Access Louisville: Heart of the City: Our next live podcast is 4 p.m. Feb. 5. Join us as we talk about development within Louisville's urban core with Lee Weyland, of Core Real Estate, Hank Hillebrand, of the Poe Cos., and Rebecca Fleischaker, of the Louisville Downtown Partnership. Details and registration here.

Few people in Louisville probably know the overlap between art and business better than Ben Robinson.

Robinson, a singer-turned-CEO, was appointed as general director and CEO of the Kentucky Opera in November. We get a chance to catch up with him this week on Access Louisville, a weekly podcast from Louisville Business First.

Robinson is not only an accomplished singer but a stage director and arts executive who brings creative vision, operational expertise and a deep commitment to opera as a community-building force, a release announcing his hire last year said. He replaced former CEO Barbara Lynne Jamison. Peggy Kriha Miller has been leading in an interim capacity.

Most recently, Robinson was general director of Anchorage Opera in Alaska and managing director of Lyric Fest in Philadelphia.

On this week's show, he talks about his first season at the reigns.

Louisville has always been a community that places a clear value on the arts, he said.

"Great arts and a great foundation for arts supports great businesses," he said. "It attracts people to this area. It helps build an economy."

Right now there's a lot of energy particularly at peer organizations and everyone seems to want to work together on projects that are mutually beneficial, Robinson tells us.

"It's all audience focused. And we have one of the greatest audiences here and they are sophisticated and interested in supporting great art. It's an awesome thing to come into," he said.

He also talked about the business side of his role.

"It's never anything other than a 50-50 balancing act between rewarding and horrifying," he said, jokingly.

The economic impact of arts organizations should never be under estimated, yet they tend to stay in a constant fiscal crunch. He said he views his job with an integrated approached to both arts and business.

If we don't put on great programing that serves as the engine to the whole machine "then we're not doing the job the right way." With that, he's always looking at the organization's resources, where revenue is coming from as well as expenses.

You can hear more in the full interview in the player above or where ever you get podcasts.

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

Join us live: KY Inno's annual Startups to Watch Awards highlights early-stage companies that are poised to make big moves in the coming year. Join us 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 27 at the Ice House, 226 E Washington St. Tickets for the event are available here.

A plan for the future of the Mid City Mall site seems to be taking shape. But is it good enough?

We talk about it on this week's Access Louisville podcast.

The plan hasn't been fully revealed but there is plenty of information out there. Most recently, LBF Senior Reporter Joel Stinnett reported that The Metts family, which owns the property at 1250 Bardstown Road, is partnering in a joint venture with Atlanta-based Branch Properties to redevelop the site, according to the agenda for an upcoming Highland Commerce Guild meeting. Branch Properties develops, operates and invests in grocery-focused retail properties, according to its website. The majority of its portfolio, which spans eight states in the Southeast, consists of Publix-anchored properties, including a planned shopping center in Richwood, Kentucky, near Cincinnati.

In July, Stinnett also reported that a zoning certification filing made with Louisville Metro Planning and Design called for the construction of a grocery store and six standalone retail buildings on the property.

We're not throwing shade at the prospect of a new Publix or new retail. Lord knows there's a need for more grocery stores inside the Watterson Expressway.

But this is a huge site in the middle of a vibrant urban neighborhood. Where's the 10-story tower? The parking garage? Is there a movie theater and a library branch in the plan — because we had that at the old site and everyone seemed to like it. LBF Editor-in-Chief Shea Van Hoy recently penned an opinion column saying he'd like to see high-density residential redevelopment mixed with ground-level retail/commercial.

You can hear our thoughts on what's been revealed on the show. It could be that this plan would just be the easiest thing to develop.

After the Mid City Mall talk, we also chat about recovery efforts following the Nov. 4 crash of UPS Flight 2976. Reporter Michael L. Jones and Digital Editor Zak Owens recently took a tour of the restricted site, which is just south of Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport, and they tell us about what they saw and the latest with the cleanup effort.

Finally, we wrap up this week's show with sponsored content featuring LBF President & Publisher Lisa Benson, who has an interview with Ross Mayfield, private wealth manager at Baird. Baird is the sponsor of the Access Louisville podcast.

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

Access Louisville: Heart of the City: Our next live podcast is 4 p.m. Feb. 5. Join us as we talk about development within Louisville's urban core with Lee Weyland, of Core Real Estate, Hank Hillebrand, of the Poe Cos., and Rebecca Fleischaker, of the Louisville Downtown Partnership. Details and registration here.

We've unplugged our crystal ball, waited five minutes, then plugged it back in.

Surely, now, we'll be able to see the future.

As we have the last few years, we start another year of the Access Louisville podcast by making predictions for what we think will happen in the area over the next 12 months.

We tackle a large range of topics in our predictions — construction, sports, business trends, bourbon and more. You'll have to listen in on your favorite podcast streaming app to hear all of them but here are just a few to give you a taste:

• Greater Louisville Inc. will change its name. It's role and collaboration with Louisville Economic Development Authority is being reconsidered, after all.
• We'll see 10 or more homes sold at greater than $2 million. They have been steadily climbing, including with one coming in around $7 million recently.
• AC/DC will headline Louder than Life this year? We're all hoping that one is true for the major music festival.
• A deal will be struct to move JBS Swift out of Butchertown. The neighborhood has changed and developed a lot in the last decade.
• We've even got a few political predictions. (A gubernatorial bid for Sen. Robert Stivers, perhaps?)
• Also, more bankruptcies in the bourbon industry? There have been a few in recent years after all.

Keep in mind these are just predictions based on familiarity with trends and stories in the area.

The predictions show is a favorite Access Louisville tradition. On this week's show we also look back at the predictions we made around this time last year to see what we got right and what we got wrong.

Access Louisville is a weekly podcast from Louisville Business First. It's available on popular podcast services, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.