Downtown Louisville gets new Signage

If you have travelled through downtown Louisville lately you might have seen the plastic wrapped signs around the central business district. Now the plastic is gone and we can see that Louisville now has new signage. The signs point to various parts of downtown, such as Slugger Field and the various medical and business districts. The same signs, just in a different color, can be seen in Old Louisville as well. One of them can be found right off the St. Catherine street exit ramp.

No More Louisville Downtown Holiday Inn

I was very surprised to see, that the owners of the downtown Holiday Inn were covering up the Holiday Inn logos last week. Apparently the downtown Holiday Inn dropped their affiliation. The temporary signs now say Hotel Louisville Downtown. They have covered up the logo on the south side of the building as well as the sign in the parking lot on Broadway. The big logo on the north side of the building still says Holiday Inn, but I'm sure it won't say that much longer. It seems a little weird since the hotel was recently renovated.
I can only speculate, but with the Holiday Inn chain's expansion recently (new hotels on Crittenden, as well as Fern Valley), it seems the downtown location probably did not meet their standards anymore. I just hope the now chain less hotel won't become a dive hotel, selling rooms for $33.95.

New Shelbyville Road Plaza Buildings Taking Shape

The new retail buildings at Shelbyville Road Plaza are taking shape. The future home of a Jo Ann Fabric and Craft store, the first in Louisville, looks almost complete. Other tenants will include a Buffalo Wild Wings and a Jason's Deli. The Buffalo Wild Wings will move there from Saint Matthews Station just down the road. The Jason's Deli restaurant is kind of a riddle to me. It already has a store on Hurstbourne near Shelbyville Rd. I don't understand why they want two stores so close together, even though their food is pretty awesome.

Zirmed Gateway Tower - Now with Windows

Louisville's Zirmed Gateway Tower now has windows. Workers recently installed shiny new panes of bluish glass on the bottom floor of the high rise. I almost think it's a little too soon for that, since there are still plenty of hammers to be dropped until the building is topped off. Besides, the exterior of the building is still missing as well.

Jeffersonville Town Center Update

Jeffersonsville Town Center is getting pretty close to celebrate its first tennant's grand opening. The work at the new Beef'o'Brady's location has been steady ever since the city and the developer held their big press conference a couple of weeks ago. Work for the new bank, on the other hand, seems to be kind of slow. At least I haven't seen much done over there.

On the other side of the street from the first building, work has also begun on the roads leading into that phase of the JTC, which now will feature medical offices. Work on the offices has not started yet.

Louisville's Hotel Cluster Growing?

It looks like Louisville's hotel cluster at Blankenbaker and I-64 is growing. There is new construction going on next to the Country Inn and the Microtel. It is real brick construction and looks architecturally better than some other wooden construction. From what I can tell, it might be a Fairfield Inn, because I saw the word Fairfield written on some of the building supplies.

Capital Plaza Louisville Not Dead

According to Business First, the Capital Plaza office tower project is still being pursued. Barrister Commercial Group LLC is quoted as saying that they are in ongoing negotiations with the city about the land and an out of town company becoming its main tenant. It is good news, that it's an out of town tenant, because at one point it was rumored that all would hinge on Humana renting space.
The 130 million dollar tower is planned to have 25 stories and will be located on the surface lot just north of Metro Hall, between sixth and seventh street.

Clarksville Hotel Cluster taking Shape

Clarksville's new hotel cluster right off Veterans Parkway is starting to take shape. Eventually they will put three hotels on a parcel of land next to the Outback Steakhouse. There are currently two hotels under construction. So far one floor of a Candlewood Suites hotel is built. Next to it the Suburban Lodge already has four floors plus a roof up. Each of the hotels under construction will have 110 rooms. The third planned hotel will be a Holiday Inn Express with 90 rooms. Construction of that might start early next year.

Zirmed Gateway Tower - Yet another quick update

Since so many people are interested in what's happening over at the Zirmed Gateway tower construction site, here's another quick construction update. It looks like they are currently working on the tenth floor. I am still hoping that they decide to go higher, but I think they'd be close to topping off on the north tower.

Jeffersonville's Heartland Payment Expansion

After moving from 10th Street in Jeffersonville, IN to the Bridgeport industrial park a couple of years ago, Heartland Payments is expanding again. They are building on to their current facility. Once they are completely done with phase three of their expansion, their campus will boast 221,000 square feet of office, training and warehouse space. Heartland Payment Systems provides credit and debit card, payroll, check management and related processing services to restaurant, hotel, automotive and retail industries.

Jefferson Mall - Grand closing of store

Last year Jefferson Mall in South Louisville announced a grand expansion. One of the businesses that was supposed to draw even more crowds was a Linens'n'Things. Unfortunately that company has recently announced major restructuring. Unfortunately for Jefferson Mall, the store was almost done. It even has the coming in spring 2009 poster in the window. But, as you can see, it's already a Halloween Express, a sure sign it'll never be a Linens'n'Things.

Louisville Arena - Money in the Bank

After months of struggling, arena chairman Jim Host announced today, he has the construction money in the bank. With the clearing of the site almost nearing completion, that money was desperately needed. One of the reasons behind the successful bond raising campaign was the fact that construction ended up being cheaper than expected. And, as always, I would hope that Museum Plaza will get its stroke of luck as well.

Mystery Solved - It's a new Holiday Inn

For the longest time, I did not know what they were building at Fern Valley Road and I-65. A trip to the construction site solved the mystery. They are building a new Holiday Inn. It's actually a pretty impressive structure when it comes to hotels. It's all stone and has six stories. It also has a nice architectural feature on the top left which looks like a sky garden.
The question that now remains is what is going to happen to the Holiday Inn across the street from there. Are they going to keep it, tear it down, or sell it?

Marshall Center / Waldman Field Hockey Complex Completed

The latest U of L athletic project completed on campus is Marshall Center / Waldman Field Hockey Complex. You can actually see it driving down I-65 south next to the track and field stadium. The Complex houses the hockey team as well as a weight room, that will be used by other Louisville teams that used to have to go the fairgrounds to lift weights. The new structure has a 1,500 seat aluminum bleacher system on top of the 14,360 square foot building.