The people behind RiverPark Place: David Karem

Posted on May 14, 2015

Bringing a 40-acre, $1 billion-plus commercial/residential project to fruition that will alter the landscape and lifestyle of Louisville’s riverfront requires top talent. Rock stars of design and development, if you will. In the coming months, we’re going to feature the “Rock Stars of RiverPark Place” to help you get to know some of the brilliant and dedicated people behind the project.

David Karem

The Ohio River is in David Karem’s blood, and he’s passionate about preserving the magic of life on the water’s edge for future generations.

Karem has been a driving force in the redevelopment of Louisville’s waterfront since 1986. The first and only president of the Waterfront Development Corp., he fell in love with the Ohio as a small child, spending summers with his family in a cabin on the water.

“I grew up by the river,” he said. “Once you have that kind of connectivity with the river’s edge, it remains indelible in your mind, and you have an affection for it.”

Karem earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Cincinnati College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning. Then, like others in his family, he went on to earn a law degree from the University of Louisville. He served four years in the state House of Representatives before spending 29 years in the state Senate, leaving that post in 2004.

Karem and the Waterfront Development Corp. were asked to develop a request for proposals for the site of RiverPark Place, handle the selection process and ultimately oversee the project that was chosen.

“It is one of the most beautiful sites in the area,” he said. “It leaps out and says ‘this is wonderful site for a residential marina development to take place.’ Because of Towhead Island, the marina is very protected. The setting is so green and so wonderful for residential development.”

Karem knew from the beginning that he wanted a project that would fit with the park’s mission.

“Our mission was to build a green, urban, 85-acre park that would then compel development around it,” he said. “And that’s exactly what has happened. RiverPark Place is a perfect example.”

He added that he wanted a world-class development that would complement what has become a world-class park.

“We’ve been visited by officials from all over the United States, Europe and Asia, studying the park,” Karem said. “USA Today did a national poll, and Louisville’s Waterfront Park was ranked as one of the top 10 riverfronts in America.” The park attracts 1.5 million visitors a year and hosts an average of 150 events, which is a huge selling point for RiverPark Place residents and visitors.

Poe Companies is an ideal partner in the project, he said. “It’s a synergy of two very supportive elements. They know they enhance Waterfront Park, and we know the park enhances their development.”

The mix of residential uses at RiverPark “creates the kind of community that we had hoped from the beginning would come to that site. It’s creating almost like a small city with lots of diversity, which is very appealing” to young people, empty-nesters and everyone in between, Karem said. “I think it’s woven together as a wonderful tapestry of offerings that make it available to a broad spectrum of customers.”

Those customers will expect the Waterfront Development Corp. to maintain the park in a quality way, he said. “They will become allies with us to continue the world-class maintenance that this park deserves. RiverPark is our next-door neighbor who will insist, long after I’m gone, that the public and government entities maintain this park in the highest possible way. From a very selfish perspective, RiverPark Place is a great favor to the park because the residents will become the engine that goes to the mayor, goes to the Metro Council and says, ‘this is a fabulous park, and you’ve got to support and maintain it properly.’ RiverPark is going to be our best friend.”

Karem is excited that RiverPark Place is continuing the transformation of the waterfront that he and his team started.

“One, it’s bringing more people into an urban setting. That’s a national trend. That kind of movement enlivens the core, it strengthens the downtown area. RiverPark Place is a huge engine for the kinds of urban development you want to see in your city,” Karem said. “These folks will go the arts, the restaurants, the museums, to the YUM Center for ballgames. They will bring friends from out of town to the Hillerich & Bradsby baseball museum. They will take their kids and their grandkids to the Science Center.”

With all those elements in place, it’s a no-brainer that RiverPark would be a success, he added. “The numbers speak for themselves. Before the first building was completed, it was all rented. The second one is well on its way. It’s doing exactly what we hoped it would do.”

That success is due, in part, to the excellent working relationship Karem has had with Poe Companies and other players in RiverPark Place from the start.

“While we monitor and oversee the project for Metro Government, we also really see ourselves as partners,” Karem said. “Have there been bumps in the road? Of course there have. By and large, working with these folks has been great. We never have any problems communicating. It’s an easy marriage. All marriages should be as easy as this one.

The people behind RiverPark Place: David Karem.

