By Melissa Moody
In a building that has been left vacant and condemned for the past 10 years, Rob McGoodwin, president of the McGoodwin Company, sees a lot of potential. He believes he can breathe life back into the building and “celebrate the beauty of industrial design” by incorporating it into the revitalization of downtown Louisville.
The Lexington real estate development firm signed a 99-year lease with the University of Louisville to renovate and restore the Reynolds Building into upscale residential condominiums. The Reynolds Building, currently better equipped for roosting pigeons than people, sits on a 2.4-acre lot at the intersection of Third Street and Eastern Parkway, adjacent to the Belknap campus.
The Reynolds Building housed classrooms, office space and storage for the university until the early 1990s, when it was officially condemned. U of L has been waiting for a person with the imagination and resources to envision a new use for the historic building.
The Reynolds Building, built in 1915 is one of two buildings in Louisville designed by industrial designer and renowned Detroit architect Albert Kahn. Kahn was commissioned by Henry Ford to help expand the production of the Model T. He selected Louisville as the fourth place in the country out of about 29 eventual sites to create a remote assembly plant.
When Ford moved to southwestern Louisville to expand, he sold the building to Reynolds Metals, the creators of Reynolds Wrap, which was also expanding its operations in Louisville. During World War II, Reynolds used the plant to manufacture aluminum airplane parts. The building was given to the university in 1958 when Reynolds moved its sales headquarters to Virginia. The university actively used the space until a lack of funds to bring the building into compliance with safety code led to its abandonment.
“The Reynolds Building restoration is part of a larger project to revitalize the neighborhood around the Belknap campus,” said Denise Fitzpatrick, director of Communications at U of L. “This is a good way for U of L to do something with the building.”
The McGoodwin Company will be paying $1.25 million for the lease and will spend more than $7 million in renovations. Fitzpatrick said the project was too expensive for U of L, so the Board of Trustees authorized U of L President James Ramsey to release a request for proposals in November 2003. They received about eight proposals, and after an evaluation, the McGoodwin Company was selected, both for the financial return to the university and for their desire to restore the building to its original early-20th-century industrial design.
The condominiums, scheduled to be completed by the end of 2006, are being targeted to faculty and staff at U of L, offering them an opportunity to reduce their commute time. While the United States only accounts for 5 percent of the world’s population, it consumes 35 percent of the transportation energy. That imbalance is at the heart of McGoodwin’s development philosophy of urban renewal and his desire to preserve historic and natural sites.
The McGoodwin Company, a member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, hopes to add the Reynolds Building to the National Register of Historic Places. The complex will be a part of the urban renewal of Louisville, a move toward reviving industrial and abandoned properties in the downtown area as a thriving part of the community.
However, the projected cost of between $105,000 and $225,000 to buy a condo in the building may be more than university faculty and staff are willing, or can afford, to pay. An unscientific poll of members of the staff senate revealed that an overwhelming majority of staff at U of L find the condos out of their price range.
“I would love to live close to the university. I currently commute from the Shelbyville Road area, and the savings in gasoline would be great as well as saving time and energy in commuting. However, the price range is a little steep, and that would have to be a major consideration,” stated Carol Davis, a university staff member in the graduate school.
But the Reynolds condos will not only be available to faculty and staff, McGoodwin said. “The target market is anyone looking for a cool, urban place to live,” he said.
With a push for the university to gather top researchers from around the U.S., residential housing close to the school’s campuses may encourage those prospects.”The Reynolds Building can be used as a recruitment tool for researchers and research assistants nation-wide,” Fitzpatrick said.
With 12 people already on the waiting list, McGoodwin doesn’t foresee any difficulties in finding inhabitants to replace the pigeons.
