that leads to a historic lagering tunnel, which is slated to become a unique event venue known as The Vault. We also discuss new progress on the Belvedere redevelopment after the project received a $5 million grant from the James Graham Brown Foundation.
We revisit the ongoing saga of Akiko's karaoke bar, whose property is headed to auction, and what the sale might say about the changing landscape of Louisville's Highlands neighborhood.
At the very end of the show we highlight LDG Development's court victory over the City of Prospect, a ruling that clears the way for a long-delayed affordable housing development.
Access Louisville, sponsored by Baird, is a weekly podcast from Louisville Business First. You can listen in the player above. You can also follow it on popular podcast services including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Louisville is seeing some big investments, including a billion dollar manufacturing announcement this week. We'll get into it next on Access Louisville. Thanks for joining us. My name is David Mann, and joining me today are Zach Owens. Hey there. And Joel Stinnett.
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 on what's going on here in Louisville, Kentucky. This podcast is sponsored by Baird. Discover the difference Baird can make in your financial life at rwbaird.com slash Louisville. We'll hear more from Baird later in the show. For now, let's talk about who's betting big on Louisville. Zach, you had a big story this week about GE Appliances making a $1 billion investment at Appliance Park. Uh what's that company planning?
SPEAKER_01The headline on the story is GE appliances ships dryer production from Mexico to Louisville in a $1 billion appliance park overhaul. All right. That is true. The company's bringing some uh they're investing about $450 million, I believe, to bring dryer manufacturing from Mexico to Appliance Park here in Louisville. That's the new part of the investment. $450 million of that investment had already been announced when GE announced it was going to build as combo washer dryer man dryers, uh moving that from China to Louisville. So it's a total $1 billion investment, but the the big news here is that uh they're bringing the Mexican piece of the public.
SPEAKER_02So they're kind of rolling it all in together to get that big one billion dollar number.
SPEAKER_01And it's you know, no denying it's good news for Louisville, good news for jobs here.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Um, all right. Well, let's see here. Another big story we had this week is that Amazon is planning a new facility. What do we know about that project, Joel?
SPEAKER_03Project Hunter, I believe, is the one you're referring to. Yes, but uh Amazon called it.
SPEAKER_02Amazon comes up with creative names.
SPEAKER_03They always have a project something. We uh we had a fun time with that when I was in Nashville, figuring out there were different project names they have for bringing uh not the HQ2 HQ2, but the uh the minor HQ2 to loot Nashville. But anyway, Amazon is assigned a lease to open a new same-day delivery warehouse here in Louisville at 8001 Air Commerce Drive, which is uh just a little more over two miles away from uh Muhammad Ali International Airport. Um it's a 324,000 square foot facility, and Amazon says it's gonna play a critical role in enabling uh its recently introduced one hour and three-hour delivery options to customers around Louisville. Um and we'll also enhance the same-day delivery options when it comes to like pharmaceuticals, which we're really trying to get into, and uh fresh produce and groceries. Uh supposed to employ about 200 people and start about $23 an hour.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. And that's interesting about the one and three hour delivery uh estimates. So that's pretty crazy, but I can believe it. A lot of people, uh a lot of people want that. So um let's see here. Zach, you tell us about I this is interesting. Speaking of manufacturing, um tell us about this Baskin Robbins comparison that the Brown family has made. Uh, the Brown family behind Brown Foreman has made regarding Jack Daniels.
SPEAKER_01To be clear, it's not the Brown family, it's a couple members of the Brown family who have very strong opinions on the state of the company and Brown Foreman CEO Laws and Whiting. So last week we reported actually Bloomberg and uh the Wall Street Journal originally reported that uh W. L. Lyons Brown III and his brother Stuart Brown sent a letter to Brown Foreman family members uh who are organized in an LLC called Wolf Penn Branch. But they basically are the uh controlling shares of the a share stock, which basically run the company and they're pretty much all Browns. But uh they were pretty pissed off, and in this letter they compared uh the company's new strategy to that of uh Baskin Robbins by introducing so many flavored variants of their flagship products, the most uh prominent being Jack Daniels Blackberry.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And also in that letter, they blasted uh Lawson Whiting for not uh being able to land either Perneau or Sazerac as a merger partner. And they they just think that the current leadership in at Brown Foreman is tanking the enterprise.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and we'll get to that in a minute because there is gonna be a leadership change at Brown Foreman. First, I want to talk about this Baskin Robbins comparison. What's your take on, I guess anyone, what's your take on these uh flavored whiskies? I mean, this is I think it's interesting because I've been covering spirits business for a long time, and I'm not gonna drink flavored whiskey or or ready-to-drink products, but I'm an old man. So you really don't want to base your uh business around what an old man's doing. You want to base your business around what young up-and-coming people are doing, and they like flavored drinks and ready-to-drink products. So I don't know what's what are what are you guys' take on it?
