Access Louisville

What does 2022 hold for Louisville? On this week's Access Louisville podcast a full crew of Louisville Business First staffers give predictions for the year. We take on a full range of topics: What will happen with Downtown office buildings, what new stores might come to town, what new restaurants might open and even what will become of specific projects such as the Starks Building and One Pa...

Was 2021 predictable? In some ways, yeah. Last year around this time the Access Louisville podcast crew made several predictions about what 2021 had in store. On this week's show we go back and talk about what we got right and what we got wrong. In some cases the predictions were spot on. For instance, LBF Editor Shea Van Hoy somehow correctly predicted that Muhammad Ali Airport would get a f...

Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport has finally added a flight to Boston . The new flight starts in June from American Airlines. Reporter Michael L. Jones joins this episode of the Access Louisville podcast to talk about the announcement. It caps off what has been a big year for the airport in terms of adding flights. We also talk about the reopening of a staple Louisville music venue ,...

The news cycle belonged to University of Louisville this week, with President Neeli Bendapudi and Athletic Director Vince Tyra both announcing they’re leaving.  Plenty has been said about it (here’s a reaction story about Bendapudi’s announcement. ) We can’t help but pile on a little more commentary on the situation for the podcast this week. Later in the show we talk about restaurant news includi...

JK McKnight, founder of Forecastle, a long-running music, art and activism festival in Louisville, joins the Access Louisville podcast this week. McKnight has a new venture : Art of Impact, which is focused on reaching Millennials and Gen Z audiences through experiential marketing. We talk about how this agency does that as well as which brands fit the best. We also chat about music festivals in g...

We’ve got another classic Access Louisville restaurant roundup this week. Reporters Michael L. Jones and Eleanor Tolbert join us to talk about several food stories (many of them related to pizza.) • Tony Impellizari is retiring after 42 years • Square Cut Pizza opens in Shelby Park • LaRosa’s is coming to town . • A new generation takes over at Anne’s Café After the restaurant, discussion we talk...

Downtown Louisville is getting something new: Dream Hotel. Details of this facility just dropped and we discuss it on this week's episode of the Access Louisville podcast. A key point to consider here is the size of the hotel: 168 rooms. That's not as big as the Omni, Marriott Downtown or Galt House. But it is larger than some of the boutique style hotels we've seen popping up aroun...

Social media has impacted American culture in a lot of ways — for better or worse. On this week’s Access Louisville podcast, we talk to Brad Luttrell, co-founder and CEO of Louisville-based GoWild, which operates a social media platform focused on hunting, fishing and outdoors.  We cover a lot on the show — how he started, how he’s raising money and so on. But a big piece of our discussion is focu...

One of Louisville's biggest industries — health care — is going through dramatic changes of late. That's a key discussion for us on this week's Access Louisville podcast. The biggest headline we have in this realm is the anticipated launch of ScionHealth .  This company is expected to be launched and headquartered in Louisville following LifePoint Health's acquisition of Kindre...

Startups are an odd thing. On the one hand, they're often small, sometimes micro, businesses — not yet changing the world. But on the other hand, it's fascinating  to watch a founder put so much on the line for an idea they believe in. On the Access Louisville podcast this week, we chat about a couple of Louisville area startups that we're watching with great interest. The first is...

There's much to talk about on this week's Access Louisville. We chat about the new One Park North development being proposed in the Highlands. A restaurant in the area that's closing if it isn't sold. And the latest political news.   Access Louisville is a weekly podcast from Louisville Business First. It's available on popular podcast services.

A  former church in Louisville's Clifton neighborhood is being redeveloped into office space. We chat about the transition and who's behind it on this week's Access Louisville podcast. It's an interesting project ( photos here ) and it gets us chatting about the future of office space. Will office towers be less useful post-pandemic as smaller spaces that require less commitmen...

