Young professionals key to downtown residential development

Posted on December 4, 2014

Cities are wooing young, educated professionals as a key to their downtown redevelopment plans.

“The young and the restless” is what a new report from think tank City Observatory calls these 25- to 34-year-olds with at least a bachelor’s degree.

The nation’s 51 biggest metro areas — all except Detroit — have gained young talent, either from net migration in or from new college graduates who stay, the report says.

“It’s a type of growth that feeds on itself — the more young workers you have, the more companies are interested in locating their operations in that area and the more young people are going to move there,” Enrico Moretti, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of “The New Geography of Jobs,” told The New York Times.

These young professionals, who tend to be unsettled in their jobs and relationships, are more likely than previous generations to choose to live in close-in urban neighborhoods.

They’re “looking for places that were interesting, diverse, dense, walkable, bikeable and well-served by transit,” the report states.

It’s a big demographic at the RiverPark Place apartments.

“We’re some of the only people here who don’t come home in scrubs,” renter Ralph Ross said, noting that many of his neighbors work in the downtown hospitals.

At the same time, developer Steve Poe said he’d been surprised by the 50-plus crowd’s interest in living downtown as well.

That’s a key demographic for the planned 13-story luxury condo tower at RiverPark Place.“They want to be down here where there’s energy and excitement,” he said. “One thing we know is that they don’t want to feel old.”

There’s a robust high-end rental market as well as the lower end, according to Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. It noted in its 2014 report that the highest-income households accounted for nearly as large a share (23 percent) in rental growth as lowest-income households.

In Nashville, considered one of the most successful cities in downtown revitalization, 32 percent of its downtown residents are age 33 and under; 29 percent 34-39; and 35 percent age 50-67, according to the Nashville Downtown Partnership’s annual survey.

Fifty-two percent of downtown residents polled have a college education and an additional 36 percent hold postgraduate degrees.

Seventy-eight percent of downtown households earn more than $60,000 a year; 47 percent earn more than $100,000, and 25 percent earn more $150,000. Three percent earn less than $20,000 annually.

At the same time, Greater Louisville Inc.’s economic strategy report Advantage Louisville, noted Louisville’s gains, but also its challenges. It noted that 25.5 percent of Louisville residents overall hold at least a bachelor’s degree, compared with the national average of 28.5 percent.

“Greater Louisville is at a significant disadvantage in terms of educational attainment relative to its competitors, but it is gaining ground and improving faster than the competition,” the report states.

“Without a strategic combination of more in-migration of educated adults and an amplified number of post-secondary graduates retained in the region, Greater Louisville will become increasingly less attractive for quality, skilled technical and professional jobs.”

And it noted comments such as this one from its survey respondents:

“I recently moved back home from Chicago and was unable to find any decent apartments for rent near downtown that weren’t either a studio or a penthouse. Options in between are needed for young professionals.”

InsiderLouisville

RiverPark Place residents enjoy the energy of living downtown

Posted on November 27, 2014

There’s an unending parade off the balcony at Ralph and Jane Ross’s home.

“We never get tired of it,” said Ralph, speaking of the constant barge traffic on the Ohio River. “It’s actually a wet interstate highway.”

The Rosses are among the renters living at RiverPark Place. Their two-bedroom apartment looks out across the site where the new condo tower and restaurant are to go in, the marina beyond and farther on, the river with tugboats maneuvering loads in both directions.

The Rosses say they have a terrific view for Thunder Over Louisville, and had a bird’s-eye view of the triathlon this year.

They moved to Louisville in January 2012 from Jacksonville, Fla., when Ralph took the job as district director for the Small Business Administration. They initially took a third-floor walkup apartment in The Highlands, but over time, the stairs became too much, they said.

“We wanted to live downtown,” Jane said. “We looked at all the properties, but there really wasn’t that much available.” But all the time they were living in The Highlands, she was riding her bike downtown and watching the Poe Companies’ development going up.

They had taken a beating on the sale of their Florida home and weren’t eager to dive into home ownership again with Ralph’s retirement not too far out of sight, so they opted to rent. They plan to retire in a home they own in Omaha, Neb.

Jane’s daughter’s family also has moved to Louisville, where she’s pursing a PhD at the University of Louisville. Jane drives her twin 2-year-old and 4-year-old grandchildren to school three times a week.

