The Bluegrass and Beyond

Attorney Brent Rice knows the first question most people will ask him when they hear he is chairman of Lexington’s Arena, Arts and Entertainment District Task Force: “So, are we going to build a new arena or renovate Rupp?”

“This is about so much more than that one issue,” Rice said. “It’s about a district, not just an arena. It’s a total evaluation of what we have and what the possibilities are.”

Mayor Jim Gray appointed the 50-member task force in April to take a deep, wide and exhaustive look at 35-year-old Rupp Arena, the adjacent Lexington Center convention facility and shopping mall, and the vast parking lots around them.

This 46 acres of city-owned property represent the biggest development opportunity in modern Lexington history. It is strategically located beside the downtown business district, the fringes of the University of Kentucky, the emerging restaurant and entertainment areas along Manchester and Jefferson streets, and five historic residential neighborhoods.

The task force consists of a high-powered group of Kentuckians, most representing specific interests in the property or creative expertise in the many issues that will be involved in redevelopment.

Since April, task force committees have worked behind the scenes to digest previous studies of Lexington Center and coordinate with research being done by other groups, such as transportation planners and convention promoters. They have studied the city’s needs and desires. And they have had meetings with primary stakeholders, from UK Athletics to surrounding neighborhoods.

For example, Rice said, discussions with neighborhood representatives have focused on these two questions: What do you want to see there? What do you not want to see there?

The committees are writing draft reports that will be released Sept. 7, when the process starts becoming more public. Several open meetings will be scheduled in the fall. But citizens already have been offering good ideas, said Stan Harvey, who heads the Lexington office of the respected national planning firm Urban Collage, which is a consultant to the task force.

This privately financed process will cost at least $350,000, and 80 percent of the money has been raised, Rice said. Most donations, including in-kind services, have come from Lexington businesses.

Some of the money will go to hire national experts to study the arena issues. The key question is whether Rupp should be renovated and expanded or replaced. UK Athletics officials and many Wildcat fans — envious of Louisville’s new KFC Yum Center — want a new arena. But many people doubt a new arena is necessary or would be economically viable.

Other money will go toward hiring a top-notch planning and design team to develop a master plan for the district. Proposals for that contract were due last week, and more than 20 firms from across the country applied, Rice said.

Harvey attributed such strong national interest in part to publicity surrounding The Webb Cos.’ hiring of the hot Chicago firm Studio Gang Architects to redesign its proposed CentrePointe project. “Lexington is being seen as a place where innovative things are happening,” he said.

Task force committees also have been looking at how to expand Lexington Center’s convention facilities, which are too small. They also are assessing the need for arts and educational facilities that could go in the district, such as performance space or an art museum.

Then there is the question of commercial property, which would be key to financing the district’s redevelopment. Condos, apartments, shops, restaurants, offices and entertainment venues could be built on some of the 29 acres of asphalt if parking were consolidated into garages.

Rice said the task force’s goal is to give city, state and university leaders the best possible options for creating a dynamic district unique to Lexington’s culture that will be an important economic engine for decades. That is why the process is important.

As the evolution of the CentrePointe project has shown so clearly, you get more creative results and greater community buy-in with an inclusive process that allows the best ideas to surface. The more Lexington citizens get involved in the Arena, Arts and Entertainment District Task Force process, the better the results are likely to be.

Summertime, and the public is grumpy. Who can blame us?

Much of the country is suffering through blast- furnace temperatures, alternating between drought and deluge. No climate change here! Let’s blow up more mountains!

Gov. Steve Beshear and most other Kentucky politicians of both parties are too much in love with coal industry money and power to notice anything is wrong.

Things are worse in Washington, D.C., where Republicans have turned a long-term debt problem into an immediate economic crisis.

Federal commissions and most economists have said repeatedly that the way to solve the nation’s debt problem is to trim entitlement spending gradually, raise taxes back to 20th-century norms and stop waging wars of choice on credit. Creating jobs is a far more important and immediate issue than eliminating debt. But Republicans don’t seem to want the economy to improve until after they have beaten President Barack Obama in next year’s election.

