Waiting for CentrePointe work to begin
Where’s CentrePointe?
Developer Dudley Webb said late last fall that construction would begin in December on the $250 million tower in the middle of downtown Lexington. It’s now January, and the site is a big gravel pit waiting for something to happen.
To make way for CentrePointe, Webb bulldozed the block bounded by Main, Vine, Limestone and Upper streets. He took out 14 structures, including 182-year-old Morton’s Row, the second-oldest commercial building downtown. The National Trust for Historic Preservation called it one of America’s biggest losses of 2008.
City officials have asked the state for permission to use incremental tax revenues generated by CentrePointe over the next 30 years to pay for some of the project’s “public” infrastructure, as well as other downtown improvements.
So where’s CentrePointe?
“Everything’s still on track,” Darby Turner, Webb’s attorney, said Thursday. “It’s a little slower process than we had hoped. … We’re still moving right along.”
Turner said engineering and permitting work is under way and construction could begin later this month.
Harold Tate, executive director of the Downtown Development Authority, said it has taken longer than expected for CentrePointe to get state permits to close lanes on some surrounding streets, but that should happen soon.
Webb’s plans call for the 35-story tower to house a four-star J.W. Marriott hotel, luxury condos, shops, offices, restaurants and an entertainment venue.
If CentrePointe is still on track, it would be unusual. Market conditions have changed dramatically since last fall, and similar developments in other cities have been halted or delayed. Financing is hard to come by. But Webb has always insisted that CentrePointe won’t be affected by the credit crunch, because foreign investors he won’t identify have put up cash for construction.
Count me among the skeptics. I wouldn’t be surprised if Webb were to announce that he’s putting CentrePointe on hold. In fact, it could be the best thing.
The worst outcome for Lexington would be a half-built CentrePointe — or one that’s built and then fails in an economy less hospitable to luxury hotels and condos. That’s what Councilman Don Blevins Jr. meant a few months ago when he worried aloud that CentrePointe could become “a vertical Lexington Mall.”
If CentrePointe were put on hold, it could eventually become a better project — one that’s smaller, better designed and more economically viable in the long term. (But still, unfortunately, one without some of Lexington’s irreplaceable historic fabric.)
Delaying CentrePointe would cause a short-term problem. With the countdown clock ticking on the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games, nobody wants to be left with a big hole like the one that occupied the next block over in the early 1980s. But that problem could be solved with enough dirt and sod to create a temporary CentrePointe Park.
Maybe I’m wrong.
Maybe CentrePointe construction will begin soon. Maybe CentrePointe will be finished and won’t look as generic and out of place as I fear. Maybe its condos will sell and its hotel will be filled for many years. Maybe the project will generate enough new tax revenues to pay for some wonderful downtown improvements, such as restoration of the old Fayette County Courthouse.
But I’ll believe it when I see it.
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January 8th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
It amazing that someone I believe is intelligent can be so arrogant and ignorant. Just because nothing is happing on a building site doesn’t mean nothing is going on. In a day and time when everything is red-taped, checked, re-checked, stamped and reviewed, how reasonable is it to assume something will be built so quickly? I mean, do you really expect to go to bed tonight and wake up tomorrow with a new 35 story building downtown?
The past may be a good gauge of the future, but remember Lexington has changed considerably over the last 25 years and who was part of the change? It was the very same people building CentrePointe of course. You know who you will not find, the old money and corrupt politicians that stopped every other development that tried and failed during those 25 years. Lexington is finally becoming a city that accepts new development, rather than the old status quo of leave it be and sooner or later someone will build what we want, rather than what we need.
It’s funny that many of the opponents to CentrePointe say they want to keep Lexington Historic and Unique, to keep the creative class here. But did you ever consider the creative class might want a high-rise, not some old and decrepit buildings. Probably not, because you think you’re the creative class and everyone thinks like you. Here is a thought, if everyone thinks like you, what exactly is creative?