“They love to come to Grandma’s house and do bubbles off the balcony,” she said.

Married just three years, in Florida they had merged her 3,000-square-foot household and his 1,800-square-foot condo.

“We thought that was really downsizing,” Ralph said with a laugh. “The real issue here was whether we could live in a 1,000-square-foot apartment.”

But they’ve managed. Ralph had to give up his Barcalounger, but they’ve gained an uber-friendly Wheaten terrier named Izzy, who believes everyone in the park wants to pet her. It helps that they live in a park.

Though people think there’s no shopping nearby, the Crescent Hill Kroger and CVS on Brownsboro Road are only about a mile and a quarter away. “People don’t realize how close they are,” Jane said.

A planned Omni Hotel development that would include an upscale grocery store downtownreportedly is “on track,” though developers sought to delay a deadline associated with that project.

The Rosses moved in before the Big Four Bridge opened, though it has opened up an array of opportunities for them.

“It’s like the paseo in Madrid,” said Jane, who has traveled extensively in Europe. “People come out to walk the bridge. You see old people, you see teenagers, you kind of see everybody. You can walk there and watch the sun set.”

They love to walk across to the Indiana side for dinner – it’s about 8,000 steps on her Fitbit step counter, Jane said – and by the time you get back, you’ve walked off part of the calories!

They enjoyed being able to walk to a restaurant even when they lived in The Highlands.

“If we walk to a restaurant and share a bottle of wine between us with dinner, no one’s driving,” Ralph pointed out.

The Rosses also have bicycled extensively in Europe and enjoy taking their bikes across the bridge and connecting up with the Ohio River Greenway or taking the Beargrass Creek Trail to Cherokee Park.

During the recent Centennial Festival of Riverboats, they walked down to ride the Belle of Louisville. They joined hundreds, if not thousands in the Mayor’s Healthy Hometown bike ride to Iroquois Park.

“Louisville’s a town that has a fun public life,” Ralph said. “It’s a town that likes to do things together. People like to gather down on the river for any old reason at all.”

InsiderLouisville

Riverfront development grows as it feeds on its success

Posted on November 20, 2014

Projects to develop Louisville’s waterfront create excitement and community support that feeds upon itself, according to David Karem, president of the Waterfront Development Corp. (WDC).

“Once you get started, you need for people to be seeing something happening. You have to be very strategic in how those early dollars are spent,” he said.

The larger overall project started with the children’s play area, he said.

“You have to do these projects incrementally. You have to make it believable to people, and let them participate in some way.

Beyond the continuing apartment construction at RiverPark Place and planned 13-story condo tower, there’s more going on along the waterfront.

Botanical garden

The group behind plans to build a botanical garden in Louisville last week unveiled a master plan for the project.

The 23-acre garden is to be built at the intersection of Frankfort Avenue and River Road on reclaimed land that once was used as the Ohio Street Landfill.

The group, called Botanica, expects to spend the next two years raising the $35 million to $40 million it needs to construct the gardens. The following two years will be spent on constructing Phase 1, expected to cost $10 million.

The garden is expected to have a visitor’s center with a restaurant; a children’s garden with seed pod structures; an educational center for lectures and student visits; a steel-and-glass conservatory; and several specialty gardens.

Phase 4

WDC in July submitted to the Metro Council a master plan for continued development of the waterfront west of the Belle of Louisville’s dock.

WDC worked with MKSK Design on the plan, which so far has not been funded, Karem said.

Development of the 22-acre site, between 9th and 13^th streets, would extend the park to the Portland neighborhood. The master plan calls for commemorating the first fort in the area, Karem said, and creates what WCD calls “exercapes” – areas planned for physical activities – plus even a Ferris wheel. Extending River Road to Rowan Street would be vital to the project, Karem said.

The projected $35 million cost, as with the waterfront’s first three phases, would have to be cobbled together from a variety of sources. State, federal and city funds paid for the first three phases – as well as nearly $40 million in private donations, Karem said.

Tumbleweed restaurant site

It will be up to Tumbleweed’s landlord, Waterweed LLC, to find a new tenant for the restaurant at 1201 River Rd. after its eviction case, Karem said. Waterweed then will have to present the new tenant to WDC’s board, which does have some stipulations. It requires, for instance, that it be a full-service restaurant open at least six days a week with bar service.

