Fourth Street Live!

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The large Hard Rock Cafe sign greets visitors to Fourth Street Live!
The large Hard Rock Cafe sign greets visitors to Fourth Street Live!

Fourth Street Live! is an entertainment and retail district located on 4th Street, between Liberty and Muhammad Ali Boulevard, in downtown Louisville, Kentucky. It is owned and was developed by the Cordish Company. Fourth Street Live! first opened to the public on June 1, 2004, and all stores were finally completed for the grand opening on October 30, 2004. City planners hoped that the district would attract further commercial business development while providing an attractive entertainment venue for the city's hotel and tourist business as well as the local population.

Restaurants and entertainment venues in the complex include Hard Rock Cafe, Red Star Tavern, TGI Friday's, Sully's Irish Pub, Lucky Strike Lanes (bowling alley and restaurant) and the first-ever Maker's Mark Bourbon House & Lounge. Fourth Street Live! also has a wide variety of bars and nightclubs including Red Cheetah/Palm Bar dance club, Parrot Beach, Howl at the Moon, the Felt billiard lounge and Saddle Ridge.

A mall-style food court is also located in the complex with restaurants like Wendy's, Cold Stone Creamery, and Subway. There are also several retail stores such as Borders Books and Music, Fashion Shop, EB Games, Verizon, Cool Shades and others.

Traffic on 4th Street through the complex is generally closed, and there are occasionally large public gatherings such as music concerts and other events. Traffic is allowed to pass through the complex on occasion, however.

Many people crowd into the center during the frequent free concerts given by local and national performers.
Many people crowd into the center during the frequent free concerts given by local and national performers.

On February 16, 2007, the Louisville Convention & Visitors Bureau opened its new Visitor Information Center at the North entrance to Fourth Street Live. The center includes two permanent exhibits, where visitors can learn about the stories of two of Kentucky's most famous icons: Kentucky Bourbon and Colonel Harland Sanders, founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken. The center will also supply information to outside passersby via a high-tech video wall that will run video on different cultural events and attractions.

[edit] Background

Fourth Street Live! began as a downtown revitalization project to redesign and modernize the former Louisville Galleria, a similar but unsuccessful project opened in the early 1980s with the same goals of revitalizing downtown. The Galleria, in turn, had been built on the site of the River City Mall, which opened in 1972, also with similar goals of revitalizing downtown. Fourth Street itself had long been the main shopping and entertainment destination in Downtown Louisville, and until the 1960s, all of Louisville and perhaps the entire state of Kentucky.[1]

[edit] Controversy

4th Street Live has attracted occasional controversy for its dress code policy enforcement. On August 4, 2006 a judge ordered two clubs to publish their dress code and apply it to "blacks and whites equally". Both clubs are operated by JP 4th St. Live LLC. The ruling came a day after two African Americans filed a lawsuit claiming they were denied entrance to the clubs in February because of their race.[2] A federal judge eventually overturned the order to post the dress code, and found no evidence of racial discrimination.[3]

In January 2007, Cordish tried to evict three nightclubs (Red Cheetah, Parrot Beach and the Palm Bar) from the center, all of which were owned by a financially-troubled New Jersey company, claiming nearly $400,000 in rent and other fees were owed to the landlord. The clubs were closed, but not replaced immediately.[4] On January 31, Business First of Louisville announced that a new high-end nightclub called Hotel would be coming to Fourth Street Live to fill the 10,000 square feet of space that will be vacated by Red Cheetah, Parrot Beach and Palm Bar.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Shafer, Sheldon. "It's Fourth Street", Courier-Journal, 2003-07-17.
  2. ^ Riley, Jason. "Clubs to post code on attire after suit", The Courier-Journal, 2006-08-04.
  3. ^ Halladay, Jessie. "Two clubs no longer must post dress code", The Courier-Journal, 2006-08-26.
  4. ^ Davis, Alex. "Nightclubs' legal battle drags on", The Courier-Journal, 2007-02-08.

[edit] External links


Malls in the Louisville, Kentucky area
Fourth Street Live! • Green Tree Mall • Jefferson Mall • Mall St. Matthews • Mid City Mall • Oxmoor Center • Park Place Mall • River Falls Mall • Bashford Manor Mall (defunct)
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