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Dept of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement
A federal agency is planning to build a $4.15 million headquarters building on an empty lot between Seventh and Eighth streets in the block just north of Broadway.
Plans for the two-story building with 19,000 square feet of space have been filed with the Metro Department of Planning and Design Services on behalf of the federal Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office. The busy office is now housed in the Gene Snyder U.S. Courthouse and Custom House, which fronts on Broadway, on the other side of Seventh. Homeland Security officials couldn’t be reached for comment on why the new building is needed.
The new building will face Seventh Street and is proposed on 1.3 acres on the north portion of the now-vacant former Broadway Chevrolet property.
The car dealership was razed in 2003, and the property has been vacant since. Part of the site was used by the Grocers Biscuit Co. in the early 1900s.
The primary entry to the site will be off Eighth, with a secondary access off Seventh. The design includes a 20-foot high concrete colonnade wall that will connect to the building’s front and run along the south side of the lot eastward and then run north along Seventh. The site includes extensive open space that will be available for public use, according to the plan.
The plan for the project is scheduled to be reviewed Feb. 24 at 8:30 a.m. by a group called the Downtown Development Review Overlay Committee. Dave Marchal, a metro planning staff adviser to the committee, said it doesn’t appear that the project poses any major design questions.
The property is owned by JKY Holdings of Columbus, Ohio. JDL Castle Corp. of Winston-Salem, N.C., has a contract to buy the property and build the immigration and customs structure, said Bill Bardenewerper, JDL’s Louisville zoning attorney. JDL will then lease the building to the General Services Administration, the federal government’s landlord, for the use of the Homeland Security operation.
The project designer is RBA Group Architecture and Interiors of Charlotte, N.C. A letter to Planning & Design Services from Bardenwerper said the new building will “mimic” the materials, color and texture of the nearby Snyder building, which has a limestone exterior. Parking for 57 vehicles will be located along Eighth Street at the rear of the site.
JDL said in an e-mail that it will pay property taxes, despite the lease to a government agency. JDL said construction could begin around April.
Abogados February 7, 2010 06:54 AM | Preguntas Para Abogados
