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Address 732 E Market St, Louisville, KY 40202, USA Hours Open today · 10AM–5PMMonday10AM–5PMTuesday10AM–5PMWednesday10AM–5PMThursday10AM–5PMFriday10AM–5PMSaturday10AM–5PMSundayClosedSuggest an edit Similar KMAC Museum, Carnegie Center for Art & Hist, Speed Art Museum, 21c Museum Hotels, Clifton Center Profiles | ||
The Green Building is a building located in the East Market District (NuLu) of Louisville, Kentucky. It is Louisville's first commercial Platinum LEED certified building, and Kentucky's first Platinum LEED adaptive reuse structure. The building, designed by Los Angeles architecture firm (fer) studio, was awarded Platinum certification in 2010. Design principals, Doug Pierson and Chris Mercier, are both former senior project architects with Frank Gehry's Los Angeles office, Gehry Partners LLP.
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The building is home to a contemporary art space (The Green Building Gallery), multiple event rooms, offices, the headquarters for sonaBLAST! Records and Holland Brown Books, and La Coop, a street-facing café. It has hosted many influential Kentucky organizations, individuals and events since first opening its doors in the fall of 2008, breathing life back into the city's East Market District (a federally classified distressed area).
History
In 1774 the area that is now NuLu, and home of The Green Building, was part of a 1,000-acre (4.0 km2) Royal land grant to Col. William Preston of Virginia for his service in the French and Indian War. Preston's son, Maj. William Preston inherited the property and moved from Virginia to Louisville in 1815. In 1827, the city of Louisville annexed the property, known at the time as 'Uptown', that now includes NuLu as well as the Phoenix Hill and Butchertown neighborhoods.
The neighborhood since 1885 has been home to a variety of establishments, including bakeries, magistrates' and constables' offices, saloons, an apothecary, grocers, tailors, a jewelry store, the Great Western Tea & Coffee Co., and others. The building's first commercial use, between 1890 and 1893, was as a dry goods store operating under the name Sternau's Dry Goods. It would remain so for more than half a century. After Sternau's closed, the building housed a mill supply between 1950 and 1955 and a Goodwill between 1956 and 1977. In the 1970s the area saw a stark increase in vacancies, including 732 E. Market which was either used for storage or simply sat idle. The area would remain downtrodden until its recent renaissance.
Rehabilitation of the 114-year-old building began in 2007, after Gill Holland and Augusta Brown Holland purchased it with the intent of rescuing it from decades of misuse. The project included resuscitating the structural masonry shell and infusing it with a modern core, including a 40-foot (12 m)-high lobby, expansive natural lighting, eco-friendly materials, and renewable energy systems.