Sustainable Design Consultants Will Evaluate NuLu This Week

Professional design consultants will be in Louisville this week to give advice to the city’s East Market district.NuLu was one of eight communities nationwide that received a grant for professional sustainability design consultation. This is the week consultants with environmental non-profit Global Green will be in town to evaluate the neighborhood’s existing infrastructure.Green Urbanism Director Walker Wells says he hopes the team will be able to provide concrete ideas for neighborhood developers to make NuLu a more livable neighborhood.“Another outcome, I think, is being able to validate the good work that’s already going on and we hope, inspire people around some of these other ideas for innovation and integration,” he said. “And to say, ‘this is great,’ and here are the opportunities to do even more, based on best practices in other communities.”The group will take a tour of the neighborhood on Wednesday and conduct a site analysis. Wells says the team will be evaluating NuLu based on the newly-developed Neighborhood LEED standard, and identifying ways the community can build on its existing progress.Wells says the standard takes three aspects into account.“The location. It encourages the sort of urban infill or reuse of areas that have already been urbanized,” he said. “It encourages sort of an appropriate level of density, or amount of development, such that it supports neighborhood shops, transit, these types of things. It looks a lot at connectivity and walkability.”After the visit, Global Green will issue recommendations for both physical and policy changes which could help the neighborhood’s sustainability.