The people behind RiverPark Place- David Spillane, master planner

Posted on April 9, 2015

Principal_David-Spillane_Goody-Clancy-290x245 David Spillane spent his childhood near the water in Ireland. No matter where he has lived since then, he’s never been far from it. In fact, as president of Goody Clancy in Boston and principal for the firm’s planning and urban design practice, Spillane has built his career on a passion for design that transforms waterfronts.

“We’ve worked a lot of places and done a lot of things, but the most exciting projects for me are waterfront projects,” he said. His firm has completed waterfront projects “all the way from Vermont to Texas.”

This lifelong passion is why serving as lead architect for RiverPark Place is an ideal fit for his talents. It also means Louisville is incredibly lucky to have him on board.

Fascinated by design since he was a child, Spillane earned a bachelor’s degree in architecture from University College Dublin (Ireland) and a master’s degree from Harvard University. His work has included planning in Mississippi and New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, replacing an aging interstate highway in Hartford, Conn., and redefining Boston’s Fort Point Channel waterfront.

NewHavenCT_HilltoDowntown_Sketch-ParktoStation

His designs have been recognized with more than a dozen national awards from the American Institute of Architects, the American Planning Association, the Congress for the New Urbanism and the Waterfront Center, including the 2013 American Planning Association’s “National Planning Excellence Award for a Firm.”

As an extension of his affection for cities’ waterfronts, Spillane serves on the board of directors for Save the Harbor/Save the Bay, where he has been an active participant in promoting public access to a cleaner and more vibrant Boston Harbor and Massachusetts Bay. He has also served as a member of Boston’s Municipal Harbor Plan Advisory Committee and is a design advisor to the Capitol Center Commission in Providence, R.I.

Despite his experience with waterfronts across the country, Spillane believes there is always more to learn. That’s why he and the RiverPark team traveled to Boston, Portland, Ore., and Vancouver, Canada, to study what makes each of their waterfronts so successful.

“In all those cities, we saw principles of what it takes to create a great waterfront — providing public access along the water’s edge, creating public amenities with a mix of uses,” said Spillane. “Residential housing is a huge part of that, and so are open spaces and restaurants that draw people to the area who don’t live there. Also, they each provide water access for small boats, canoes and kayaks and have the ability to host events and other activities.”

As a result of these fact-finding trips, Spillane said he and the RiverPark team have been able to incorporate all of the very best elements from each city’s waterfront they visited, one of which is density.

“When Steve Poe invited us to be part of the team and the city started this project, I think that the kind of density that was envisioned was far less than what’s happening now,” said Spillane. “The density being envisioned now is like what we saw in Boston, Vancouver and Portland. It’s essential to RiverPark and what this project can ultimately become to the city. We’re seeing all around the country more and more interest in urban living and urban environments, where you can walk from your front door to a restaurant or a park or a marina and you don’t have to drive. Those are some the benefits we get from density.”

Spillane is proud that he’s had a hand in a project that brings people together in such a transformative way. “It’s a place that invites other people in, who don’t specifically live there, to have access to the restaurants on the water’s edge. I think the marina adds a whole other dimension to life, providing the ability to get out on the river.

“When you mix all those ingredients together — the mix of uses, walk-able areas, density, public access and access to the water, you have all the ingredients of a great waterfront. This is the vision we talked about from the very beginning — a place which is vibrant and active and dense.”

Spillane believes that an important part of the project, one that’s easy to overlook, is the way parking is being incorporated out of sight.

“Parking is below the building, and that creates far better views and access to the waterfront and the river. I think that’s really exciting,” he said. “There was a lot of very careful attention in design to maintain those views of the waterfront from as many units as possible, both the ones built to date, and the ones in the future.”

Though RiverPark is in its early stages, Spillane believes it already has lots of momentum. As it attracts more people and new amenities, it’s going to become even more compelling over time, he added.

“Louisville is a really vital place, and it’s become even more vital since I started with the project,” Spillane said. “At that time, Waterfront Park had just opened. I remember being in the offices of the Waterfront Development Corp., seeing the pictures of the wall of what it had been just a few years before where it was primarily industrial, and how quickly it has transformed into a major part of the city’s shared public space.”

Spillane added the he thinks the transformation of Louisville’s waterfront is an amazing story. “It’s one of the great waterfront transformations nationally, and it’s a model for many other communities. RiverPark is an incredibly important part of that story.”

