A Downtown Louisville advocate talks impact

Jim Allen, vice chairman of Robert W. Baird & Co., is on this week's Access Louisville podcast.

Baird is the sponsor of the podcast, but Allen was on the show with LBF Editor-in-Chief Shea Van Hoy to talk about local business as well as other topics. 

At the top of the program, Allen tells us about progress since the merger between Hilliard Lyons and Baird. The merger of the two legacy financial firms (Hilliard Lyons dates back to 1854 in Louisville and Baird 1919 in Milwaukee) was announced in fall 2018 and completed in April 2019. The companies celebrated the five year anniversary of that merger last year and it's been going well since, he said.

"What has really made it go is the cultural compatibility between the organizations," Allen said.

The business has really changed over the 44 years that he's been in it, he explained. Back at the time he began, Hilliard Lyons was much more of a brokerage and transaction business. Today it's more about wealth planning, which he says is a market necessity particularly as wealth is being transferred across generations. 

"Things are going really well [for the business] despite market volatility," he said. 

Allen also spoke about Downtown Louisville on the show. 

He's worked in Downtown Louisville throughout his career and long advocated for it, including when the company re-invested in the Louisville headquarters in the 500W Jefferson building. Baird invested more than $20 million into relocating and renovating its office spaces within the top five floors of the tower. The company began moving into the space, totaling roughly 100,000 square feet, in early summer 2021.

In spite of calls by some to move to the suburbs, he wanted the company to stay in the heart of the city.

"We need a strong urban core, a strong business center to really thrive as a city and as a region. And, of course, as we all know Louisville is a key economic driver for the commonwealth of Kentucky. Having a vibrant downtown is really, really essential." 

A part of the company's commitment to downtown includes underwriting the taxable subordinate debt for the KFC Yum Center, he said. 

Back before the arena opened in 2010, Hilliard Lyons financed that debt, which covered the suite level of the arena and was not eligible for tax-free financing, he noted. Goldman Sachs was the lead underwriter for the Yum Center and did not want to underwrite that portion.

"And so we did it," he said. "that's a very big source of pride for us ... as we all know the Yum Center has been transformational for Downtown Louisville." The Yum Center's 15th anniversary is on October 10, 2025.

You can hear more from Allen in the podcast, which you can listen to in the player above or on popular podcast services including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Links to the show on both of those platforms are at the top of the story. Access Louisville is a weekly podcast from LBF which covers news in Louisville and features some of the city's key business leaders.