SPEAKER_03I mean, I think they're gross, but I think they're again we're all 40 something. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I get I understand the one to get in on the uh the uh sparkling and uh you know ready-to-drink trend. Um but I think that kind of pairs itself better with vodkas and tequilas than it does with whiskeys. Yeah. Um I you know, as a former bartender must, you know, I think even like whiskeys and whiskey and coke is gross. Yeah, just like you're ruining good bourbon or good whiskey by doing that. But I get why um, you know, that appeals to more of a younger crowd that's not used to maybe the uh the flavors of whiskey and bourbon.
SPEAKER_02And it's just easy, like I I get being like a 20-something, and there's just this world of all these different cocktails, and it's just like I don't know what to pick. Here's something easy, it's already in a can, like just drink it, you know.
SPEAKER_03I'm gonna go kayaking this weekend. We'll probably have some high noons or something in the cooler so that we can drink those instead of drinking string you know, you're not gonna bring a shaker. So like I get the you know, in certain certain circumstances, they're they're handy, but yeah.
SPEAKER_01I mean I I think they're gross too, but apparently they're selling like I know, yeah. Um I on Brian Foreman's earnings call that I listened to earlier this week, uh they must have mentioned the the words Jack Daniels Blackberry no more no less than 35 times.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it was insane. And because it was having so much growth, right? That's what the best performer for them.
SPEAKER_01I believe was responsible for two points of growth for the company uh the last quarter. It was insane.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. It's like they've been doing flavored whiskey. I mean, they did they started with uh Apple, I think, and then they did uh now they're doing Blackberry. I can't remember what else there's been, but there's been a couple different flavors of it. Not something I'm gonna buy, but I guarantee you, like you can't when I read that letter where they made the Baskin Robbins comparison, I was like, you can't be old and stodgy. You gotta you gotta change with consumer trends, and that's what consumers are doing.
SPEAKER_01Right, you're not selling the Frank Sinatra.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, exactly. Like it's not that's not the demographic issue.
SPEAKER_03Jack Daniels is their like their you know, they're their big brand, and they can put probably Jack Daniels on just about anything and sell it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, exactly. Uh, and then you know, that's that's a recognizable brand that that people of all ages know. So um anyway, yeah, but I'm just like you, Joel. I'll I'll take either a classic cocktail or just uh just a bourbon neat or on the rock. So um, all right. So getting to I guess I guess the uh the response to this letter came a little bit during the company's earnings call yesterday, Zach. Um the CEO was kind of defending the strategy and and talking about the uh the takeover chatter and that sort of thing. So what what was that conversation like?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Lawson Whiting, who I might add is uh Brown Foreman's outgoing CEO. Um he'll step down once his successor is named. There's no timeline on that. But uh in the conference call, uh Whiting just said the pronoun talks in because the two companies just couldn't reach uh agreeable terms. And uh he was asked about Sazerek by one of the analysts, and he said uh the company's board of advisors concluded that quote, its proposal was just not actionable considering the position of Wolf Penn Branch, which is the Brown family, which is the Brown family. So uh the Brown family just doesn't want it, and uh you know that's a tough place for Lawson Whiting to be because he's uh at one hand, uh he has to answer to the investors in the Brown family, and in this case, the investors with the controlling shares happen to be the Brown family. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So that's that's the thing about a public company that has so much family control. It's just you have to be able to negotiate both those things. And you know, like you said, Lawson uh Whiting is is on his way out. He announced a few months ago that he uh is leaving the company. So uh I guess we'll hear about a successor soon. I don't know where they're at in that process yet. They didn't give any kind of update on that during the call, I guess. So um anyway, interesting stuff with the uh Brown Former. Obviously, that's one of the most interesting companies in town. The good consumer-facing brands, and we can have debates about whether uh Blackberry whiskey is something we want, but uh it'll be