Events

Louisville’s waterfront events continue to be one of its great success stories, Karem said, pointing to its recent Centennial Festival of Riverboats, Forecastle and others. This yearForecastle attracted 70,000 people for the three-day music festival, and will return in 2015 on July 17-19.

“Once we get our events established, we want to make sure we maintain quality,” he said. “And anyone who ever says that a park is finished is out of their mind.”

Karem will be on hand to discuss ongoing developments at the waterfront this afternoon, Nov. 20, for Thursdays at RiverPark Place, 4:30-6:30 p.m., at Poe Companies’ offices, 1250 River Rd. Appetizers, beer and wine will be served.

InsiderLouisville

Local restaurateur sold on opening new place at RiverPark Place

Posted on November 13, 2014

Come next summer, diners and just hanger-outers will have a new hangout down on the river.

The folks who brought Doc Crow’s to Whiskey Row and La Coop in Nulu– and just opened Union Common in Nashville – plan to open a 12,000-square-foot restaurant as part of the RiverPark Place project.

“This one will be about beer,” said investor and attorney Chip Hamm, though he professes to not know the details of the as-yet-unnamed restaurant’s food concept. Doc Crow’s was about whiskey and bourbon, he explained, and La Coop about wine. “But they don’t let me anywhere near the kitchen.”

He’s referring to his partners in the renamed Falls City Hospitality Group — Michael and Steven Ton, who broughtBasa to Frankfort Avenue, master sommelier Brett Davis and chef Bobby Benjamin.

Steven Ton previously told Insider Louisville the waterfront restaurant will be a “sports-friendly concept with about 120 beers on tap, wines on tap, maybe even cocktails on tap.”

He described it as roadhouse type of food – buckets of seafood and burgers – sort of like the chain Yard House, but better. (Its menu includes burgers, street tacos, along with deviled eggs and turkey pot pie.)

Hamm admits he had his doubts when it was first suggested he meet with developer Steve Poe.

“Frankly, I thought it was a dumb idea,” he said of plans for the waterfront restaurant. He said initially they considered putting a bar in the historic house to be restored on the property, but have since decided on the new building whose foundation is going in now. The new restaurant will be at least twice the size of Doc Crow’s.

“The reason I pooh-poohed it in the first place was that I thought, ‘Who in the world is going to be down there?’ Then when I did the due diligence, when I did some research – when I say research, I mean I’ll just go sit in the car for some amount of time and look at traffic counts, watch people – where they’re going, where they’re coming from, who’s going to the bridge, who’s going to the restaurants. There were just a lot more people than I expected,” he said.

“There was one particular event, for the marina, and there must have been 400 people there. It was a marina event on a Wednesday when the weather was not that great. So what would happen on a summer day when the weather’s nice and you’ve got a lot more infrastructure built? That was even before the bridge opened ….

“I wasn’t sold initially, and I’m completely sold now,” he said.

The partners developed plans with the idea that their new restaurant would be a complement to the waterfront restaurant offerings, including the nearby Tumbleweed, though that restaurant is closing Saturday, Nov. 15, after a rent dispute with its landlords, the Waterfront Development Corp. and Waterweed LLC, which are looking for a new restaurant tenant for that site.

He said from his own experience, he believes people will spend more time on the waterfront if there are more amenities there.

“A lot of times when people are picking a restaurant, they pick an area, not just a destination. They’ll say, ‘Let’s go to NuLu’ or ‘Let’s go to Frankfort Avenue.’ They make a decision once they get there. They don’t necessarily pick it when they leave the house,” Hamm said.

Hamm will join Insider Louisville and discuss the new restaurant this week at Thursdays at RiverPark Place, 4:30-6:30 p.m., at Poe Companies’ offices, 1250 River Rd. Appetizers, beer and wine will be served.

InsiderLouisville

Urban living a growing trend in Louisville

Posted on November 6, 2014

Louisville made Forbes’ list of cities with emerging downtowns, and USA Today readers named it among the best American riverfronts. Yet those redevelopment projects were a long time in coming. Meanwhile, neighboring cities have been forging a parallel path to wooing both their own residents and visitors to cleaner, safer, more livable downtowns.

