There's a buzz going on in Louisville - Possibility City! From our innovative City of Parks initiative - to the unprecedented development downtown. We've highlighted some of the key projects below and featured some of the regional and national articles focusing on Louisville. Scroll down to learn more. And don't miss the My Louisville Video!
Downtown Arena Project
Update
Design for New Downtown Arena
Click to see the renderings from The Louisville Arena Authority:
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Construction is underway on a new state-of-the-art, multi-purpose sports and entertainment arena on louisville's waterfront at River Road and 3rd Street, with completion expected in 2010.
Visit the Arena Authority website to learn the latest.
Museum Plaza
A skyline-changing addition planned for Louisville's waterfront: Museum Plaza, a $490 million, 61 story urban development is projected to include luxury condominiums, office space, a hotel, retail space, a contemporary arts center and a three-acre public park & plaza.
Sharing a public plaza with the Muhammad Ali Center, and linking to the city's award-winning Waterfront Park, residents and visitors will be able to experience a multitude of cultural, museum, and entertainment venues. Visit the Museum Plaza website to learn more and see video clips of the design.
City of Parks
One of the largest city parks expansion projects in America will add thousands of acres of park land and protected green space including the 100-mile "Louisville Loop" a paved trail for walkers, cyclists and others that will encircle the entier community.
"A century ago, world-renowned landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted laid out his plans for Louisville's first park system, a superb network of green spaces linked together by tree-lined parkways that became one of his greatest achievements," said Mayor Jerry Abramson. "Now the time has come to extend his great vision to all of our community." Learn more.
Media Coverage of Louisville
April 2009
Louisville: Where New Plays Go to Be Born
Going to the theater is always an intimate, communal experience in Louisville, Kentucky, on the first weekend of April — the climactic one for the annual Humana Festival of New American plays.
National Public Radio
December 2008
Louisville Art Hotel Offers Rooms With a View
When you go to an art museum, you don't expect to be able to take a shower or sleep there. But in Louisville, Ky., there's a place where you can do both. It's called 21c, and it feels a lot more like a contemporary art gallery than a hotel.
December 2008
Cooperation Helped Louisville Clean Up Air
Louisville's Strategic Toxic Air Reduction (STAR) program, launched in 2005 after years of squabbling and negotiations, has dramatically cut emissions of the city's most risky chemical and promises to curb others by the end of 2011.
October 2008
Slugger Museum Pounds Out Romance, History
Some 60 percent of major leaguers use Hillerich & Bradsby Co.'s most famous product. While there has been an explosion in small speciality bat companies -- now there are more than 40 -- none carry the romance of the Slugger, which traces its history back to a teenage Bud Hillerich.
August 2008 Issue
Outside Magazine Names Louisville To Its “Best Towns of 2008”
Citing its expanding park system, the addition of biking lanes and a bustling downtown, Outside Magazine has named Louisville one of its “Best Towns of 2008.” Louisville ranked 7th on the list of 20 cities, published in the August issue.
July 2008
Old Louisville, Kentucky will surprise you
"Overall, I discovered an intriguing, funky scene and a good-humored, pop-culture-savvy populace . . . plus more. Louisville has an avant-garde, contemporary-art edge."
June 2008
Update America: Louisville Reframed
"With its burgeoning arts-and-culture circuit, there's more than bourbon fermenting in Kentucky's largest city."
May 2008
The New Best Cities for Cycling
"...faced with several challenges--traffic congestion, the need for downtown revitalization, his city's obesity problem -- Mayor Jerry Abramson saw the positive impact bikes could have when he visited bike-friendly Vail, Colorado. Back home, he called a citywide bike summit in February '05, and Louisville hasn't been the same since."
May 2008
Where to Go When the Horses Aren't Running
"Visitors from around the world -- including celebrities, politicians and rabble-rousers -- descend on Louisville to enjoy everything from mint juleps on Millionaire's Row to mudslides in the Churchill Downs. Oh, and there's also a horse race."
May 2008
Tales From the Road
"They're everywhere. Giant red plastic penguins. One sits quietly--all 4 feet of him--next to the sofa in the hotel lobby. Another peers stoically out the gift shop window. More congregate in large numbers on the roof and stand sentry on the outside window ledges. Holy cow, it's like something out of a Monty Python movie."
April 2008
Louisville's Got a Winner
"Pull out your betting money and put on your lucky hat - it's Derby Time. The kickoff race in the Triple Crown is traditionally held the first Saturday in May at Churchill Downs - this year, it's May 3 - and it transforms Louisville from a quirky Southern town into a jumping, celeb-filled hot spot."
March 2008
Rise of the super-mayor - How mayors of American cities are coping with suburban growth
"JERRY ABRAMSON'S domain is six times bigger and contains twice as many people as it did in 1985, when he first claimed his city's top office. The longest-serving mayor in Louisville's history now oversees not just urban areas, from the old rubber plants to the newly hip Butchertown, but suburban subdivisions and farms."