RiverPark aerial modified 11.28.11

Insider Louisville

The people behind RiverPark Place – The EdgeWater architect – Insider Louisville

Posted on March 12, 2015

Now a celebrated architect, Rob Chandler initially chose his field by accident. In fact, it happened while getting his hands dirty.

Chandler, principal with Goody Clancy in Boston and lead architect for the RiverPark Place condo towers, was pursuing a bachelor’s degree at Colby College in the late 1970s. The lack of jobs available to English majors prompted him to start a small construction firm. An architect with whom Chandler worked on home building in New England encouraged him to look into design as a career, so he did, earning a master’s in architecture from Harvard University.

Today, Chandler provides design leadership across a wide spectrum of Goody Clancy’s academic, civic and residential projects. His work for colleges and universities includes the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University, Rawls Hall at the Krannert School of Management at Purdue University and the College of Informatics in Griffin Hall at Northern Kentucky University. His residential work features many award-winning housing developments in Massachusetts, notably the internationally acclaimed Tent City, with its 269 units of affordable housing in Boston. He also has designed all of the homes he has owned since college.

Chandler said that academic and residential styles “reinforce each other, although they are very different in use. Academic buildings are made of different size pieces — they have auditoriums and offices. They are not repetitive, they are singular or one off.

“Great housing takes advantage of the fact that there are multiple small pieces that build up into a larger pattern,” he added. “There is so much promise in housing to shape cities.”

Urban housing is particularly exciting to Chandler. He said it connects places, shapes outdoor spaces and creates gathering places for people.

“It’s not simply creating objects in the landscape, but it’s part of a larger system that makes streets compelling places to be,” he said. “The great thing about urban housing is that it builds outdoor spaces that people love to occupy, and it lines them with active public uses on the ground floor.”

Chandler and the team at Good Clancy are known for transforming cities, and he said he was eager to use his expertise in urban housing to help transform Louisville’s downtown. “RiverPark is a destination that will reinforce the city’s investment in Waterfront Park. It’s going to build a community. Once it’s complete, it will be a neighborhood of its own with strong, memorable qualities that many of the other neighborhoods in the city have.”

Chandler was first introduced to Louisville when RiverPark’s lead architect, K. Norman Berry, brought Goody Clancy in on the project. Chandler is charged with designing the high-rise residential buildings at RiverPark Place, while Berry focuses on the low-rise structures. Chandler is currently in the process of designing the larger buildings’ core systems, character, appearance and building materials, and he’s excited to present the newest renderings in late April.

Chandler said he sees RiverPark as a chance to contribute to a development of comparable quality to the awarding-winning projects he designed earlier in his career. He also is thrilled to take part in the revitalization of downtown housing.

“I think Louisville needs even more people downtown,” he said. “There seems to be a larger number of young college graduates migrating to the city, and I think that’s going to continue to contribute to making it a vital place. Having housing and destinations like RiverPark are going to make the city an even more desirable and dynamic place for people who are young and starting their lives.”

When asked what his favorite elements of RiverPark are, Chandler said he couldn’t choose just one.

“I think the Plaza is going to be a great space,” he said. “I’d love to live in one of the units that are higher up because they are all going to have wonderful views. I also love the experience of moving up and down River Shore Drive, which visually connects to the river. You guys probably take it for granted, but we don’t have rivers of that scale in New England. It’s really beautiful and engaging.”

Chandler added that the marina, the paths on both the river level and plaza level, further connect residents and visitors to the Ohio, which he believes is a fundamental part of the RiverPark experience.

Density is a key element to the success of RiverPark, Chandler said. “By having the density, there are resources available to build public spaces, take advantage of the riverfront location. When you build that many units, you can also afford to build high-quality, open space and high-quality destinations that invite everyone onto the site.”

The high-rise buildings are large enough to accommodate retail, restaurants and other public-use components that will distinguish the development and make it truly an active, urban environment, Chandler added.

Through his work on RiverPark, Chandler said he has come to love Louisville. “Louisville has a great scale. I love walking around on Main Street — there are some great new developments there. 21c is a fun place; NuLu is really intriguing. Louisville has a really accessible social space for someone coming from outside. You walk up and down the streets and feel at home.”