Here’s a glimpse at what our neighbor cities have been up to:

Nashville

“Nashville is the hottest Southern city now for young people. It’s all about transportation, connectivity, bike lanes …” says John Gilderbloom, a professor at the University of Louisville and director of its Center for Sustainable Urban Neighborhoods.

It’s on a lot of Top 10 lists, including the Milken Institute’s America’s Best Performing Cities, .Mic’s“15 Cities for Creative 20-Somethings (that aren’t New York or Los Angeles)” – Louisville made that list, too – and MSN Real Estate’s “10 Most Popular Cities for Millennials.

A big factor in the city’s popularity is its strong economy – it wasn’t hit as hard in the economic downturn as many others, according to Craig Owensby, public information officer in the city’s planning office.

“Nashville isn’t a smokestack economy,” he explained. “It’s an entertainment, education and healthcare town.”

Another big factor was the 2010 switch in downtown zoning to form-based code, which regulates how buildings look and fit in with others more than merely a traditional land-use approach. It places a premium on being pedestrian-friendly.

“You used to go down to the entertainment district in the middle of the afternoon, and there’d be no one around. Now there’s people there at all hours, with shops and restaurants,” he said.

Developers can’t build residential units fast enough, even with $720 million invested in residential development since 2000.

Rents keep rising with occupancy rates at 98 percent for the past three years. Though an additional 1,606 units are expected to come on the market by 2017, that won’t be enough to keep up with demand, according to a report from Nashville Downtown Partnership.

The city is pressing for an express bus system that would go through downtown, but that project faces opposition and the incumbent mayor has passed it on to his successor.

Indianapolis

Indianapolis ranks among the cities that have gained more people in the less than four years since the 2010 Census than for the entire previous decade.

More than 3,100 apartment units have been added in downtown Indianapolis in the past five years. That represents an 87 percent increase and a $400 million investment. About 3,600 new units are slated to be added by the end of 2017.

An 8-mile urban bike and pedestrian path called the Indianapolis Cultural Trail opened in 2013 linking downtown neighborhoods.

Indianapolis ranked sixth among 12 peer cities in a 2014 report on economic indicators from the University of Cincinnati Institute for Policy Research and the Northern Kentucky University Center for Economic Analysis and Development. That report, which looked at indicators such as net migration, cost of living, venture capital and educated workforce, ranked Cincinnati 9^th and Louisville in last place. Nashville was not on the list.

Cincinnati

Young adults ages 19 to 35 are flocking to downtown Cincinnati, according to real estate firm CBRE.

It reports that the population in Cincinnati’s central business district (CBD), Over-the-Rhine and Pendleton neighborhoods has grown by 150 percent in the past 15 years, while median household incomes in the CBD have increased 204 percent. The number of residents with a Bachelor’s degree or higher is up 123 percent in the past decade.

Downtown Cincinnati Inc. reports $491 million in completed projects in the past year, $566 million in projects under construction — including 618 residential units — and $382 million in proposed projects. With a reported 8,777 residential units, its inventory far outpaces that of Louisville, Nashville or Indianapolis.

It’s won praise for The Banks, an 18-acre entertainment district anchored by stadiums of Cincinnati’s two major sports teams, The Reds and the Bengals. The completed Phase 1 includes 300 luxury apartments that are fully leased plus 97,000 square feet of retail. The ongoing annual economic impact of Phase 1 has been calculated at $91 million in Cincinnati and Hamilton County.

Work has begun on Phase 2, which will add nearly 300 more apartments and 20,000 square feet of retail space. And GE announced this summer plans to locate its global operations center at The Banks in an office building for up to 2,000 workers.

Meanwhile, in Over-the-Rhine, a 19^th-century neighborhood just north of downtown, 103 historic buildings are being restored, adding 466 new and rehabilitated residential units to the market.

The indoor Findlay Market provides a nearby food source for the area and a $133 million streetcar project, projected to be completed in 2016, will connect Over-The-Rhine, the central business district and The Banks in a 3.6-mile loop. A downtown bike-sharing service also launched in September.

Back to Louisville

Sources:

Louisville Downtown Partnership; Downtown Indy; Downtown Cincinnati Inc.; Nashville Downtown Partnership

The bright spot in the aforementioned report on economic indicators ranked Louisville No. 2 behind Columbus in cost of living. While Insider Louisville has detailed some of the difficulties of developing residential properties downtown, including too few luxury units to meet demand, downtown living can pay off for renters.

