UofL to move graduate business program to Museum Plaza
Business First of Louisville
1/30/2008

By John Karman

The University of Louisville has finally selected a downtown site for its graduate school programs, and it will be Museum Plaza.

U of L officials were scheduled to make a formal announcement about the decision during a news conference this afternoon at the Museum Plaza sales office, 707 W. Main St.

The university is creating a new entity, the Center for Graduate and Executive Education, which will lease space in the top five floors of four buildings between 615 and 621 W. Main St.

The center will be accessed from a ground-level Main Street entrance or from a new, elevated plaza on the river-side face of the building.

The project will cost $15 million and will be financed by individual and corporate contributions, including a major gift from National City Bank, according to a news release.

Center will have space for corporate use

The four buildings are part of Museum Plaza, the 62-story, $490 million commercial, cultural and residential development planned for the block bounded by West Main Street, River Road and Sixth and Seventh streets.

The U of L College of Business will use about 40,000 square feet for faculty and staff offices, tiered classrooms, student lounges and study rooms.

The center will include facilities for non-degree executive education courses and conference and seminar spaces for corporate use.

Financial terms of the lease agreement were not disclosed.

Business school Dean Charles Moyer could not immediately be reached for comment on the university's decision.

In the news release, he said the college's graduate programs "are growing, and we simply need more space."

"There's no place more exciting than downtown Louisville to create a new learning environment for working professionals," Moyer said in the release. "With our focus on entrepreneurship, this will allow our students and faculty to interact with business leaders on every level."

U of L issued RFP in July

U of L issued a request for proposals in July, seeking at least 30,000 square feet that it could lease in or near the central business district to house the graduate programs, which currently are held on the university's Belknap Campus.

There were seven respondents.

Museum Plaza was deemed the "most appropriate" site for the graduate programs, according to the news release. Those programs are U of L's "professional MBA," a two-year offering for working professionals; its entrepreneurial MBA and its master's degree in accountancy.

Undergraduate programs will remain on the Belknap Campus.

Fine arts program already coming to Museum Plaza

U of L already has announced plans to move its master of fine arts program to Museum Plaza, which is scheduled to be finished in late 2010.

The complex also will include an art museum, residential condominiums, office space, a hotel and retail and entertainment outlets.

The investors in Museum Plaza are husband and wife Steve Wilson and Laura Lee Brown, local developer Steve Poe and Louisville attorney Craig Greenberg.

Dean considered several downtown sites

Moyer, who took the dean's post at U of L in January 2005 after leading the business school at Wake Forest University, has been an advocate of moving the college's graduate programs downtown nearly since his arrival.

He considered deals to lease space near the Louisville Medical Center on the former Haymarket property, located in the block bounded by Jefferson, Floyd, Market and Preston streets, and in the Hilliard Lyons Center at Fourth Street and Muhammad Ali Boulevard.

Neither deal came to fruition for a variety of reasons.

Moyer also floated the idea of building a free-standing, 40,000-square-foot to 60,000-square-foot complex somewhere on the eastern edge of the 104-block central business district. That project didn't prove feasible.