interesting to see what happens there. Uh another interesting public company here, Joel, that is uh uh Yum Brands, Inc. uh, has sold Pizza Hut. So this is kind of a big continuation, I guess, of a transition for Yum Brands, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's been a um very busy 18 months for Yum Brands. Uh but this is definitely the largest move, probably, that they've had over those 18 months. Um they've completed the $1.5 billion sale of Pizza Hut, which excludes mainline China, to private equity firm long-range capital. Um they sold the uh mainline China options uh shares to Yum China Holdings. Uh so the total deal is worth $2.7 billion. Uh Chris Turner says that this transition, which Chris Turner, who's the CEO of Yum Brands, says the transition transaction uh will allow Yum brands to focus more on the opportunities for growth around the world. Kind of vague. I don't, I guess as we were kind of saying the other day. Doesn't every decision let us all focus around the Yeah, like you know, just tacos, chicken, and pizza was just too much for them to focus on. We're just gonna but tacos and chicken are manageable.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03But uh, I mean uh and then the the struggles with Pizza Hub have been well documented. They've had closed several stores. They were kind of, you know, if you think about back to Pizza Hut 25 to 30 years ago, it was more of a sit-down restaurant. Um they were kind of a little bit late, it seems, to you know, the to go um and online ordering game, you know, they had all this real estate for sit-down restaurants, and all of a sudden no one came in and sit down and eat pizza anymore. Yeah. And so they they had a big transition to make, and it makes sense that um, you know, if Yum wants to, I guess, kind of move on from that and uh focus on its two moneymakers.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I kind of feel like Yum may have been leaving some good cards on the table there. I kind of feel like there's this big like appetite for you know retro dining concepts now. If they could have just converted a few of those Pizza Huts into old school, you know, arcade pizza huts. Arcade pizza huts with the red cups and the Tiffany Lands.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think people our age would love to take our kids there and you know do book it, have our kids do book it. I mean, like I, you know, I mean, those were very nostalgic for us.
SPEAKER_01So uh so maybe this private equity firm will get that memory.
SPEAKER_03Maybe.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, maybe I guess uh it's tough for Pizza Hut because I think we talked on a previous show. The pizza used to just be really dominant in the delivery market, but now you get anything delivered. So it's they lost that that one thing that they had. Of course, Pizza Hut pioneered the personal pan pizza, the little single pizzas. Um, but you know, I don't know how well those sell. You know, I think people have but people like those because they're uh they're nostalgic, but I don't think they uh I don't know how they they do, you know, compared to say uh a Chipotle burrito or something like that. You know, how does how does one item do compared to another? So uh I guess we'll just see what's on the horizon for young brands. Uh we'll uh we'll change topics here, talk about a couple like smaller things around town, uh, get away from the uh big public company stuff. Uh Joel, you had this story about the mysterious door on Lexington Road. I love this story. Uh yeah, everybody knows this door. You drive down Lexington Road, no one you can't miss this door that's just in a hillside on Lexington Road.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, no, I used so I used to work at Bassa on Frankfurt Avenue, but I live in Germantown, and so I would drive past this door and back every single day to go to work and to come home. Yeah. And it always just bugged me, like, what is in that door? I wanted to know something. And one one night I did see people like looked like they were having an event in there. I mean, this is like 10 years ago. Yeah. And I was like, this what is this place? And so when I saw this um this uh filing come up on uh the Metro Design Planning and Design website, I was very excited. So uh the door is actually leads to an old historic lagering tunnel. Um, German immigrants, when they moved to Louisville and and towns around here like Cincinnati, Cincinnati apparently has a very extensive network of lagering tunnels. Um and apparently there are also some um preserved over at Gravely, I guess, spruing over in the Highlands. There's a couple of these tunnels that you can actually look at.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you could like see them underneath the uh deck, yeah. Gravely, the old gravely.