Chandler said he has been especially impressed with Waterfront Park. “Louisville has a great park system that distinguishes it from a lot of other American cities. It has taken advantage of what was once an industrial waterfront and made it a central part of the experience of living there.”

RiverPark is simply a continuation of this great asset. “RiverPark isn’t a park itself, but it carries some of those same characteristics. It’s public, you can walk through it, it focuses on views to the river, and not just for the people who live there. It’s such a great spot … connected to the park, within walking distance from downtown, with those great views of the bridges looking out over the skyline. It’s really a distinctive and memorable public space.”

The people behind RiverPark Place – The EdgeWater architect – Insider Louisville.

Big Four Bridge the source of fun and expectations

Posted on December 29, 2014

Bridge-joggers-650
For years, while driving by that lopped-off end of the Big Four Bridge, 53 feet off the ground, it was hard to imagine how that rusting “bridge to nowhere” could become a recreational treasure.

Yet “good things come to those who wait, and wait, and wait,” David Karem, president of the Louisville Waterfront Development Corp., said when the completed pedestrian walkway across the Ohio River finally opened in May 2014.

The $41 million project was part of the 13-acre Phase III of Louisville’s waterfront redevelopment plan. Though the half-mile circular ramp to the bridge on the Louisville side opened in February 2014, there was no way down on the Indiana side until more than a year later.

Bridge-ramp-walkers-650 Since then, more than 1 million people have hoofed it from one state to another across the bridge.

Now, like Cincinnati’s “Purple People Bridge,” which allows people to park in the northern Kentucky side and walk to games at its riverfront stadiums, Louisville’s Big Four offers a similar function.

To many people though, walking the bridge is the destination itself. On warm summer evenings, it can be packed with gawkers at the boats along the river and the changing colors as the sun dips from the sky.

“It’s very egalitarian,” says Joan Ross, who lives at the RiverPark Place apartments. “You see old people, you see teenagers, you kind of see everybody. You can walk there and watch the sun set.”

Going to dinner across the bridge – the half-mile span has a quarter-mile ramp on each end, making crossing the bridge a two-mile walk by itself – involves about 8,000 steps on her Fitbit step counter. And it’s right in their back yard.

They like to take their bikes across and connect up with the Ohio River Greenway on the Indiana side.

“That’s one of the great things about it,” says Joan’s husband, Ralph. “You don’t have to put your bikes on the car to go there, then afterward put the bikes back on the car.”

Like many dog lovers, though, they lament that a few irresponsible pet owners led the city to ban dogs from the bridge. And new signs aim to help bicyclists and pedestrians better co-exist.

Bridge-lights-650 The bridge has been a boon to existing businesses on the Jeffersonville side, such as Ann’s by the River and Schimpff’s Confectionery, but also bring in new ones such as Red Yeti Brewing Co. and Flat 12 Bierwerks. Jeff’s $3 million marina project, expected to be completed by next October, could bring in more day-trippers.

Though the bridge has been a boon to local businesses, Jeffersonville has been dealing with issues of its own since the bridge opened, including concerns about pedestrian safety, accessibility for residents and businesses and a perceived lack of parking.

With Tumbleweed closed on the Lousiville side and the restaurant planned at RiverPark Place yet to be built, there are fewer dining options for foot traffic coming from Indiana.

“Unfortunately, we haven’t seen that [positive effect] on this side of the river because of the Bridges Project effectively cutting Nulu off from Waterfront Park and the walking traffic that the bridge has generated,” says Rick Murphy, vice president of the Nulu Business Association, the East Market Street business district.

The association hopes that will change with completion of the Bridges Project, which should coincide with the completion of the Nulu streetscape improvement project.

“In anticipation of that, we have discussed ways to encourage people to include Nulu in visits to Waterfront Park and the Big Four Bridge,” he said.

There have been discussions about possible shuttles operating on weekends and the new bike-share program planned for next year that will place racks at the bridge, in Nulu and downtown.

InsiderLouisville

Riverfront condo model open — for tower not yet built

Posted on October 27, 2014

By Braden Lammers, Louisville Business First, October 24, 2014

Poe Companies LLC has come up with a clever way to draw interest in its riverfront condominium tower that is not expected to be under construction until early next year. At the company’s office on River Road, Poe Companies officials have set up a model of what a fifth-floor, two-bedroom condo will look like in the 16-story EdgeWater at RiverPark Place tower.

Read the full story here

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