Stores, Malls or Markets in Kentucky

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The historic business district in downtown Louisville is home to Glassworks, a one-of-a-kind, 165,000-square-foot project in which retail, commercial and residential space surrounds a working center dedicated to the art of glass.

Located in the historic Snead Manufacturing Building, Glassworks combines glassmaking studios, galleries and New York city-style loft apartments. It serves as a residence for some of the world's finest glass artisans — Greg Fleischaker, Mark Payton and Brooke White, among them — as an art education facility, and as a community center offering unusual space for meetings and receptions.

Guided tours of Glassworks take visitors through two floors of working glass studios and open areas to observe glass blowers, flameworkers, cutters and designers as they create unique pieces of art and architecture. From the mezzanine, visitors view the glassmaking process from beginning to end — from the molten glass being removed from 2,000-degree furnaces, to its molding and shaping into finished works. Also on display in the Architectural Glass Art, Inc. space are examples of glass in structural applications, including modern stained glass windows.

The Marta Hewett Gallery, an important element of Glassworks, hosts seven rotating exhibitions each year and is known for introducing the work of the most innovative national and international glass artists.

What to buy: Handblown Glass Ornaments, Bowls, Vases, or Barware.

One of the two main malls in Louisville, Oxmoor Center is anchored by the usual department stores:Macy's, Von Maur, Dick's Sporting Goods, and Sears. There are a lot of the usual mall chain stores here but the one unique store found here is Z Gallerie-a high end home decor style with a modern Pottery Barn flair.

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Yes, it is a bookstore. And yes, it is huge. A lot of people are divided between JoBeth and Barnes and Noble, but I definitely prefer the former. It takes up most of what used to be the Lexington Green Mall (well, it’s still called that but the store bought out the entire atrium area) and extends over two levels. The host author events and readings on a regular basis and also have a nice café that serves café style food as well as regular meals. They recently added al fresco dining as well. The bookstore is littered with comfy chairs and reading areas and they don’t mind if you stick around all day. On the bottom floor they have a really nice travel section, although like most Kentucky stores the books cater to people who are either going to Italy, England, or Ireland. They also have a travel agency and some good travel items like earplugs, journals, and maps.

What to buy: On the top floor you can find other interesting items scattered throughout the floor like bubble bath, magnets, and assorted Kentucky crafts. They have a really nice local section. (You can find my book there!) In the local section they also carry local photography and stuff.

In a separate room they have a really good CD selection, as well as DVDs.

If you don’t want to eat in the café there is a Ruby Tuesdays downstairs and a really good seafood place called Regatta.

Perhaps they called it "The Summit" to evoke the metaphorical shining city on a hill, but there's no mountain peak within sight of this sprawling, upscale shopping center that seems to have sprouted almost overnight on the fringes of Eastern Jefferson County where Kentucky Highway 22 meets the Snyder Freeway. Maybe "Oz" would have been a more fitting term for the commercial wizardry that so quickly converted rural fields into glittering shops ... and greenback dollars.

Amid this vaguely jarring setting of mall-style stores around acres of parking lots dotted with spurting fountains and the occasional patch of grass, it's no surprise that The Summit's two large restaurants are not independent, locally owned eateries but outposts of a chain operation. Mitchell's Fish Market and Martini Italian Bistro are both "concepts" spawned by the restaurants' parent firm, Cameron Mitchell of Columbus, Ohio, a growing outfit that operates nine restaurants in Columbus, the Cincinnati area, Pittsburgh and now Louisville.

In addition to high end chain dining there is a plethora of shopping with great stores like:

Banana Republic
White House Black Market
Ann Taylor
Chico's
Water Water Everywhere
Christopher & Banks
Talbots
Jos A Bank
Bombay
Mikasa
Pier 1
J Crew
Gap
Build-A-Bear
Barnes & Noble
Bed Bath & Beyond


What to pay: This is a higher end shopping area so expect price tags to bear accordingly