Why Louisville Will Be Great

Disclosure:

Most of my blog posts are usually pretty random in nature - short bursts of thought based on a topic that is trending around our city at a given time.  This entry, however, has been much more thought out and contemplated than any other.  The premise, as broad as it might sound, came to me in an epiphany-type moment, and its doctrine is something I am trying to spread to as many people as possible.

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Why Louisville Will Be Great

A friend of mine once described Louisville as a sort of suitcase town for young people:  Hundreds of children with great ambitions grow up here and leave for college, ultimately landing in one of our country’s great cities (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, D.C.) where they spend their 20’s climbing the corporate ladder until they eventually get tired of their toil and return to Louisville to marry and have children in their middle-aged years.  “If we could only keep those kids here after college,” he’d lament, “we’d really start to be something.”

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the vibe around this town is changing.  The aura of mediocrity and stagnation is starting to be swept away and we actually are progressing – a word many people might not understand around here considering it took 50 years to decide on an east end bridge and 30 years to merge our city and county governments.  And while currently most of this progress has been driven from the top there is a new wave of enthusiasm coming down the proverbial pipeline as a perfect storm is taking place locally.

With the recent decline in the economy, and the subsequent lack of new jobs being available to recent college graduates, many more individuals who previously would have moved to much larger cities after their schooling are now returning to Louisville to start their adult lives.  This has created a swell of young people who are educated, hungry for success, and eager to make their own way in life.  What’s interesting, though, is that Louisville currently doesn’t have the capacity to employ all of these people so many of them are literally having to find their own path – via startups, self-employment, and the chasing of dreams.  The result of all this has been a generation of kids who all grew up together, went their separate ways during college, and have now recongregated to begin their lives in the city that they love.  This has created an undergrowth, beneath the large influxes that the Mayor’s office has generated, that is spawning and searching for greatness.  What’s awesome is that, since Louisville could probably be considered the largest small town in the country, everyone knows everybody and we see each other constantly, creating a type of synergy that this city has not have experienced since the 1920’s and 30’s.  And Louisville is the benefactor.  This synergy has only been aided by the fact that this is the age of technology and Louisville’s young people are a mobile and energized group who will get behind any and every cause they deem worthy, with organizations like YPAL, The Bachelors Club, GLOW, and Junior League leading the charge.  And with social media accelerating the flow of ideas and thoughts, people around town are meeting and interacting like never before.  Gone are the days of having to use cocktail parties and other social gatherings for the purposes of networking.  You now can meet someone and know their entire life story in a matter of minutes using Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.  In fact, my company recently hired someone who we found on linkedin by simply doing a search of our competitors and messaging anyone we thought we might have a connection to.  This type of job search would have taken several months 10 years ago, but it lasted about 2 weeks given the technologically advanced climate we currently find ourselves in.  On any given night around town I can talk to a friend about their personal training business, their new boutique clothing shop, or the climate of corporate lending at area banks.  For any given need that I have in business and in life I know a person I can go to immediately an get it taken care of.  Any idea that I have that I think could be successful or meaningful, I know a person I can talk to about bringing it to fruition.  That’s not just me either, that’s anyone who’s a young, engaged, and interested business person around the city, and our ranks are growing!  These interactions will only continue to grow and become more meaningful over the coming decades as we all progress and become executives, leading entrepreneurs, and nationally renowned in our fields.  Imagine the topics of discussion that will enhance our city in 10-20 years when our conversations occur in City Hall or a board room on Main Street, as opposed to Molly Malones or Heine Brothers .  That’s when we will really make strides, and THAT’S why Louisville will be great!

The foundation has already begun to be laid too.  With the approval and ground breaking of the Ohio River Bridges Project, the completion of the KFC Yum! Center, and the revitalization of Downtown we have shown the naysayers and doubters that “YES!” we can get things accomplished.  We had our doldrums of the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s, but this is a new era.  No longer are the old aristocratic powers in charge.  No longer will the many be controlled by the desires of the few.  That is what held Louisville back.  Organizations like River Fields, which uses environmental servitude as its guise to stall advancement in the east end, and people such as Barry Bingham who, for all his good, used his newspaper to control the thoughts of the local population, will no longer be tolerated and they will be eradicated.  The new wave of Louisville’s power brokers will be progressive, tolerant, and hell bent on seeing the city succeed, not just focused on their own interests because what our forefathers somehow missed is that the city’s success is everyone’s success and when the pot gets bigger your slice of the pie will as well!

