Courier Journal - March 5, 1998, By Bill Pike
A large home-supply store and two smaller businesses will be built on the site of Waller Environmental School on Dixie Highway if THP Development Co. gets its way.
The Louisville-Jefferson County Planning commission is scheduled to review THP’s plans for the property at a public hearing at 1 p.m. today at the Old Jail Building, 514 W. Liberty St. THP has asked for a zoning change from R-4 single-family residential to C-2 commercial on the school’s 19 acres at 6601 Dixie Highway just north of Dixie Manor shopping center.
After the commission makes a recommendation, Jefferson Fiscal Court will make the final decision on the rezoning.
Benton Seay, a partner with THP, declined to identify the home-supply store, but said its name will probably come up during the hearing. “We don’t want to say yet who they are,” he said. “We want to be protective of them.”
He did say plans call for the store to occupy a 125,000 square foot building. Plans also call for two small buildings closer to Dixie Highway. “We don’t know the uses for those out-lots yet,” he said. “It could be a restaurant, a bank or a shop.”
Frank Collesano, executive director for facilities and transportation for the Jefferson County schools, said Waller will move between June and September. “It depends on the renovation schedule at Williams,” he said. “We’ll know on May 15 when we’ll move.” (Williams is vacant because students and staff moved last month to the new Farnsley Middle School, at Cane Run Road and Lees Lane.)
Seay said construction of the stores should take eight or nine months. The project will cost the developers more than $10 million, he said.
The commission is also scheduled to vote – but not hold a hearing – on two controversial proposals.
The first is the so-called village ordinance, which would create a new zoning category for “villages,” which would provide zoning for large-scale developments with shops, offices, stores and homes arranged in a traditional village pattern. Supporters say villages would mean a new suburbia with a greater feeling of community and less dependence on automobiles. Critics say villages would be just a new kind of urban sprawl.
The board is also scheduled to vote on the five-acre commercial phase of Gardiner Park, at Shelbyville Road and Flat Rock Road. Some residents opposed the project at earlier hearings.