You’d almost never know two hotels are heading to the corner of First and Main streets in downtown Louisville. Just give it about six months, though.
Louisville has been watching the restoration of a historic storefront facade and 12 new floors grow up from the ground on Whiskey Row for a while now. It’s one dynamic project, but beneath construction dust, two different vibes are taking form in a single building.
This fall the 110-room Moxy Louisville Downtown and 205-room Hotel Distil will open on the site of the old J.T.S. Brown and Sons distillery and barrel house in the 100 block of West Main Street.
The hotels share a building, and they’re part of the Whiskey Row Hotel Collection being developed by White Lodging, Poe Companies and REI Real Estate Services. They’re joined at the hip by a string of doorways that runs through the core of the building and connects each floor.
But Moxy is a vibrant, social extrovert. And Distil is more traditional and luxurious. You can sense that just standing in the shell.
Moxy’s front desk doubles as bar, a move that sets the tone for a hypersocial stay. It’s a boutique hotel with the heart and soul of a European hostel.
It will have a music program, and likely, a DJ.
Moxy is also home to a food truck-inspired taco joint, Zombie Taco, that serves tacos, healthy bowls, breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner — and even 17-pound “Zombie Burritos.”
Sure, you can spend your stay looking out those corner windows at Louisville — or you can get down to the ground and experience it for yourself. Moxy’s general energy is expected to tie in nicely with the growing bar district on Washington Street. It’s just a short walk from Hell or High Water and the Troll Pub Under the Bridge, too.
Meanwhile, Distil dominates the Main Street half of the building, and just like its name suggests, it’s meant to fit in with downtown’s historic Whiskey Row.
Here you’ll find a traditional front desk and normal-sized hotel rooms, but even without the Moxy’s overt attitude, there’s curated personality. Distil is part of Marriott’s Autograph Collection, a brand known for taking on the vibe and history of an area and turning it into a hotel.
So every night at 7:33 p.m. — or 19:33 in military time — it’ll host a toast to the 1933 end of Prohibition, said Stephen Burke, the assistant general manager.
The ground floor will be home to Repeal, a classic American bar and steakhouse with an oak-fired grill, and there’s a second-floor private dining area called The Barrel Room that looks out over the restaurant.
From the Courier Journal article available at:
https://www.courier-journal.com/story/money/louisville-city-living/2019/04/24/louisville-downtown-hotels-moxy-and-distil-open-fall/3521938002/
Articles also ran in other publications.