There's plenty going on in Louisville's restaurant scene of late. On this week's episode of the Access Louisville podcast, reporter Eleanor Tolbert joins us to talk about several recent stories. Against the Grain, a well-known brewer in Louisville, is opening a sandwich shop . There's something new moving into the former Pesto's spot in Downtown Louisville. And Decca is re...

The Kroger Co. is getting a little more competition in Louisville with Publix entering the market. Louisville Business First reported that the Florida-based grocery store chain is moving into East Louisville earlier this week.  LBF reporter Ellie Tolbert joins the Access Louisville podcast to talk about where exactly the store is going and who is bringing it to town. She also tells us about breakf...

In a football game, is it usually better to go for it on 4th and short? Or is punting the safer bet It actually depends on a lot of different factors and the situation, of course. But making that decision correctly, in a specific situation, is one thing that Louisville tech company EdjSports strives to help teams do. The company provides data and analytics to improve decision making in sports. Thi...

Metro Louisville is growing. But which counties in the area are growing the fastest? We chat about that on this week's episode of the Access Louisville podcast. It's undoubtable that the city has seen a lot of people move into the urban core with neighborhoods like Germantown and Butchertown becoming hot places to live during the last 10 years. But new U.S. Census numbers show us that th...

We talk about economic development taking place on Louisville's South End on this week's Access Louisville podcast. A major piece of this is the recently redeveloped Colonial Gardens, which offers a bit of restaurant variety to the area.  Future development at Jefferson Riverport International is another big piece. After that we talk about some of Louisville's most overlooked neighb...

The pandemic is back on an upswing and so is ire over wearing masks. Sigh. This again, eh? We chat about both on the Access Louisville podcast this week, specifically on the news of a new mask mandate for schools and childcare settings from Gov. Andy Beshear. (That new mandate is being challenged in court by Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron.) We switch gears in the second half of the show...

Louisville Business First just released its annual Best Places to Work publication , ranking local employers based on employee feedback. This year's program is especially interesting in light of the fact that expectations about work have changed so much in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. We chat about what makes a great workplace and how our expectations have changed on this week's Ac...

Fans of hard seltzer in Louisville will have a new place to go as a craft seltzery is in the works in NuLu. We talk about the concept, which is new to this market, on the Access Louisville podcast. Craft beer has been all the rage these last twenty years or so. On the show we talk about whether craft seltzer will have the same success in the market. Later in the show, we talk about a West Louisvil...

We talk about the growing local bourbon scene on this week's Access Louisville podcast. Angel's Envy Distillery, located on East Main Street, just released renderings for an $8.5 million expansion project. We also just got a look at Brough Bros. new distillery in the Park Hill neighborhood.  This is a small but significant new development, being as it's Kentucky's first Black-o...

We chat more about the Louisville mayor's race on this week's Access Louisville podcast, particularly in terms of fundraising. Early reports are in and one candidate, former 21C Hotels CEO Craig Greenberg, has surged ahead of others in the Democratic field with the support of some well-known names in the business community. The numbers are interesting, with Greenberg raising 30 times mor...

These days it seems a lot of executives are looking for something new. We talk about that on this week's Access Louisville podcast. Louisville Business First reporter Chris Larson joins the show to talk about several recent executive changes at Louisville area organizations, including Humana Inc. , the Humana Foundation , Hosparus and Fund For The Arts . After that we talk about a new flight...

There were three big acquisitions in the last week and we talk about them all on this week's Access Louisville podcast. We don't know the dollar figures on these deals but it seems likely that national long-term acute care player Kindred Healthcare was the largest .  This last week also saw the sale of Liquor Barn , a popular Kentucky retailer;  and LEO Weekly , a small but still a well-...

You'll get the latest on Louisville's ever changing restaurant scene on this week's Access Louisville podcast. Reporter Haley Cawthon joins the show to tell us about recent restaurant changes, including one of several new Cajun seafood restaurants, the return of Wiltshire on Market and a high-profile retirement in the pizza business. After that, we have an update on the Louisville m...