Fourth Street Live! is a 350,000-square-foot (33,000 m2)[1]entertainment and retail complex located on 4th Street, between Liberty and Muhammad Ali Boulevard, in DowntownLouisville, Kentucky. It is owned and was developed by the Cordish Company; it was designed by Louisville architects, Bravura Corporation. Fourth Street Live! first opened to the public on June 1, 2004, and all stores were 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.
Traffic on 4th Street through the complex is closed and covered for large public gatherings such as music concerts and other events.
History
Background
A huge guitar-shaped Hard Rock Cafe sign greeted visitors to Fourth Street Live! until the restaurant's closure in 2021.
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 1973, also with similar goals of revitalizing downtown. Fourth Street itself had long been the main shopping and entertainment destination in Downtown Louisville.[2][3][4][5]
The idea of turning Fourth Street into a pedestrian mall actually dates back to 1943, when mayor Wilson W. Wyatt suggested the idea. Proposals were drafted over the years but funding for the $1.5 million River City Mall project was not secured until 1971. The mall originally stretched all the way from Liberty to Broadway, and was initially successful, but over the years vehicular traffic was slowly reintroduced and the mall scaled back.[4][6]
Tenant changes
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 new center totals nearly 3,000 square feet (280 m2), and 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.
Expansion
On May 8, 2017, the Cordish Company announced that it will expand the district with the addition of Spark Louisville, a new collaborative workspace coming in 2018.[needs update][7]
