LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The Starks Building has stood tall in downtown Louisville for more than 100 years, one of the city's centers of bustling commerce. And though the COVID-19 pandemic and 2020 riots cleared the historic building out, it could soon get the green light to shine again.

Jeff Underhill is behind the planned resurgence, years into a project he hopes will inject life into a building that once stood as a shopping destination. In fact, he bought an engagement ring there years ago.

"For Louisville, Kentucky, this was the center of commerce for decades," Underhill said. "My dentist was in here. My barber was in here. I used to go to Rodes or Schupp and Snyder to buy a suit when I was going to prom."

The 14-story Starks Building was initially built in 1913 in the shape of an "L" at the corner of Muhammad Ali Boulevard and 4th Street. The office building was a hub of activity for downtown. Then, in the 1920s, another wing was added to the building to create a rectangle with an atrium in the center.

It was also a hub of office activity in downtown Louisville, but, in the early-2000s, it became more difficult to find tenants to lease space in the building. The death knell came in 2020, when the pandemic moved workers across the country out of traditional office spaces, and the last remaining tenant in the Starks Building, Eddie Merlot's, was ransacked during the riots in response to the shooting death of Breonna Taylor. After the restaurant was looted that night in May 2020, it never reopened.

Underhill said a developer from out of town showed interest about seven years ago in turning the building into a hotel, but those plans fell through.

"This is truly a perfect canvas to begin a new episode and a new lease on life," Underhill said.

In 2021, Underhill outlined plans to redevelop the building into a mixed-use property. He said it had already invested "a significant amount of money" into transforming the building into 264 apartments, commercial tenants and art studios. 

"It's a landmark, a fantastic building," Underhill said back then. "It's built of high design, and it's the center of our city. It's unfortunately sat vacant for too long, and we need to breathe life into downtown."

So Underhill is leading the effort to turn the building on the National Register of Historic Places into a haven for artists, similar to successful renovations in other cities, including the Arcade Building in downtown St. Louis.

"We toured three of these projects in St. Louis, (and) they all have waiting lists," Underhill said. "In Minneapolis and St. Paul, we've gone through a number of these projects. All had waiting lists."

Underhill said the Starks Building is perfect for their vision. Natural light would shine down from the huge skylight for the artists' workshops, with creative space included with rent on the second floor. And the public would be invited in monthly.

"The focus of this project is going to be on the local arts community," Underhill said in January 2021. "We have great arts here, but it’s scattered all around. We're creating a real destination for people to live and work, and we're giving the community a place to come and see it all."

The intent is to have studio, gallery and performance spaces available for local artists. Underhill said it will be very inclusive and provide space for not just the visual arts but also for performance arts, culinary arts and more.

"They attract lots of visitors," he said. "Their art, which previously may go largely unseen to the public in a garage or in a basement somewhere, is out here on full display."

He expects it to be a $100 million project, but there are hurdles still to clear. For the historic building — full of its own artistic features — to rise from the ashes, it will need approval from the Kentucky Housing Corporation to bring all the financing together. That could come as soon as next month, which would mean the rebirth of Starks starting with construction next year and tenants starting to move in by 2027.

"The new Starks artists lofts will be 24 hours, and it will create a vibrancy here every day of the week," Underhill said.

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