The Kentucky College of Art + Design is packing up its scattered Louisville facilities and moving into a former corporate headquarters on Garvin Place in Old Louisville, giving the state's only private, independent art and design college a single, expanded campus just ahead of the new school year. The new site includes a 30,000-square-foot academic building and a 6,000-square-foot studio spread across 1.2 acres, according to school officials.
As reported by WDRB, KyCAD is relocating from its current home on West Ormsby Avenue, where the college's administrative offices have long occupied the historic Speed Mansion, with classroom space split off at the 849 Studio + Gallery on South Third Street. Consolidating those separate footprints into one Old Louisville address addresses a logistical challenge the school has faced for years, splitting faculty and students between buildings blocks apart from one another. Founded in 2009, KyCAD offers a studio-focused Bachelor of Fine Arts curriculum and remains the only private and independent college of art and design in Kentucky.
A Former Tech Headquarters Gets a New Purpose
The Garvin Place buildings that will house KyCAD's new campus formerly housed Genscape, an energy data analytics firm that was purchased in 2019 by global market intelligence company Wood Mackenzie, according to PitchBook. The repurposing of the former corporate site gives it a new use in higher education. The neighborhood itself carries architectural weight beyond its new tenant — it's designated as the third-largest historic preservation district in the United States and holds the nation's largest concentration of residential Victorian architecture, per background compiled by the city.
Louisville Business First reported details about the campus move according to partners involved in the project. The relocation gives KyCAD an expanded space ahead of its next school year, arriving at a moment when the college has been racking up institutional milestones. In December 2024, KyCAD was granted institutional accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, making it the first new independent art and design college in the United States to achieve that recognition in nearly 30 years.
New Online Programs Launch Alongside the Move
School officials said KyCAD will begin new programs online, including a film program, a graphic design program, an experimental fashion program, and a digital fabrication program. The additions build on curriculum changes already underway: in late 2024, KyCAD expanded its interdisciplinary BFA framework by adding specialized academic pathways in Experimental Fashion + Performance and Digital Fabrication, according to the Voice-Tribune. Pushing those disciplines into online formats signals an effort to expand enrollment beyond the physical campus footprint in Old Louisville.
KyCAD's Bachelor of Fine Arts degree requires 120 total credit hours — 75 in studio art, 30 in general education, and 15 in art history — and operates under licensure from the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education. The college transitioned from an affiliated art department within Spalding University, where it operated starting in 2010, to an independent, standalone non-profit college in fall 2018, according to Type Investigations. That earlier Spalding partnership allowed early art students to access federal student aid while KyCAD built out its own infrastructure.
Public Funding and Leadership Behind the Growth
The expansion has been backed by substantial public investment. In March 2024, the Kentucky General Assembly passed state budget legislation allocating $5 million in state funding to KyCAD, which combined with municipal support provided $5.5 million total toward operating costs and program expansions, part of a larger $616 million state funding package for Louisville projects, according to the city's government website.
KyCAD President Moira Scott Payne has guided much of this transformation. She joined the institution as dean in June 2017 after serving as provost at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, and has since led the college through its transition to independence and institutional accreditation, according to Hunt Scanlon Media. During its earlier affiliation with Spalding University, KyCAD students had access to federal student aid.
