Well, I think Jo should be speaking about this more than I should, however, the whole Galleria thing is removing her father of a job. He owns the little Chinese restaurant there, Wok'n'stix (I probably spelled it wrong) and they're essentially (again, she knows the details better than I) not offering rent to them anymore and getting rid of the food court to be replaced by the Hard Rock. And why? Because Louisville wants to have more business in the city? Kick out the little guys and let in the big ones?
First of all, Hard Rock's aren't that great. The food is normal. It's nothing outstanding at all. Second of all, the only people that go to Hard Rocks (or, let's be more honest, the only people that SHOULD go to hard rocks) are tourists. You don't find anyone in a city like Chicago, Atlanta, or New York deciding that the way they'd like to spend their Friday night is by going to a Hard Rock. Now, granted, I haven't been to a Hard Rock in a while, and I'll maybe go once if my parents decide to go, just to see what our Louisville Hard Rock looks like, but you won't see me sporting around a Hard Rock Louisville shirt. Last, I think the Galleria is a terrible place to put a restaurant such as that. In my experience with the cities I've seen Hard Rocks in, they're usually pretty high capacity. The Galleria has NO parking at all. The location itself is terrible. Most Hard Rocks don't have their own parking, of course, however I think that Hard Rock won't get much advertising (unless their plan is to put up a neon side on the side of the Galleria like "Hard Rock inside").
Anyway, I could see the ESPN Sportzone being a little cooler. I've never seen one, but the idea seems slightly (note, slightly) less touristy. Here's the thing about Louisville. We're too bent on becoming a big city. Most people don't realize this, but we have an insane number of incredibly awesome restaurants in this city. Most attend Bellarmine, and then don't leave the city and open up a restaurant. My mom went to Bellarmine for one week (long story) and it's basically one of the best culinary schools in the US. However, these restaurants aren't chain, and they aren't cheap, and also they're in overabundance, and therefore they compete and a lot go under, simply opening up for new restaurants to do the same. I don't think a hard rock or an ESPN zone that we need.
Louisville's problem is precisely as Brian stated it. There's nothing downtown. Louisville is very spread out across all of Jefferson County, and now with the merger that's only going to worsen things. The best that the city can do is open up some more bars and clubs and such downtown to attract more people to go downtown. Some stadiums might be nice, I know merger was supposed to maybe get us a pro team, and they actually became decent that would certainly help even more. It's basically just that we have no population, and thus it's hard to attract a small amount of people downtown, plus there's certainly a limit on space downtown. Where would we put new stadiums? It's all tricky business. Same thing for shopping, you can't just lay down a Macy's or a shopping mall or anything.
I guess the question was more what would we want in Louisville to attract us downtown. I think that more bars would do, however, Louisville's other problem is that it's lacking that entire "I'm going to go walk around downtown" vibe. Maybe it's because the streets are all a mess, and they're dirty, and you've got large multilaners getting in the way like Broadway or Main. There's just something about Louisville that says y'know, I'd prefer to drive around the city, as opposed to when I lived in Chicago or recently visited Atlanta, there was just something about them that said "I'm going to walk everywhere." Maybe part of that is that there were enough bars, shopping establishments, eating establishments and so forth all densely within a centralized area as opposed to Louisville where things just SEEM so spread out. You drive down major city streets and usually you see bars, shops, restaurants, what have you, whereas you drive down Louisville's downtown streets and you're looking at houses, car shops, body shops, hardware stores, or random office buildings that most of the time are empty.
I don't know, that's my incredibly LONG, and EXTREMELY random rambling about Louisville.
S.
What Spork says about space in downtown L-ville is true. Indy's solution was to basically remodel the bottom floor (street level) of almost all the buildings and make them into the restaurants, clubs, etc. all while keeping the businesses downtown. The businesses above street level also foot the bill for most of the building, so retail, retaurants, and clubs can grow while under less pressure from high rent.
Most of the chain restaurants in downtown Indy have forgone their typical look to have representation there. The Buca di Beppo looks like nothing, except for a sign on the front. Up above it is all lawyer's offices, etc. The restaurant has a charm missing from the one here in Louisville- big suburban chain-designed structure.
I agree with Spork. Louisivlle is trying to put itself on the map as a big city and is expanding faster that it is growing. What Louisville is doing now reminds me of the Roman Empire (a bit of a stretch by let me explain). They had a good stretch of prosperity where no other civilization could touch them. They expanded their territory so much that they began to collapse in on themselves. Anyone else see the connection? Downtown Louisville is undeniably centered on big business and nothing else. And as PrinterAisleBoy said how Indy made downtown more attractive by addind stores on the street level, I see the opposite taking effect in Louisville.
Currently, Second street is being worked on to expand it to make it easier for rush hour traffic. New office buildings are in the drawing board with much groundbreaking ot take place in 2003.
As for me, I would like to see downtown Louisville more like Barstown Rd. With many little walk-in shops and stores. Throw in a few clubs and other night life attractions, maybe a few stadiums or the such, and I would seriously consider spending more time downtown than when I'm down here working at 1st and Liberty. Thats my opinion anyway.
-- Bigg Dawg