"From a city working to brand itself as a place where anything's possible, Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson is now looking to join with Lexington Mayor Jim Newberry to outstrip the basic rules of addition.
"We've been working with Jim in cooperation to look for ways that we can take our one city plus one city and equal three, regarding the opportunities for Kentucky's future," Abramson said.
From his Louisville Metro Hall conference room, replete with symbolic mementos of his ability to make things happen, math seems a small obstacle for Louisville's longest-serving mayor. A replica of Paul McCartney's trademark Hofner bass guitar, a gift from the coordinators of one of the community's successful local music festivals, stands at the ready in the corner, and model airplanes line a nearby shelf as testament to the city's ever-expanding airline service. The walls are lined with decades of grip-and-grin photo opportunities with notable Democrats and Republicans alike.
But enough about him. Let's talk about us — meaning Louisville and Lexington. For years, Abramson said, Louisville has been working to extend an open hand to its neighboring communities for their mutual benefit, particularly in terms of economic development. Now, in part through a developing friendship with Newberry, Abramson's reach is stretching a little further east.
"There's just a lot of similarities between our two communities," Abramson said. "We obviously have differences, but Jim and I are trying as best we can to play to the strength of our commonalities of issues and interests."
Both Newberry and Abramson expect those common interests to come into play in Frankfort, where they will be able to speak with one voice on urban issues ranging from pension funds to infrastructure to local options for raising tax revenue. In addition to that, however, on the economic development front, Abramson says pitching the combined assets of our entire region will make a more attractive package to offer our prospects, and no matter where a relocating business sets up shop, the benefits won't be limited to anyone's city limits.
"We don't decide wins and losses based on which side of a border of a county or a city we locate businesses," Abramson said. "We learned about a decade ago better to show our region to prospective relocating groups than they go to Memphis or Indianapolis — because then we get nothing."
When the Geek Squad, the computer support task force of Best Buy, came to town, for example, Louisville led them on a tour of potential sites in southern Indiana and other neighboring Kentucky counties, as well as two prime locations in Louisville. The company chose Bullitt County, just south of the city, for its 165,000-square-foot site, the largest single Geek Squad computer repair site in the world.
After all the hours that Louisville's chamber clocked in working with the company, it would be easy to think the city lost out, but not the way Abramson sees it.
"The fact is that with 400 jobs out there today, and they are going to double it in the next two years, 87 percent of those people live in Louisville," Abramson said. "The reality is that those people working in Geek Squad City, as they call it, are engaged in our restaurants. They are engaged in our theaters. Their kids are in our schools. They are living in our community."
It's a big picture mentality that's still hard for some to accept, Abramson said. When he went to Frankfort during the special session of the General Assembly this year to support funding for the Kentucky Horse Park in preparation for the World Equestrian Games, a lot of people were asking why. He did it, he said, because it was the right thing to do for Kentucky.
"And certainly, we'll receive benefit from that, as will Shelby County and Oldham County and Spencer County, and as you go right up 64, opportunities will be available," he said. "It's getting beyond the proprietary ownership of a piece of dirt, of 365 (square) miles called Louisville."
For Newberry, Abramson has been a valuable resource, not only because of his outlook for the future but also his wealth of experience in the day-to-day challenges of running a city.
"He has been enormously helpful just in terms of dealing with the nuts and bolts of being mayor," Newberry said. "In my book, he's one of the top five mayors in the country, so I'm extremely fortunate to have someone of that caliber 75 miles down the road to visit with."
In addition to understanding the job, Abramson has a keen understanding of the political environment in Kentucky, Newberry said, and he hopes they can work together to represent their cities' interests as much as they can on the state level, and when possible on the national level as well.
"Mayor Abramson has been extremely actively involved with the United States Conference of Mayors, and has a national network of relationships that make him a particularly effective spokesperson on the federal level," Newberry said. "He's a great friend to have."
While direct competition over economic development prospects will arise, both Newberry and Abramson believe those occasions are relatively rare. The communities are different enough in size and business atmosphere that they typically appeal to different prospects, both mayors said.
Meanwhile, the two cities share many of the same priorities. Multiple issues currently at the top of Lexington's agenda have been on Louisville's radar screen for some time. In downtown development, in particular, Louisville has experienced considerable success. Since the grand opening of Fourth Street Live! in 2004, a revitalization of downtown Louisville's former Galleria, the area has become a local gathering place and hotspot for retail shopping and entertainment, with plans for a $250 million expansion in the works. Waterfront Park, which broke ground for its first phase in 1994, now brings more than 1.7 million visitors to the banks of the Ohio River every year. Add to that the addition of 2,000 housing units coming online downtown this year alone, plans for the new arena and the ambitious Museum Plaza project, and it seems Louisville has figured out how to make all the puzzle pieces fit.
And like Lexington, Louisville has also been working in close cooperation with its chamber and its major state university to boost the efficiency of all three entities. For more than eight years, the city has contracted an element of its local chamber to serve as its outreach economic development staff.
The University of Louisville and the city work hand in glove, Abramson said, whether that means tax incentives for a new biomedical center or finding a downtown business school location or transforming the first floor of a city garage for the school's fine arts program.
"We have had a long, very close relationship with the university, and what I've always said is great universities help make great cities," Abramson said.
It doesn't stop there. Green space? Abramson has placed a priority on it by launching his "City of Parks" initiative in 2005. The intent is to extend the park system designed by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted to include thousands of additional acres of parkland in the city's suburban areas and a 100-mile bike and pedestrian loop around the city.
Affordable housing? Louisville has developed a comprehensive housing strategy to ensure a diversity of housing types and price points throughout the city, and its Park DuValle and Liberty Green developments have been upheld as national models in the affordable housing arena.
Workforce development? When Louisville-based UPS wasn't confident that it would find enough employees to work its third shift, the city sat down with the state and UPS to craft Metropolitan College. The program offers a tuition-free post-secondary education at the University of Louisville or Jefferson Community and Technical College for any Kentuckian willing to work nights for UPS, which funds 60 percent of the initiative as a corporate partner. A year ago, UPS announced it was investing another billion dollars and hiring another 5,000 employees for its Louisville operation, along with doubling its financial commitment to the program, and recently Humana stepped up as the program's newest business partner.
With roughly 23,000 employees, UPS is not only the largest employer in Louisville, but also in the entire state of Kentucky, and a recent survey indicated that 110 other companies have located in the Louisville area as a result of UPS being there. The number of companies in Lexington that benefit from UPS' relatively close proximity has yet to be counted.
In working with Louisville, Lexington isn't necessarily looking to imitate these kinds of initiatives, Newberry said, but there are lessons to be learned from what has worked for Kentucky's largest city — as well as what hasn't.
"I have offered to assist in sharing all the mistakes that I have made, so that (Newberry) doesn't have to make them," Abramson said. "We want to assist him in being as successful as possible."
Newberry said Abramson has gone out of his way to make his staff available to meet with their counterparts in Lexington's urban-county government, and as a result, he expects his staff will perform better.
"Most cities, regardless of their size, have the same problems," Newberry said. "Louisville is a very well-run city, so it's great for us to be able to look down the road and find some good examples of how to do things right."