Anne Kenworthy has her hands full.

As president of Spalding University, she's in charge of leading an educational institution at a challenging time for that sector. In addition to everyday challenges, like keeping current on the artificial intelligence tools that are available to students, post secondary education is also facing an expected enrollment cliff (related to declining birthrates) as well as skepticism about the return on investment for a college education.

Kenworthy, who was named as Spalding's president in 2024, talks about all of the above, and more, on this week's Access Louisville podcast. We even talk about how Spalding fits into downtown Louisville and some of the development taking place around there

She said when she came into the job many people told her about Downtown's past — but she's interested in it's future.

"I'm excited about what is happening ... even just the last 18 months of downtown," she said. "I think the redevelopment of downtown is strong and just keeps getting stronger. You're publishing these stories every day where people are making significant investments into downtown."

She praised the leadership of Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg, Louisville Downtown Partnership and others. [By the way, if you like podcasts about downtown — also be sure to checkout recent live episode Access Louisville: Heart of the City].

Access Louisville, sponsored by Baird, is a weekly podcast from Louisville Business First. You can also follow it on popular podcast services including Apple Podcasts and Spotify, which are linked above.

There are some big commercial real estate projects on the horizon around town and we go over them on the Access Louisville podcast this week.

LBF Senior Reporter Joel Stinnett starts us off with an update on the 20-story Kentucky Home Life building. The historic Downtown building located at 237 S. Fifth St. was purchased at auction recently by Thrash Group. The 112-year-old building is one of the more high-profile vacant properties Downtown, sitting directly across Fifth Street from Metro Hall.

The sale news comes after Business First reported last year that Thrash Group and an unnamed local partner were planning to convert the Kentucky Home Life Building into a mixed-use development with residential units, a hotel and first floor retail, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the project.

After that, we chat about the latest with the Mid City Mall in the Highlands, including the closure of ValuMarket. And we discuss the Girl Scouts putting its office building on the market, a new Downtown health sciences building for UofL building and some updates to the Apple store at Oxmoor Center.

After that, we share some Kentucky Derby advice as well as favorite stories (spoiler: Stinnett has some banger stories, including selling a Mint Julep to an infamous celebrity.)

Access Louisville, sponsored by Baird, is a weekly podcast from Louisville Business First. You can also follow it on popular podcast services including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Many restaurants seem to live within four weeks of closing.

Lawrence Weeks, chef and co-owner of Murray's Creole Pub, brought up that chilling point during a live recording of the Access Louisville podcast earlier this week.

"If we do a month that's bad, it's hard to recover from that," he said on the show. That's why matters like food costs, the economy and consumer behavior are so important to the industry. Murray's Creole Pub is located in a 2,500-square-foot, two-story building at 1576 Bardstown Road in the Highlands. It offers a casual, pub‑style space on the first floor and a high‑end dining room upstairs.

Weeks was joined on the podcast by Noam Bilitzer, of NuLu Mediterranean restaurant MeeshMeesh, Anne Shadle, of Mayan Cafe, also located in NuLu, LBF Restaurant Reporter Michael Jones and LBF Managing Editor David Mann. The panel discussed the impact of the delayed Kentucky Oaks post time during Derby week, staffing difficulties and turnover, thin profit margins (average around 4%) and the importance of community support and collaboration among local restaurants.

The show was called "Access Louisville: The State of Dining out" and was recorded in front of an audience on April 21 at the Baird Conference Center at the 500W building.

Access Louisville, sponsored by Baird, is a weekly podcast from Louisville Business First. You can also follow it on popular podcast services including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.