Democrats are little better; they are doing almost nothing to keep the Wall Street sharpies who created most of this economic mess from doing it again. Federal regulators are doing almost nothing to stop speculators who have pushed oil prices to ridiculous levels that have nothing to do with supply and demand.

Both major parties have become captives to special interests, corporate money and short-term political scheming. Is it any wonder so many Americans are looking for alternatives?

Everyone I know seems to be fed up, from the Tea Party right to the Green Party left. And then there are those of us in the middle, who want less political posturing and more compromise, less ideology and more practical problem-solving. Lou Zickar, a Republican columnist for CNN.com, described us Sunday as the new “silent majority.”

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman sounded a similar tone the same day: “If this kind of idiocy by elected officials sends you into a hair-pulling rage and leaves you wishing that we had more options today … help may be on the way.”

Friedman’s column, headlined “Make way for the radical center,” was about a group of frustrated Democrats, Republicans and independents called Americans Elect. The well-financed organization claims to have gathered 1.6 million petition signatures in an attempt to get on all 50 states’ ballots next year. It aspires to run a balanced, technology-driven presidential ticket that won’t be beholden to special interests or major-party ideology. We’ll see about that.

Kentuckians’ discontent seems to be reflected in enthusiasm for perennial candidate Gatewood Galbraith, who is waging an independent campaign for governor against Beshear and his Republican challenger, state Senate President David Williams.

Galbraith, who has preached the limited-government gospel for years, seems to have a lot of support from Tea Party conservatives. He and his running mate, Dea Riley, also attended last weekend’s organizational meeting of the Kentucky Green Party. They might get a fair number of votes from its members and other liberals because they are the only candidates to speak out against environmentally destructive coal-mining practices.

“An independent candidate, an independent governor stands the only chance of being able to get the best intentions of both parties to actually join together and solve these problems,” Galbraith told reporters Thursday when he and Riley filed their candidacy papers.

“The first thing we need to do is establish integrity and trust in the political process itself,” Galbraith added. “There are so many well-intentioned and intelligent people out there who refuse to take part in the political process because it’s so demeaning and corrupt.”

Few people give Galbraith and Riley any chance of winning. But in this climate — with so many voters disgusted with partisan politics — it will be interesting to see which side they take the most votes from. We could get our first indication on Aug. 6, when all of Kentucky’s candidates for statewide office speak before the rowdy crowd of political activists at the Fancy Farm Picnic in Graves County.

Besides, the barbecue, fresh vegetables and homemade pies make it worth the long drive to Fancy Farm. There are some things that even politics can’t ruin.

For those of you keeping up with all of the magazine rankings for best and worst cities for this and that, Kiplinger, the respected personal finance magazine, has published a new list.

Kiplinger lists Lexington as No. 6 in among best cities to live in terms of value. Kiplinger said it worked with Kevin Stolarick, research director at the Martin Prosperity Institute, to analyze metro areas according to economic environment, cost of living and quality of life. Kiplinger said it then sent a staff reporter to each city to help determine the final rankings among the top 10.

Here are the rankings. For more information, visit Kiplinger’s web site.

1. Omaha

2. Charlotte

3. Nashville

4. Colorado Springs

5. Knoxville

6. Lexington

7. Little Rock

8. Wichita

9. Cedar Rapids

10. Cincinnati

(Tip: Mark Turner of Commerce Lexington)

Lesme Romero and Reinaldo Gonzalez became good friends as college students in Cleveland. They had grown up in South America with Spanish fathers and Italian mothers, and both loved good food.

They shared an apartment in the Little Italy neighborhood and worked four years as cooks in some of Cleveland’s best Italian restaurants, where they learned to make fresh pasta.

Romero, 33, earned business degrees and eventually moved to Florida to work in finance. Gonzalez, 37, became an industrial engineer and took a corporate job in Lexington.

During a visit several years ago, Gonzalez took Romero to the Lexington Farmers Market to buy fresh produce. They went back to Gonzalez’s home, made fresh pasta and cooked a delicious meal.

“I remember saying to him, ‘I wish I could do this for a living,’” Romero said after making the pasta. “And his wife, Heather, said, ‘Well, why not?’”