Louisville is among the cities in which downtown rents are growing more slowly — about 3 percent or less — than in the suburbs, according to market research firm Axiometrics. Indeed, in October, the average rent in Louisville’s central business district was $866, compared with $884 in the city overall, according to rentjungle.com.

And projects such as RiverPark Place will be among the those filling that demand for luxury condo properties.

If you’d like to look out at those river views from the full-size, two-bedroom unit model, join Insider Louisville for Thursdays at RiverPark Place, at Poe Companies’ offices, 1250 River Rd., where speakers active in the project will be on hand at events on Nov. 13 and 20.

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

RiverPark Place continues rising, turning dreams and plans into reality

Posted on October 23, 2014

So far, the waterfront project RiverPark Place has a lot in common with the Panama Canal, the Eiffel Tower and the Coliseum in Rome.

“We’ve been at this for a decade, and it will take another decade before we’re done,” says developer Steve Poe of the 40-acre, $1 billion-plus commercial/residential enterprise designed as part of Louisville’s waterfront revitalization.

(Actually, the aforementioned landmark construction projects were completed in 10 years. At 20 years, the project would be on par with the Great Pyramid of Giza.)

Yet like those earlier landmark construction projects, RiverPark Place promises to vastly alter the landscape and life in the surrounding area.

With the first 167 apartments completed and fully occupied, the second 160 units are expected to be available as soon as Dec. 1. Now Poe’s ready to begin construction on a 16-story condo tower.

It’s been a long slog for the project, and Poe says he’s been fortunate his company has been able to keep at it.

Poe’s real estate development company submitted the winning design for high-density housing outlined in a 2004 RFP for the project to connect Eva Bandman Park with the green space and recreational land of Waterfront Park.

Even then, the waterfront was being reclaimed from its industrial past and years of neglect but had yet to become the green space of today, or that which is continuing to evolve.

Poe said he went into the project assured that all the necessary permits were in order for the planned marina and housing. Not so, he found out. Nevertheless, they broke ground on the project in 2007, began installing infrastructure and pre-selling condos.

“We knew it would take 10 to 15 years to complete this project, and we planned for some bit of downturn during that time, but I didn’t anticipate having to stop before we’d even started,” he said, referring to what many refer to as “The Great Recession.”

Nevertheless, he said, “I had about 16 million reasons not to quit.”

By 2008, that’s the dollars he had invested in infrastructure and permitting for the site, without yet erecting any buildings. With financing drying up in the softening economy, Poe decided to mothball the project. At the time, he already had collected $38 million in deposits on condos and marina slips.

Years passed. Work finally resumed on the project in 2011 as the economy picked up and federal and state tax credits paved the way. The $10 million 150-slip marina was completed in May 2012, and the first phase of RiverPark Apartments was completed in May 2013. The next phase – most units are less than 1,000 square feet and rent for less than $1,000 a month – are being leased now.

Overall, the project is expected to provide 2,500 housing units, along with ground-level commercial space for several restaurants, shops and offices. A 12,000-square-foot restaurant (run by the same folks that manage Doc Crow’s) is due to open next summer.

To find out more about the project and tour a model condo unit, join Insider Louisville for Thursdays at RiverPark Place, 4:30-6:30 p.m. on Oct. 30. Appetizers, beer and wine will be served. You can register for the free event here.

Steve Poe will be on hand to meet and talk about the history of the project and the amenities of the new urban community. Thursdays at RiverPark Place will continue on Nov. 6, 13 and 20 at Poe Companies’ offices, 1250 River Road, from 4:30-6:30.

InsiderLouisville

News

Tag Archives: riverpark place

Young professionals key to downtown residential development

Posted on December 4, 2014

RiverPark Place residents enjoy the energy of living downtown

Posted on November 27, 2014

Riverfront development grows as it feeds on its success

Posted on November 20, 2014

Local restaurateur sold on opening new place at RiverPark Place

Posted on November 13, 2014

Urban living a growing trend in Louisville

Posted on November 6, 2014

Riverfront condo model open — for tower not yet built

Posted on October 27, 2014

RiverPark Place continues rising, turning dreams and plans into reality

Posted on October 23, 2014