Downtown Plan

Louisville, Kentucky

In the previous decade, Downtown Louisville made great strides in boosting tourism, with new anchors such as Fourth Street Live!, Waterfront Park, and the Yum! Center. Yet much remained to be done in re-creating an authentic, livable downtown that will invigorate the regional economy.

The Louisville Downtown Partnership hired the team of Development Strategies (DS) and MKSK to craft a fresh vision that’s rooted in market opportunity and highly actionable.

The new vision for Downtown Louisville is one that focuses on the creation of five distinct neighborhood centers that will welcome new housing and become centers for start-up companies in targeted business sectors. DS prepared a broad housing market analysis that identified different housing product types, at marketable price points, for each neighborhood, and concluded that 2,500 new units are supportable over the next ten years.

DS also developed a business development strategy to encourage business startups by investing in place, fostering entrepreneurship, and leveraging the colleges and medical center that are already part of Downtown.

Working together, the consulting team developed a framework plan that allocated the different land uses DS recommended, and identified opportunities for public space improvements, new amenities, changes to the circulation network, and sustainability efforts. The team continues to advise as the Partnership implements elements of the plan.