A deal that would see the Humana Building, at 500 W. Main Street, redeveloped as a large hotel, seems to be cooking behind the scenes.

LBF Senior Reporter Joel Stinnett broke the story recently and joins us on the Access Louisville podcast to tell us about what he's learned. 

As reported on Dec. 12, Louisville-based Poe Cos. is in the planning stages to convert the 26-story Humana Building into a 1,000-room hotel, according to multiple sources familiar with the project. The tower is located at 500 W. Main St., near Louisville's Belvedere, Museum Row and the KFC Yum Center. 

To reach 1,000 rooms, an additional tower may be constructed behind the existing tower, near or where The Exchange office space and Vincenzo's restaurant now sit, according to at least one source. The existing tower would be converted to house the majority of the rooms, the sources said.

On the show, Stinnett tells us how his reporting on the matter came together, other projects the Poe Cos. has in the works and what the needs look like with hotels in Downtown Louisville. We also go over what might happened next. 

Later in the show we chat about the landscape for electric vehicles going forward. 

This is in the wake of the news that Ford is pulling back on EV plans, dissolving its battery manufacturing venture with SK On (called BlueOvalSK) and repurposing its recently opened battery manufacturing facility in Glendale, Kentucky. As part of the repurposing, BlueOvalSK is laying off all its Glendale workers. A Ford subsidiary plans to takeover the plant and repurpose it for battery energy storage. 

It's a complicated situation for the automaker being as it just announced a new manufacturing platform at Louisville Assembly Plant in August in support of a new midsize EV pickup truck with a $30,000 price tag (low for the EV market.) Plans for that truck are still on, Ford says.

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