LOUISVILLE, Ky. — As hundreds gathered for a sprawling convention downtown — giving some a first glimpse of Louisville — Billy Patterson is an outlier.
Patterson, who lives outside of Atlanta, has been traveling to the Metro for decades and noted one specific change he's seen over the years.
"I think it's been a bit of a decline year after year," Patterson said. "I don't see much development. It just seems to be the same thing every year, except, maybe more disrepair."
It's something Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg sees, too.
"If you look around where we are right now, you'll see office spaces with 'for lease' signs," Greenberg said, during a press conference Wednesday. "Let's make downtown the place to be!"
While publicly announcing his 2024 legislative priorities, Greenberg stated he'll petition the state legislature for $30 million to help flip unused downtown office space into residential apartments to ideally surge activity in the business district.
"I think the mayor's pointed out that we're losing workforce age people to other cities," Rebecca Fleischaker, executive director of Louisville Downtown Partnership, said.
Fleischaker said about 20% of downtown Louisville's vacant space can be easily converted into residential living spaces.
"What that does is you get more people living in a place. So you've got a 24-hour city, you've got more feet on the street literally walking around, and that's what creates vibrancy," Fleischaker said. "If you can work from anywhere in the world, why not work in Louisville, Kentucky? It's affordable, it's easy to get around, your quality of life is high, easy access to government officials."
The mayor, who in his private life helped develop and run the 21C hotel chain, also proposed flipping spaces into hotel and entertainment properties.
"I believe it is [Greenberg's] wheelhouse and development — as long as you have the foundation there — I think you'd be successful," David Nicklies, president and CEO of Nicklies Development, said. "We need daylight, daytime, and nighttime population downtown."
Nicklies has been a strong advocate, recently, for revitalizing the downtown area — specifically, Nicklies criticized LG&E's decision to move its office space out of its downtown building and into eastern Jefferson County.
He believes the city can't begin working on redevelopment until it solves another major issue.
"The perception is we're an unsafe city," Nicklies said. "So we've got to do something bold, acknowledge that we're perceived that way, and say, 'Well, we're going to do something to fix it and then fix it.'"
The 2024 legislative session for the Kentucky State General Assembly is slated to begin Jan. 2, 2024.
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