SPEAKER_03So this was one that I guess had somewhat of a short life apparent apparently to uh Michael Radderman, uh, who actually owns the property. He owns he lives above the tunnel. Um, this one uh was used pre-Civil War, and he believes that after pre- after the Civil War it fell into kind of private ownership and was no longer really used for um brewing. And so uh did not get used as much, but uh really cool. He's put in about $40,000 into masonry work. And over the years, like the last 15 years since he's owned it, um, he's held different events there. He's had puppet shows, he's had kids coming there for different art things, he's had concerts, um, a few weddings and dinners and things like that, fundraisers. And so he's only done, you know, maybe I think he kind of estimated just a you know a few a year, but he wants to kind of up that and make it a little more of a formal thing. It's gonna be called the vault. Um he's hoping to have a couple events there a month. Uh, and you know, it's only about 1,500 square feet. It's not a huge space, but if you go online and read the store, you can see it's really cool on the inside. Um, it keeps things very cool in there or warm depending on the the time of year, and uh has good ventilation. So it looks pretty cool. Um I want to check it out. Hopefully, uh maybe uh in uh business first can hold an event there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that does sound cool actually. It reminds me for Beatles fans out there, the uh Cavern Club was like the place the Beatles got their start, and it was like this had the same kind of brick layout behind it. So it kind of reminds me of what that looks like on uh in pictures anyway. Um and it has that same shape too. Yeah, really weird. I've always I'd always kind of wondered what was in that tunnel. I thought maybe it was like uh like related to the the uh Cave Hill Cemetery there, uh which is nearby, but I don't know exactly if it's it's probably not in the exact same spot. But I think it's like further south. Yeah, further south, yeah. Uh so I was like, maybe it's related to that. Uh like it and then of course it, you know, I could have just looked it up all these years, but um, but uh I prefer to wait until we did a story on it. All right.
SPEAKER_03Uh speaking of Ven Spaces, uh, when we uh Well Business First Can Hold Ot the Belvidere, which just recently got a grant. Yeah, can you tell us about that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, I just wrote that one. Uh and uh just you know, we've talked extensively about the Belvidere on this show. We had uh uh Layla George on a while back. Me and me and Michael talked about it a few weeks ago. Uh but uh, you know, this Belvedere project, they're trying to redo the the Belvedere which overlooks the uh the Ohio River. It's on top of I-64. Uh used to be a big place for events, but there hadn't been as many events there because it's kind of in bad shape. But uh the city wants to do something about that. They just landed uh five million dollars to kind of move that plan for a new uh event space forward. The grant came from the uh James Graham Brown Foundation, speaking of Brown's. Um, and uh and they that the city's planning to use that as well as city money and hopefully state money to advance that project, uh, put in some new features up there, new landscaping, a new and like an event stage, and they're hoping to hold like community events, like yoga workouts and and uh a little orchestra concerts and that kind of thing up there. So it looks really cool. So um moving on to uh one more project. We have talked about this on the show a couple of times, so I just wanted to uh give an update on it. But the uh the saga of uh Kiko's karaoke bar continues. That uh looks like it's going up for auction, right?
SPEAKER_03It is. Uh it's gonna sell to the highest bidder at or above 500 grand, according to a listing from the Minish group. Uh you know, that's a very uh historic and iconic bar in the Highlands. Um I think I maybe I've seen karaoke there once.
SPEAKER_02I was gonna ask you if you've seen karaoke. I've definitely been there before.
SPEAKER_03I remember doing a shot of sake there once and run to the bathroom. Uh but uh no, the the the site is up for sale. As far as I know, the bar is still open. Uh it was built in 1923, about 2,500 square feet. Um the property next door also is also up for auction and has some apartments above it that are occupied, so there's a nice rental income there. Uh that property is gonna sell to the highest bidder at or above 600 grand. And it seems like the Highlands is is going through kind of a generational turnover right now. A lot of the um you know, the bars that we probably grew up with, bars and restaurants and things like that, are are kind of closing down, but new ones are opening up. And so I think this is kind of just part of that trend.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, definitely. And we'll keep an eye on Akiko's, see what happens there. Um, but I remember we talked about it when it was it was about to close and then it came back. And uh so just wanted to keep keep you updated.
SPEAKER_03Maybe it'll be able to stay there. Yeah. Um maybe it'll stay open.
