LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – Rabbit Hole Spirits now owns the entire block surrounding its Phoenix Hill distillery and plans an expansion with office, retail and hospitality space and “ancillary distillery operations,” according to documents filed Monday with Metro government.
The whiskey company is seeking a zoning change for seven of its properties, a move intended to allow safer deliveries at the distillery at 711 E. Jefferson Street by creating a truck unloading area at Jefferson and S. Clay streets. The other proposed new uses would happen on the block’s eastern edge.
A pre-zoning application says the truck delivery improvements would happen first, followed by the other projects. It does not provide more detail or an anticipated timeline.
Kaveh Zamanian, founder of Rabbit Hole Distillery, declined to comment in a brief phone interview Monday. He said he would give a reporter's information to a company representative, who has not yet contacted WDRB News.
Rabbit Hole Spirits spent $10.6 million starting last June to purchase the rest of the block bounded by Jefferson, Clay and Shelby streets and Nanny Goat Strut, Jefferson County property records show.
Among those properties is a building formerly owned by Re:Center Ministries, which has operated a day center for homeless women and their children there. Re:Center sold the property for $2.95 million last November.
Cory Bledsoe, Re:Center’s executive director, did not immediately respond to email and voicemail messages Monday afternoon.
Rabbit Hole opened in 2018. The following year it sold a majority stake in the distillery to Pernod Ricard USA.
Zamanian also is partnering with the Austin, Texas-based Bunkhouse Group in the 122-room, $31 million Hotel Genevieve planned to open this spring at 730 E. Market. The hotel is expected to open before the Kentucky Derby, said Stephen Wendell, CEO of developer Mountain Shore Properties of West Virginia.
This story may be updated.
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