By the way, I hope it does turn into “a Vertical Lexington Mall,” Mr. Eblen and Mr. Belvins! For over 20 years Lexington Mall was at or near 100% capacity, with a waiting list for occupancy. If that is the case for CentrePointe, we have 20 years to figure out how to keep it from closing its doors. But on the bright side, if by some chance it does close its doors, only one city block of land would have been used in its demise, and not the 45+ acres the vacant Lexington Mall now occupies.
January 8th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
Tom, I don’t see why it is that the ULTRA-LIBERALS just want to see people FAIL. Dude, are you dense? You are already screaming that the sky is falling! It’s okay, Chicken Liberal! Do you just want them to fail so that you can say, “I told you so?” Sheesh, one minute you want to PROTECT Lexington, and the next you want to see it fail.
January 15th, 2009 at 8:14 am
Dude, if it sounds like Tom is shifting positions its b/c he is a journalist, and that is sort of their job. How else can one expect to get the whole story. However, i don’t see Tom’s “ultra-liberalness” as some precursor to a constant preference for others’ failure, in fact he only used the word “fail” once and that was only to portray the “worst outcome” & god forbid anyone connect the dots on the current national & global economic outlook and relate that to a $250,000,000 proposed development in the heart of downtown Lexington. I read that portion of the article as the author engaging purely with logic & reason, devoid of opinion. Of course anyone who at the time [last March] were forecasting dire economic times, oh they were just far-left naysayers, wanting the project to fail no matter what, who now are reveling in the awe-inspiring “told-you-so glory” as if winning some perceived competition is the only reason people express their opinions.
Imagine, this time 6 years ago, if someone [me] were so cynical and “ultra-liberal” to suggest that if we invade Iraq unilaterally and DON’T find any weapons or links to 9/11 then we’ll be in a dire situation with no end in sight. I point this out to you to show, yeah: I WAS RIGHT, but i certainly don’t feel good about “telling you so” b/c a childhood friend of mine is now dead as a result of it.
I grew up here in Lexington — @cs no I don’t expect to go to bed tonight and wake up with a tower built, but given that this morning is january 15th, I DO EXPECT for there to be bulldozers out there getting started, why?? B/c that is what the man (Dudley) said was going to happen by the end of 2008, and THAT was why we HAD to bulldoze the buildings, b/c each day they remained intact was a day lost on the construction, remember that poorme, guilt trip that CentreSupporters put on the preservationsists?? Where is your concern for their construction start date now?
I’ll never understand how it is “conservative” to routinely NOT hold others accountable, nor will i ever understand why squandering our resources, whether they be natural or financial, is the routine conservative agenda, once anyone starts talking about conservation, they become a liberal. What irks me MOST about you is how sure you are that people like me and Tom are “ultra-liberals” b/c it only proves how narrow-minded you really are by only being able to label me as your opposite. The number one problem with our gov’t is how it has devolved into a two-party system, b/c as this reaches citizen level, over time, certain groups among us (conservatives & liberals) start to really believe this my-way-or-the-highway, black-or-white, with-us-are-with-the-terrorists methodology and this type of thinking/perception couldn’t be any more disjointed from physical reality, and even a creationist would agree that we don’t live in a two-dimensional world…so why must people like you continue to think in one??
January 22nd, 2009 at 3:07 pm
A scar upon our city?…
I have to admit I wasn’t engaged in the discussions surrounding “the Dame block” and the CentrePointe development in downtown Lexington last year. I didn’t frequent the places on the block, and I didn’t follow the day-to-day developments as the de…
February 27th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Tom,
“Maybe I’m wrong.” ? I think that goes without saying on this. From this point forward, let’s just assume it. I hope the Webbs name a suite after you. They can use your middle name. It’s fubar or snafu or something like that isn’t it? No. I’m wrong this time. The barefoot regressives call you the “Nazarene”. That’s it! The Nazarene suite!