Louisville’s future is bright and full of potential.  In the coming decades we WILL have light rail, we WILL have an NBA team, we WILL be recognized for our greatness.  These days we think it’s so cool that we get mentioned in a magazine as being the “Best Town For Men” or “A Top Weekend Getaway” – why can’t that be the norm?  I don’t know about you, but I think we’re BETTER than Indianapolis.  I think we’re BETTER than St. Louis.  And I think we’re BETTER than Cincinnati.  It’s time we realize our full potential and begin achieving it.  For the past several years the Mayor’s office, GLI, and the local tourism boards have branded Louisville as “The Possibility City” as a way to lure outsiders.  But that should really be the message to our own constituency!  It is possible for us to compete with the who’s who of cities in the south because we have more to offer and, at our core, are much more progressive.  This new wave of Louisvillians are out to prove that, and I can’t wait to be a part of it.

The day is coming when Louisville will be great again and it's because you and I want it to be.  The train is leaving, folks, and I hope you're on it because Louisville will once again be Major League.

Louisville's Rotting Asset

Kentucky Kingdom has been closed since the summer of 2009, and  it is unclear if it will ever reopen.

There's an age-old question that many people ask when considering the assets they own: how do you really value it?  Some things, such as cars or other durable goods, are sure to depreciate and are at their peak value the day they are purchased.  Other items, such as homes, jewelry, and fine art, can appreciate and gain  enormous amounts of value through either time-based valuation or a large increase in demand caused by an incident in time.  But another category of goods is tougher to pin down, and those goods are things that are only really valuable if they are being used to generate some type of intrinsic worth; and when they aren't in use, these items are simply losing value and being a drain on resources.  Such is the case for the theme park formerly known as Kentucky Kingdom.  Like the ice cream machine you bought back in '93 when you thought you were going to hit it big in the gelato business, but is now dust-covered in the garage, unless the theme park is open and generating revenue then it is essentially a worthless use of some very prized real estate at the Kentucky Fair and Expo Center.  And it is absolutely dumbfounding that no government agencies have stepped up the plate to ensure it resumes business in the near future.

Consider this:  in the winter of 2010 when the Kingdom officially closed its gates it was reported that over 1,000 part-time summer jobs, 55 full-time positions, and an estimated 10,000 hotel stays would be lost annually.  Not to mention the millions of dollars of taxable revenue generated from cotton candy and stuffed animal sales.  On top of that, the fair board alone lost nearly $2 million in now unpaid rent and parking fees that the park brought into their coffers every summer.

The unfortunate part of the entire situation is that it was something that could have potentially been avoided.  Being mired in a large corporate bankruptcy, Kentucky Kingdom's operator and parent company, Six Flags, simply decided to pull the plug and cease operations at the park.  Leaving behind in its wake 58-acres of roller coasters and thrill rides that offer no benefit to the city if they aren't in use.  Twice now independent investors have attempted to purchase the park and restore it to some semblance of its previous glory, but these attempts have been futile at best.  Original owner Ed Hart tried to purchase the park with the help of some tax forgiveness and commercial loans from the State of Kentucky, the City of Louisville, and the Fair Board.  This deal ultimately fell through when tough economic conditions and shrinking municipal budgets caused those lending options to fall through.  And this past spring the owners of Indiana's Holiday World attempted to reclaim a portion of the park - saying the major roller coasters such as the Vampire, T2, and Thunder Run were too far in disrepair to make them feasible for re-opening.  This deal ultimately fell through when the Koch Family claimed the Fair Board was being too short-sighted in its lease agreement, and felt there would be nearly no way to make the project profitable.

So where does this leave us?  Mayor Greg Fischer has repeatedly said that it's his goal to continually be growing the economic base of our community, and has shown as much in his efforts to expand the presence of both Ford and GE here locally.  So why not reach out to try and lure an investor for this park locally?  Or approve a corporate-friendly tax package that would make a deal worth doing for Ed Hart or another local fan?  With 1,000 part-time jobs literally sitting dormant on the sidelines, what better way to jump start the local economy?  If you figure those jobs pay minimum wage at 20 hours a week for a seasonal six-month period that equates to over $300,000 annually in payroll tax alone that the city is losing out on, not to mention the other, probably, $200K lost without the park's full-time staff.  In total, there is an asset worth  near $500 million in annual economic impact (this is not an official statistic) that is simply being left to rot.  And each that passes by the memories of gleeful children frolicking, hundreds of teenagers celebrating a weekend at Day Five Alive, and throngs of adults soaking up rays in the lazy river simply fade into oblivion.  All while the thoughts of what could have been continue to mount as Louisville loses yet another piece of itself in the puzzle of what could make it great.