Lexington could learn from Louisville’s 21C
Readers of Conde Nast Traveler magazine recently voted the 21C Museum Hotel in Louisville as the nation’s best hotel.
It was in the news last week and discussed on NBC’s Today Show this week.
“It sounds like the idea behind this is brilliant,” said Today Show host Matt Lauer, who seemed barely able to hide his surprise that Kentucky could be on the cutting edge of anything.
The 90-room luxury hotel that houses a public, all-hours contemporary art museum really is brilliant, and the Today Show and Conde Nast Traveler are just the most recent examples of the positive buzz it has created for Louisville.
The 21C was the brainchild of Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson, who worked with Lexington-based Gray Construction to create the museum/hotel by renovating and connecting four century-old buildings.
The complex is not far from developer Bill Weyland’s Glassworks art and office complex and Louisville Slugger factory and museum. They are all on Louisville’s West Main Street, in renovated old buildings that less imaginative developers would have demolished.
These attractions have sparked a vibrant entertainment district popular with locals and visitors alike. Last year, the American Planning Association named West Main Street as one of the nation’s 10 best streets.
Gray Construction’s chairman, Lexington Vice Mayor Jim Gray, worked closely with Brown and Wilson to create 21C – and it wasn’t easy. Some of the buildings needed new foundations and steel reinforcement. “There was one day when we almost lost one of them,” he said.
But Brown and Wilson never considered tearing down the old buildings, Gray said. And it wasn’t just because the $180-a-square-foot cost of renovation was cheaper than new construction.
“They knew that the character of the old buildings was what would inspire and create the energy for the project,” Gray said. “Within the frame of the old buildings they were going to create something new and contemporary and inspiring.”
Last year, during Lexington’s debate over the now-stalled CentrePointe project, Gray often mentioned 21C as an alternative approach to the generic skyscraper developer Dudley Webb planned. Webb could create something special by saving some of the 14 old buildings he wanted to tear down and weaving them into a quality piece of contemporary architecture.
Webb wasn’t interested. The old buildings weren’t worth saving, he said, even though renovation would have been cheaper than new construction.
So, here we are more than a year later. The block has been cleared of 180 years of Lexington history. CentrePointe is stalled and probably dead. Louisville has 21C and a lot of national buzz. Lexington has a pasture in the middle of town and a missed opportunity.
But it’s not Lexington’s only opportunity.
A few blocks away, developer Barry McNees is scraping together money to create the Lexington Distillery District. His vision is to renovate two abandoned bourbon distilleries and other industrial buildings in one of the city’s long-neglected neighborhoods. They would become the nucleus for a mixed-use neighborhood reflecting Lexington’s heritage and authentic culture.
The Distillery District is struggling amid the credit crunch. Still, the 150-year-old Old Tarr Distillery warehouse has become Buster’s, a popular nightclub. Galleries and artists’ studios are sprouting nearby.
“You clean that place up and it’s a destination,” Gray said of the Distillery District. “There’s nothing like it in Lexington, and that’s what appeals to people.”
So here’s the question for May Jim Newberry’s administration and Lexington’s business leadership: Where should this city place its bet? Will a prosperous future look more like what’s happening on Louisville’s West Main Street, or what’s been happening for 30 years on Lexington’s West Main Street?
RSS Feed
October 22nd, 2009 at 10:11 am
TOM: You neglected to mention that Louisville also has a big hole in the ground called MUSEUM PLAZA. I think it is dead also. Louisville Museum Plaza is a 62-story skyscraper planned for Louisville, Kentucky.The 703-foot tall skyscraper is projected to cost $490 million and contain a 1-acre public plaza and park, condominiums, lofts, a hotel, retail shops and a museum.
I think one of the worst disasters in Lexington was when the city let the old train station fall into disrepair and burnt down to the ground. Way to go Lexington.
October 22nd, 2009 at 11:13 am
Vice Mayor Gray was correct that a 21C development was an alternative to the CentrePointe project, but I doubt that it fit the assessed needs of Lexington as well as it did the needs of Louisville. There are others in Louisville who feel the need for a monumental tower too. It is to be called the Museum Plaza but I guess it is also stalled due to financing troubles, as is their Iron Quarter District and several other proposals. We also have other stalled projects like the last section of 500′s on Main and other announced projects.
While Webb has been the taking the brunt of your and Mr. Gray’s attacks the majority property owner of the block in question is still the Rosenberg family. They have been owners of the greater part of that block for better than 20 years. They are the ones that let the property fall into disrepair. If anyone should be held accountable for the destruction of 180 years of history, maybe they should shoulder some of the blame.
The Distillery District holds much potential and should be encouraged. Perhaps Mr. Gray could throw some of his money and expertise in that direction. I don’t think that it would be considered a conflict of interest. The two old distillery buildings are just the “bookends” of the district as there is a lot of land left in between them and those two renovations will not constitute the entire district
As for your question to the current administration and business leaders, our public funds should not be used to direct development but to enhance an d extend the work of our private sector developments which have already taken place. I do not see Mr. Gray pushing to use public funds that we do not have for renovations like the church’s apartment project on Market St.
Let us build what works in Lexington and let Louisville take care of itself.
October 22nd, 2009 at 7:09 pm
So here’s the question for May Jim Newberry’s administration and Lexington’s business leadership: Where should this city place its bet? Will a prosperous future look more like what’s happening on Louisville’s West Main Street, or what’s been happening for 30 years on Lexington’s West Main Street?
More CentrePointes are awaiting. More empty strip malls are awaiting. One Day, and I mean One Day, Hamburgerville will be empty. Lexington Mall Dead, Woodhill Dead, Turfland Mall Dead, soon to be dead (when gasoline is $5.00 per gal) Fayette Mall.
October 23rd, 2009 at 6:00 pm
I don’t think that Lexington need mourn any “missed” opportunities for more sub-living wage retail, bar and restaurant jobs. We don’t need any more hotels, frankly. Economic development must generate living wage jobs or it is useless. Who is going to shop at these upscale places – Wally-wort employees? Pizza place assistant managers? White collar workers such as myself making the same average wage we made back in the 1980s? The type of “development” that 21C and Centrepoint both represent will have only a small fraction of living wages jobs at the top (what – five? ten, tops?) and create nothing but part-time, no benefits, sub-living wage jobs for the vast majority of workers underneath. It’s useless. Reports out in the last couple of days show 80% of college graduates are having to move in with their parents – where are the real jobs? Not at 21C.