November 18, 2002

The historic business district in downtown Louisville is home to Glassworks, a one-of-a-kind, 165,000-square-foot project in which retail, commercial and residential space surrounds a working center dedicated to the art of glass.

Located in the historic Snead Manufacturing Building, Glassworks combines glassmaking studios, galleries and New York city-style loft apartments. It serves as a residence for some of the world's finest glass artisans — Greg Fleischaker, Mark Payton and Brooke White, among them — as an art education facility, and as a community center offering unusual space for meetings and receptions.

Guided tours of Glassworks take visitors through two floors of working glass studios and open areas to observe glass blowers, flameworkers, cutters and designers as they create unique pieces of art and architecture. From the mezzanine, visitors view the glassmaking process from beginning to end — from the molten glass being removed from 2,000-degree furnaces, to its molding and shaping into finished works. Also on display in the Architectural Glass Art, Inc. space are examples of glass in structural applications, including modern stained glass windows.

The Marta Hewett Gallery, an important element of Glassworks, hosts seven rotating exhibitions each year and is known for introducing the work of the most innovative national and international glass artists.

Glassworks' $13 million project total consists of a $7.5 million first mortgage, a $554,000 secondary mortgage provided by the city's Downtown Housing Fund, and $5 million in equity and historic tax credits. Glassworks was the first development to receive financing from the Downtown Housing Fund following its creation; the bank providing the project's primary financing is one of the investors in the Housing Fund and learned of Glassworks through the Fund.

Glassworks' 45,000 square-feet of residential space has been fully occupied and the project is expanding, with Phase II adding condominium living space and Phase III adding rental and condominium units, retail and commercial space, and hotel accommodations.

Because Glassworks brings the complete array of artistic glass working techniques under one roof, it represents an attractive educational resource for Louisville's students. The Glassworks Educational Department offers experiences ranging from a week-long urban art camp for students entering grades six through nine, to one-hour field trips designed to show how physics, mathematics, science and art are blended in the glass creations of the resident artists and craftspeople.

The Glassworks Foundation, the non-profit arm of the Glassworks project, focuses on public education and on the career development of both emerging and established artists. The Foundation provides funding for scholarships, fellowships, visiting artists, lectures, classes and workshops. Plans include the creation of a center where diverse glass artists and artisans will learn from one another by working together.

Downtown Housing Fund

The Downtown Housing Fund which provided Glassworks' secondary mortgage was created two years ago by the city's Downtown Development Corporation (DDC) and Mayor David Armstrong to serve as a catalyst in the development of a strong downtown housing market. It is a public-private investment partnership administered through a for-profit private subsidiary of the DDC. Initially, the public side of the Fund was a $2.36 million appropriation by the city; the private side was an investment of $2.7 million by a group of 14 local banks and corporations that had been pulled together by the DDC.

When the Fund moved from plan to reality, Mayor Armstrong announced that conversion to market-rate housing would be a priority for all available downtown property controlled by the city, and the DDC conducted a market study to determine the type of housing, unit mix and target demographics that would make for a successful housing effort.

With the city's contributions to the Fund pooled at zero interest, and the private contributions made available at one percent below the development's primary financing, the for-profit vehicle created by the Fund to review and process developers' loan applications was in a position to make secondary loans to qualified borrowers at well below commercial interest rates — and it did. The record shows that the Fund quickly accomplished its first and most important goal, that of increasing the "comfort level" of both financial institutions and developers with the notion of market-rate housing in downtown Louisville. From its inception, the Fund entertained proposals for projects — some old ones previously considered non-financeable, and some new ones drRecently, the Fund was recapitalized with an additional $2.4 million in public and private funds, bringing the total to nearly $7.5 million, and making many more projects possible.

Recently, the Fund was recapitalized with an additional $2.4 million in public and private funds, bringing the total to nearly $7.5 million, and making many more projects possible.

Mayor Armstrong is pleased that in the two years since the Fund was introduced there has been a 25 percent increase in downtown market-rate units. Some of the 230 new units are high-end condominiums, some are lofts — the first to be built downtown — and some are small, creative conversions of existing properties. An additional 700 units — some relying on the Fund for financial help, others with their own financing — are at various stages of planning and development.

The International Downtown Association recently gave the Fund its national award for economic development excellence, and Partners for Livable Communities has given the Fund its Bridge Builder Award in recognition of the unique public-private partnership that has been created.