July 14, 2015 Ms. Anna Tatman, Chair Downtown Development Review Overlay Committee Planning and Design Services c/o Mr. Robert Keesaer, AIA , Urban Design Administrator Suite 300 444 South Fifth St. Louisville, KY 40202 Dear Ms. Tatman and Members of the DDRO Committee: Walk along many of the streets in our Downtown, and what do you see? Blank walls of buildings along the sidewalk that have no engagement with the pedestrian, promote no street life, and have no potential for commerce or development. This may be because these structures are inward-focused, like the Commonwealth Convention Center. It may be because the structure is a parking garage, designed only for the automobile. Or, it may simply be because there are no first floor spaces that open to the street. Building owners complain there is no demand for such spaces. No one will rent shops or commercial space along this street. The refrain goes something like: There arent enough warm bodies moving up and down the sidewalk to justify building commercial space. Yet when we construct buildings with blank, windowless facades, the opportunity for street-level commerce is permanently

foreclosed. Blank, windowless building walls discourage the pedestrian. People choose another path. The complaint becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The pedestrian avoids areas with blank walls and that avoidance leads to more blank walls. Many of our Downtown blocks are given over to surface parking, an equally forbidding use. No one wants to walk past an empty field of cars, especially at night. Studies have shown that pedestrians in these situations simply dont feel safe, but it is also a very boring walk, with nothing to engage them. The typical Downtown block is 400 to 450 feet long, and in certain areas, surface parking dominates for nearly half a mile. Parked cars, loading areas and service functions deaden the street character, and the pedestrian quickly learns to avoid these areas as often as possible. Not counting the street rights-of-way, more than 30 percent of the land in Downtown consists of surface parking. All of this pavement increases the deleterious health impact of the urban desert. It also has helped to erode what once was a dense urban core of our city, and a loss of the very reason visitors and residents come to the city center. Recently we saw two young families walking back from their day at the museums on West Main Streets Museum Row. The children carried miniature Slugger bats, the Moms had bags from the Museum of Art and Craft and the Frazier Museum. Dads held the hands of the smaller ones, who were obviously worn out, just wanting to sit down. They were ready to cross Second Street, probably headed back to their hotel somewhere east of First Street, suggesting a nine to ten block walk. As the light changed and we drove off, we realized that for the two blocks they had just walked, and for next two blocks they had yet to cover, the street had no life. Blank building walls and half-full parking lots limited their options. No shop window would catch their attention. No venues would offer an inviting place to sit down. Just a long desolate walk lay ahead. One wonders if these families would choose to come back to Louisville next time they take a family vacation? We are lucky that interest in cities and urban life is on the rise. More of the younger generation eschews suburban living in favor of a metropolitan experience. The growth of places like Museum Row and Nulu lure an increasing stream of visitors. Sports fans come to Slugger Field or the Yum Center for games, concerts and other events. The arts and live performances attract a consistent crowd to the Kentucky Center, the Louisville Palace, Actors Theatre and the Brown Theatre. All of this activity is wonderful to observe. How can these separate and individually wonderful elements be encouraged to knit together to form a truly dynamic urban experience on a par with the other major cities in the region that we see both as competitors and models? We have the blueprint for a successful Downtown! We have the examples of West Main Street and Nulus East Market Street. People love these areas. We have the recently completed third-generation update of our Downtown Plan. And most important, we have the Urban Design Guidelines of the Downtown Development

Review Overlay District (DDRO). First created in the 1990s, the DDRO doesnt prescribe architectural style. Its not about modernism versus traditional design. It IS about the basic tenets of good urbanism. Modeled on the patterns of great urban centers around the world, the Guidelines describe the simple outline of a vital, active Downtown. The most important Guidelines are paraphrased below: 1. Build to the sidewalk frontage. 2. Place service and loading functions to minimize impacts on pedestrians. 3. Be sensitive to the surrounding buildings, especially historic buildings, in terms of size, scale and materials. 4. The base of buildings should have a human scale. 5. Create public spaces that encourage pedestrian usage. 6. Encourage shoppers with storefronts, arcades, merchandise display windows, art, green space, seating, awnings, signage and lighting. These standards are pretty simple and can be easily met. They are the essential principles of great cities everywhere. Also, these ideas have become embodied in Metros Land Development Code as the basis for development in Town Centers and Marketplace Corridors across Jefferson County. These concepts are part of our traditional building patterns in places like Bardstown Road, Frankfort Avenue and the core of St Matthews, and they are what make them walkable, desirable commercial areas. The quality of the pedestrian experience goes hand-in-hand with popular and high-value shopping streets. Every shopping mall in America is laid out based on the concept of the shopping street, which is to promote a varied, enticing pedestrian experience that supports the retail environment. On Wednesday, July 15, the DDRO Committee will review the design for the Omni Hotel/ Residential/Garage complex proposed for the old Water Company block. The standards referenced above should be thoughtfully considered by the developer and absolutely upheld by the DDRO Committee. Sadly, the current Omni proposal violates or only partially meets many of these Guidelines. It does not propose to incorporate the historic Water Company Headquarters Building in the development, contrary to No. 3. The current published design proposal lines Third Street with a nearly 500-foot-long parking garage and loading dock, with little or no regard for pedestrians and violating Nos. 2, 4, and 6. No public space is created except for widened sidewalks, which causes the building to set back further on the cramped site and puts more pressure on Third Street as the Back Door of the complex. Indeed, Third Street is treated more like an alley, and will exemplify the blank wall syndrome described above.

The Committee has the responsibility for using the Urban Design Guidelines to weigh the proposal, and ultimately, the responsibility for the character of our city blocks, streets, and sidewalks Downtown. It needs to do its job. We should not be creating any more blank facades in our Downtown. We should not be implementing designs that fail to observe our standards for development. We should expect projects (especially ones such as Omni, that are almost 50 percent government financed) to be respectful of our design standards and to provide an active pedestrian realm that fosters urban commercial growth. Those two young families described above are our future. We want them to come back again and again. Lets make sure they continue to count Louisville as a great place to visit, to shop, and especially, to live. Respectfully, Charles Cash, AIA C. William Weyland, AIAEdith S. Bingham Eleanor Bingham Miller Christina Lee Brown John Huber Barbara Sexton Smith Stephen Porter, Esq. Mary Moss Greenebaum Gill Holland, Esq. Henry Potter, AIA Keith Runyon, Esq.

Anne Arensberg Dr. Gordon Tobin Art Williams Gray Henry Roberto Bajandas, AIA Dr. Kathleen Lyons Sharon Potter Meme Sweets Runyon xc: Mayor Greg Fischer Ellen Hessen, Esq. Mary Ellen Wiederwohl