Full-service hotel coming to the Highlands in spring of 2023

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Bardstown Road is home to bars, restaurants and plenty of shopping.

But there's one thing missing in the Highlands — a full-service hotel.

That will change in the spring of 2023 when a 65-room boutique hotel opens at the corner of Baxter Avenue and Breckinridge Street. The developer is Weyland Ventures, who acquired the building just before the pandemic began.

Craig Pishotti, the COO for Weyland Ventures Hospitality, says 900 Baxter Avenue was once home to a phone company and a disco ball factory. He says the bar in the front will be called Switchboard.

Exterior rendering of Baxter Avenue hotel — Outside rendering of the new full-service hotel coming to the Highlands in 2023.

There'll also be an indoor-outdoor restaurant, Paseo, which connects to a second bar. Along Baxter Avenue, there will also be a retail shop.

"Buy the most beautiful bar kits, tables, you'll get the recipe card for the drink you just had," Pishotti said.

Some rooms will have a view that faces toward the middle, where you can see an industrial sculpture Pishotti says was a dust collector for the disco ball factory.

In front of the sculpture is an outdoor saltwater pool. He says there will be two firepits that will be lit at night.

"So at sundown, the fires start. Fire and water, to me, has always been magic," Pishotti said.

This will actually be the second hotel to open in the Highlands since 2021. The location is just less than a mile from the Bellwether, a 20-room hotel that does not have a front desk.

"It's gonna be quirky, it's gonna be fun, it's gonna be a little gritty so I think it'll fit in pretty well with the aura that is that area," Weyland Ventures CEO Mariah Gratz said.

Hotel under construction — Inside the new full-service hotel coming to the Highlands in 2023.

Despite the hundreds of AirBnB's, Gratz sees a need for a full-service hotel in the neighborhood. She hopes it will lift up nearby businesses and attract new ones.

"The more people you have on the street, the more people you have spending money in an area, the more it's going to spur additional development," Gratz said.

"It's a sign really that our city, our neighborhood, the Highlands, Bardstown Road, it's all coming back and it's coming back stronger than ever," Metro Councilwoman Cassie Chambers Armstrong (D-8) said.