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It’s a competitive landscape to get a new company to locate in Louisville. When a business is looking for a new site, cities can show off acres of land and spreadsheets of data. But what assets can Louisville claim that many cannot? Bourbon, music, and water.
During the Bourbon and Beyond Music Festival, five site selectors flowed together with the nearly 200,000 music fans. A site selector often represents a company that’s looking for a place to start or expand a business. While acreage, talent, and utilities are the priority, it’s sometimes the culture of a city, the “vibe” that can land a deal. A gigantic music festival is a perfect backdrop to highlight that vibe, tourism, and the places that make Louisville unique.
Louisville Water helped the city’s economic development agency, LEDA, southern Indiana partners, LG&E, and Greater Louisville, Inc. show the guests why the region is growing and is a perfect place for business.
Guests toured Louisville Water Tower and heard how water is part of Louisville’s manufacturing hub. Auto and appliance manufacturing make up 15% of the city’s gross domestic product and for Louisville Water, 34% of the water we provide to the business and industry sector goes towards manufacturing. Vice President for Communications and Marketing Kelley Dearing Smith highlighted our company’s history and direct link to the 24,000 businesses in the region. “I’ve never seen a drinking water utility have such a presence in economic development,” one of the site selectors explained. “This is unique.”
As the site selectors learned about innovation and technology in the NuLu district, Mayor Craig Greenberg told the group that Louisville Water is the city’s liquid asset.
“If there are businesses who need water, there is no better place to locate,” Greenberg said. “Our water is high-quality and abundant. It’s a public asset and a huge competitive advantage.”
That water message was repeated on a bourbon tour where guests also participated in a water tasting. “The only free refill in this tour is the county’s best tap water,” the bourbon guide told the group. Tourism is another large employment sector and part of the vibe and it’s also roughly 3% of the water usage for the business sector. The Kentucky Expo Center, the site for Bourbon and Beyond, is the second largest expo center in the United States.
The site selector guests spent four days in Louisville, experiencing a music festival and visiting nearly a dozen places in the region. They learned that water is the liquid asset that makes the city work and that hydrating with Louisville’s water is also a necessity to survive a music festival in 90-degree temperatures with a record-breaking crowd.
