The Starks Building is a landmark 14-story building on Fourth Street and Muhammad Ali Boulevard in
Downtown Louisville
Downtown Louisville is the largest central business district in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the urban hub of the Louisville, Kentucky Metropolitan Area. Its boundaries are the Ohio River to the north, Hancock Street to the east, York and Jaco ...
,
Kentucky
Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...
, USA. It was built in 1913 on a site that had been the First Christian Church of Louisville. It was commissioned by local businessman John Starks Rodes and designed by the
Daniel Burnham
Daniel Hudson Burnham (September 4, 1846 – June 1, 1912) was an American architect and urban designer. A proponent of the '' Beaux-Arts'' movement, he may have been, "the most successful power broker the American architectural profession has ...
firm of Chicago. It is tall (62 m).
The Starks Building was added to the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...
in 1985.
It was built in the
Chicago School of architecture with
Beaux Arts details. Cream-colored bricks are one of its signature features. It is decorated with classical motifs, including
acanthus leaves, lion's heads and urns. It was originally a "U" shaped structure, but a 1926 addition designed by the firm
Graham, Anderson, Probst & White
Graham, Anderson, Probst & White (GAP&W) was a Chicago architectural firm that was founded in 1912 as Graham, Burnham & Co. This firm was the successor to D. H. Burnham & Co. through Daniel Burnham's surviving partner, Ernest R. Graham, and Burnh ...
added a new wing to create a rectangular shape with a central sunlight well. At the bottom of the central atrium was a courtyard, and until 1984 it was covered with a
Plexiglas
Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) belongs to a group of materials called engineering plastics. It is a transparent thermoplastic. PMMA is also known as acrylic, acrylic glass, as well as by the trade names and brands Crylux, Plexiglas, Acrylite ...
skylight.
In 1953, the building was renovated to add a parking garage - the first in the city - to the building. The 700+ space garage was built on an adjoining lot and fronts Third Street. The Starks Building is mixed use, with retail, dining and office space. When it was sold in 1997 the building included about of leasable space.
In the 1990s and 2000s the owners had trouble finding tenants, with over half of the space vacant in 2006.
Notable long-time tenants include the ''Colonnade Cafeteria'', ''Seng Jewelers'' and ''Rodes Men's and Women's Clothing''. Current tenants include the
Business First of Louisville news publication,
FoodCare, a startup that relocated its headquarters to Louisville from San Francisco in April 2012, and Mediaura, a highly successful digital agency. Colonnade Cafeteria moved into the Starks Building basement in 1926 and remained until 2006.
Rodes Clothing, founded by the building's financier John Starks Rodes himself, was located in the building from 1914 until the company relocated to the suburbs in 2004.
It was owned by the Starks family until the mid-1980s when it was sold to an investment group, which resold the building in 1997 to
Empire State Collateral
An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...
. Empire State defaulted on the mortgage and ownership was taken over by
Allstate in 2004. It was listed as the 11th largest office complex in Louisville in 2004 by the newspaper ''
Business First
American City Business Journals, Inc. (ACBJ) is an American newspaper publisher based in Charlotte, North Carolina. ACBJ publishes The Business Journals, which contains local business news for 44 markets in the United States, Hemmings Motor New ...
''.
The building was sold again in 2006 to th
Hertz Investment Group Since the purchase in 2006, occupancy has risen to 71 percent, as of May 2010, Hertz Investment Group said. The Starks building signed a number of new tenants during 2009, including an Eddie Merlot's restaurant, part of a Fort Wayne, Ind.-based upscale steakhouse chain. With Eddie Merlot's, all the Starks street-level space has been leased.
It is connected by a skyway to
Fourth Street Live!
Fourth Street Live! is a entertainment and retail complex located on 4th Street, between Liberty and Muhammad Ali Boulevard, in Downtown Louisville, Kentucky. It is owned and was developed by the Cordish Company; it was designed by Louisville arch ...
, an entertainment mall adjacent on the North side. On July 2, 2007, the
Cordish Company, developers of Fourth Street Live!, announced that it would expand the mall southward by leasing the first floor (street-level) of the Starks Building.
The Baltimore-based developer has since abandoned plans to develop of vacant street-level space in the Starks Building.
References
External links
Starks Building adding high-floor apartments in historic office building -- May 2010Starks building page with floorplans and photosStarks Directory - lists tenants within the building
{{National Register of Historic Places
Commercial buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Kentucky
Chicago school architecture in Kentucky
Buildings and structures completed in 1913
Skyscraper office buildings in Louisville, Kentucky
1913 establishments in Kentucky
National Register of Historic Places in Louisville, Kentucky