City officials take long-term view on growth

LOUISVILLE ? As the city of Louisville has continued to evolve, both internal and external pressures are starting to change city leaders? attitudes and actions toward growth and development.

Louisville is facing a challenging and interesting time in its progress. As Broomfield, Superior and Erie have sprung to life in terms of retail growth, Louisville?s leadership is being forced into taking a far more proactive stance in attracting and retaining businesses. To help maintain sales tax income growth, the city has chosen to face its challenges head-on with several new efforts, including a new comprehensive plan, a business development and retention committee and extensive infrastructure improvements.

?The effects of regional growth are being felt in Louisville. It?s a very competitive market, especially for retail,? admitted City Manager William Simmons.

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The city?s comprehensive plan will provide recommendations for economic development as well as other critical areas of the city?s growth. In addition, Louisville?s business development committee has recently reviewed the results of a study by the University of Colorado?s business school, as well as a citizen survey, to generate ideas and plans to address the city?s economic and social needs.

?We are not going to emulate any other city, but we can?t sit back any longer and let nature take its course,? said Mayor Chuck Sisk. ?I?m concerned that Louisville has not had any major new sales-tax-generating businesses open in the past couple of years. That?s not to say that we haven?t had any new commercial establishments, but they?ve opened because other businesses have opened.?

While the city has recently lost some commercial businesses along McCaslin Boulevard, including Rite Aid, it has made progress in one of its chief goals: attracting large employers. McStain Neighborhoods, a major builder, recently relocated to Louisville, and Cable Television Laboratories Inc., a nonprofit research and development consortium, has opened a new facility as well.

City leaders are taking a much more long-term view toward planning and growth. The new version of the city?s comprehensive plan, which was last updated in 1989, will give developers a guideline for proceeding with commercial and retail projects.

Arlin Lehman, president of the Louisville Downtown Business Association, said there?s been an almost self-imposed moratorium on plans and projects coming forward because developers are waiting on the comprehensive plan to see what the city?s direction is going to be.

?Long-term and forward-thinking investors are seeing that this is a good place to get involved, but they are holding back until the comp plan is finished,? Lehman said.

Another area of concern is the revitalization of the area along Highway 42, which will tie the area east of the Burlington Northern railroad track together with the city?s historic downtown via a pedestrian and vehicular underpass. That redevelopment has been further fueled by the voter approval of the FasTracks measure last November. The addition of a rail station near South Street as early as 2012 could transform and further revitalize Louisville?s downtown area.
In the near future, the Louisville City Council will review the height limit imposed on buildings downtown.

There have been significant social and infrastructure improvements recently in Louisville as well. The city broke ground April 2 on a $7.3 million, 32,000-square-foot library. The current 13,400-square-foot library building, which carries a $1.85 million price tag, is already the subject of negotiations between two companies and will likely return to its original configuration, with retail on the first floor and office space on its upper levels.

The new State Mercantile building and new businesses such as the Fuzzy Antler antique store are helping to revitalize the downtown area, which has struggled over the past decade with store closings.

?A lot of citizens talk about how they like our downtown. It?s the highlight of the city, but they don?t realize what a struggle it has been to keep it alive,? said Lehman, who has been a leading organizer of the Downtown Business Association?s summer Street Faires, a $200,000 effort that has been instrumental in drawing new visitors to the area.

In addition, the city opened a new $3.2 million facility for its police department and municipal court in July, as well as a new $500,000 skateboard park west of its recreation center and a new community park at Bella Vista Drive.

Those infrastructure improvements put pressure on the city to generate more sales tax revenue to pay for them. Revenues for January 2005 totaled $758,657, a loss of about $17,500 from the income reported the previous January. Competition from new grocery stores in Erie and Superior is adding to the pressure to retain sales tax dollars in a region where consumers are not necessarily loyal to their hometown.

?People shop in more of a metropolitan mindset these days. That?s one of the issues that we are trying to address in the comp plan, because there are areas for commercial growth in Louisville. It?s a matter of determining what it?s going to take to attract new businesses,? Sisk said.
?I really don?t want to see the city get much larger. We have to ask ourselves how much more we can absorb and not change who we are.?