SPEAKER_02Every generation loves karaoke, I would think. All right, well, that's it. Uh, we'll take a break for a word from our sponsors, and we'll be right back after that and give you something to think about.
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SPEAKER_02All right, we're back and uh let's wrap up the show like we've been doing here. We'll give our listeners a little something to think about. Zach, I'll start with you.
SPEAKER_01Not trying to sound like a huge hippie or anything over here, but sounds like you're about to sound like a hippie.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I'm feeling like one, but you may have noticed that's pretty hot out there. Uh at the end of summer, this heat dome has uh encapsulated Louisville and we're experiencing record temperatures for the year. I was gonna take this moment to say plant some damn trees downtown. We really need to focus on uh building up the city's tree canopy and creating lots of shade in this town. Yeah. That's I'll get off my soapbox.
SPEAKER_02No, we had uh we're we're gonna have Steve Traeger on the show and he's gonna talk about his microforest here in the world. There you go. I walked through it uh this afternoon when I went for a walk. Yeah, so he's got your back. Uh how about you, Joel? Give us something to think about.
SPEAKER_03Well, if you want to escape the heat, you should head south to a big dome with no roof on it and sit in the sun. Uh this is, I guess we'll probably air after the game, maybe, but uh I was gonna talk about uh UV football season about to start up. Um, you know, I've not been this excited for a Louisville sports season in a long time. Probably at least a decade. The football team looks uh stacked. I mean, we have a really good opportunity if we can pull off this game on Sunday against Old Miss Um to then two weeks later possibly beat SMU and then I mean we'll be favored every game after that. I mean, we have only questions there are the quarterback and maybe the offensive line, but we got a great team coming back there. Obviously, spent a lot of money on that. Basketball team looks like it's stacked, spent a lot of money there. It seems like um and right as of now we have Seth Trimble coming. You know, even the non revenue sports. I mean, I know field hockey's been doing well, softball's been doing well, the volleyball team beat the defending champions in their first game this year, so UVL sports is it seems like it's in better health, at least competition wise, than it's been a long time. And everyone knows how messed up the financials of college sports are right now. So if we want to help that as a city and as little fans, everybody get out to games, whether it's football, volleyball, or basketball coming up and uh support the cards.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Now I'm excited. Now that you've given me this breakdown, I think it looks like a good season. Yeah. Um, I will give you something to think about. It's a story Olivia did earlier this week, and I swear it just warmed my heart. Literally, tears welled up when I read this story about um LDG winning a lawsuit uh against the City of Prospect over the development of this Prospect Cove, uh, which is an affordable housing uh development. Uh the city of Prospect was found by a judge to be in violation of the Equal Protection Clause and the Fair Housing Act uh for uh for conspiring against LDG's development plans to build this uh new housing development. Uh and uh, you know, uh I think there was some there was some great quotes in both these stories. Uh or there was great quotes from both sides in this story. Um uh Olivia quoted Chris Dis Dissinger of uh LDG as saying that he knew that the reason people were opposing this project wasn't because of the size of the project, it was because of who was going to live there, uh, which is a great quote and a hell of a thing to say, and took a lot of bravery for him to say that. And then uh and then the the the mayor of Prospect also provided a statement. Um he was not mayor when this project was uh declined, but he said, you know, uh Prospect is a small suburban city with good, thoughtful people in it, and he looked forward to working with the company and welcoming their tenants as neighbors and members of the community. So I thought that was a nice a nice way for the for that mayor to uh move on and kind of uh just kind of look like he's going to support this, although there is talk of is there going to be an appeal or not, because prospect is being punished, they're getting they're paying 38 million in this in uh and in damages, and um 7.26 were punitive damages, which means they were they those damages were tacked on to uh warn other municipalities not to do this. So um, so yeah, I thought that was just a really great story, a really great way to wind that up. LDG says they're gonna build this thing uh starting either later this year or early next. So be watching that one with great interest as well. Uh, but that is all we have for this week. If you like what you hear, please consider subscribing to the Access Louisville Podcast on any of the popular podcast services. We're big on Apple and Spotify. Uh, we're on the others as well. Thank you very much, Zach and Joel. Thank you guys out there for listening to us. Of course, thank you, Baird, for the support, and we'll see you next time. Bye.