October 2007
Resident Magazine Names Louisville One of 11 Great Places to Live
"At the crossroads of the Midwest and the South, Louisville has a bit of an identity crisis. New arrivals expecting a backwater town may be pleasantly surprised by the lively arts scene..."
July 2007
Learning from lively Louisville
On a recent Friday night, 10,000 people showed up for a concert at Fourth Street Live, the 3-year-old downtown entertainment complex here that attracted 4 million visitors last year to its restaurants, bars and nightclubs. Fourth Street Live is just one of several major projects bringing vitality and crowds of people to downtown Louisville.
June 2007
The Focus-Grouped Park
There's a new status symbol for American cities and it's not a soaring office tower or retro stadium. To many civic leaders, nothing says progressiveness and prosperity like an elaborate urban park.
June 2007
Read the comprehensive profile of Louisville in the June 2007 Edition of US Airways Magazine! (All PDF files)
Word of Mouth
Where to Stay
Home Run - Logistics, health care, and tourism load the bases (1.6MB PDF)
Artful Living - Residents enjoy a high quality of life
A Feast for Foodies - Restaurants mix hospitality with passion for food
April 2007
Two Projects Show It's Not a One-Horse Town
While the running of the famed Kentucky Derby horse race at Churchill Downs shines the national spotlight on Louisville, Ky., every May, two development projects are hoping to generate more buzz year-round.
April 2007
Top 10 underrated U.S. Cities
Everyone knows cities like New York, San Francisco, and Chicago are among the best in the U.S., but there are many other fabulous — albeit smaller — American cities that just don't get their fair share of the limelight.
April 2007
Lou-UH-vul or Lou--EE-ville?
The town is extraordinarily visitor-friendly, clustering many of its charms into a compact, easily navigated downtown. You can't walk to everything, but you can take in a lot on foot. And the folks here are so laid back and friendly, they don't mind if you mispronounce the town's name. Within limits.
April 2007
Take to your Bike
Are we ready to go bicycling? Could these times of climate change, gas price inflation and bulging waistlines be prepping us for new waves of weekend biking adventures? Maybe even to leave cars parked and cycle to work daily? Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson is one of a growing coterie of city leaders who believe the moment is ripe. Keynoting this year's National Bike Summit in Washington, Abramson described how an early 2005 Louisville gathering of cycling enthusiasts has changed his city's goals and focus.
Horsing Around
April 2007
Louisville is hot to trot - even if you can't make the Derby
The most exciting two minutes in sports -- the Kentucky Derby -- is less than a month away. Unless you're extremely lucky, rich or willing to wing it with the masses in Churchill Downs' infield mosh pit, you probably won't be here in person to watch those 3-year-old thoroughbreds storm out of the gate. But you don't have to be sipping a mint julep in the grandstand to tap into the excitement that surrounds the world's greatest horse race.
April 2007
Louisville's Humana captures human touch
By Christine Dolen
Playwright Carlos Murillo calls Actors Theatre of Louisville a "...Mecca for new plays..." noting that its high-profile Humana Festival offers "...a snapshot of what's happening in American theater."
December 2006
Art--with an iPod--in a Louisville Hotel
(16KB PDF file)
Two days before I was to check into the 21C Museum Hotel in Louisville, I got a phone message from Alicia. "We're looking forward to your stay," she said, "and just wondered if you had any musical preferences." Musical preferences? Right. Because the 21C Museum Hotel not only provides iPods for its guests, the hotel also custom-programs each player.
October 2006
3 Cities Agree to Mutual-Aid Pact
"While we wait for the (state or federal) bureaucracy to make a decision about whether or not (to issue) a disaster declaration, you can get immediate help," said Doug Hamilton, director of the Louisville Metro Emergency Management Agency.
August 2006
Louisville Old and New - Either Way It's a Knockout
Then there's downtown. Fresh from a spree of urban renewal akin to a spiked-hair makeover, it's an enclave of eclectic museums, fine dining and hip watering holes.
Journal of Emergency
Medical Services
August 2006
One City's Miraculous EMS Transformation
(502kb PDF)
Louisville is an outstanding example of how EMS can be dramatically improved in an urban/suburban region when political leaders put patient care first and politics second, and when agencies, individuals and unions work cooperatively toward a common goal.
August 2006
Commission Trying to Show Louisville more than Horses and Hoops
Five years later, the Louisville stop has become Sommer's personal favorite. The city better known for the Kentucky Derby has also become the host city for a number of other regional and national sports competitions.
June 2006
Turning Louisville On Its Head
Designed by an on-the-rise architect from one of the world's most acclaimed firms, Museum Plaza will remake the skyline of the nation's 43rd largest metropolitan area. Its centerpiece is a 22nd floor, acre-and-a-half contemporary art museum.
May 2006
Louisville is Off to the Races
(189kb PDF)
But beyond the track and the traditions, something transformational is occurring here on the south banks of the Ohio. Something that has some of the locals going, well, almost loco.
April 2006
Three Ways to See Louisville (313kb PDF)
No matter which way you see Louisville, you'll make it to the winner's circle. A bumper sticker sums it up perfectly: "I wasn't born in Kentucky, but I got here as fast as I could."