So, in 2009, they started Lexington Pasta. Using a countertop pasta machine, they made samples and took them to restaurants. Bellini’s gave them their first order, for 20 pounds. “It took us 20 hours to make on that little machine,” Romero said. “But we were just excited to have an order.”

Now, the company has more than $50,000 worth of pasta equipment and makes 600 pounds a week. Some of it goes to the best restaurants in Central Kentucky. The rest is sold in specialty stores, at farmers markets and at Lexington Pasta’s tiny downtown shop in a converted two-car garage for $2 for a 4-ounce serving.

Romero manages the company, which has three employees. He makes daily deliveries downtown on a bright red scooter, and he has become a fixture at the farmers market at Cheapside on Saturdays and Southland on Sundays. “I used to have a name,” he said with a laugh. “Now I’m ‘The Pasta Guy.’”

Why eat fresh pasta instead of cheaper stuff that comes dried in a box? Because it tastes better, Romero said.

“It’s the subtle part of the dish that makes the difference,” said Debbie Long, owner of Dudley’s on Short, which uses Lexington Pasta in several dishes. “They have a wonderful product. They are very customer-oriented and they are easy to work with. I think they’re a great addition to our food community.”

Lexington Pasta is made with semolina flour, eggs and flavorings from fresh ingredients, many of which are locally grown, Romero said. The pasta, which keeps in a refrigerator for about 10 days, comes in 10 cuts and 10 flavors, including spinach, cilantro, portobello and chipotle. Fresh egg ravioli comes stuffed with spinach or Parmesan, ricotta and mozzarella cheese.

The company takes orders for gluten-free, whole grain, spicy diablo, lobster and Spanish saffron pasta. Some restaurant chefs have worked with Romero to create specialty pastas for signature dishes.

One way Romero cultivates customers is by offering “Pasta 101″ classes for six to eight people once a week. At the two-hour class, which costs $45, students learn to make pasta and then use it to fix a gourmet dinner. The evening includes Kentucky wines, cheeses and an Italian dessert. The classes are booked up through early September, said Romero, who plans to add a ravioli-making “Pasta 102″ class.

Because of his business education and background, Romero said he is always thinking about ways to grow the company. He has his eye on a pasta machine that would produce 70 pounds an hour, up from his current machine’s 40 pounds.

But Romero said he doesn’t want Lexington Pasta to grow too fast or too big. He likes the feel of his tiny downtown shop, where he knows many of his customers.

“I have felt so welcomed by this neighborhood,” Romero said. “I love what I do. When people come back in the shop and say, ‘That’s the best pasta I’ve had in my life,’ that’s the best reward for me.”

Lexington Pasta

Products: Sold at markets including Shorty’s, Good Foods Coop, The Mouse Trap, and Lexington Farmers Market.

On the menu: Served at Central Kentucky restaurants including Bellini’s, Portofino, Dudley’s, Nick Ryan’s, Azur, Holly Hill Inn, Windy Corner, Alfalfa, Boone Tavern, Columbia’s, Varden’s and Le Deauville.

Where: 227 N. Limestone

Hours: 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon-Fri., 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat.

Learn more: (859) 421-1764 or LexingtonPasta.com

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Everyone knows that physical activity is good for your health. That’s why it was embarrassing to have Men’s Health magazine name Lexington as the nation’s most sedentary city.

But doctors and scientists have a lot of questions about why exercise is so beneficial, how muscles work and the role muscle strength plays in overall health.

Answering those questions is the mission of the University of Kentucky’s Center for Muscle Biology, a unique collaboration of more than 100 faculty members, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows from nine different UK colleges.

The center was created three years ago after UK researchers realized they were looking at many of the same questions from different perspectives. They thought they could get further faster by working together.

“Our overall umbrella is the concept of weakness,” said Dr. Karyn Esser, the center’s director. “We’re trying to figure out what makes muscle tissue weak and how to make it stronger.”

With outside grants of more than $12 million, center researchers are looking at everything from injury prevention in young athletes to rehabilitation for elderly stroke patients. Physical activity and muscle strength seem to contribute to everything from better memory to disease prevention.

For example, even moderate exercise can help Type 2 diabetes, which has become epidemic among overweight Kentuckians. Muscles store most of the body’s insulin. “When you exercise and make muscles work, it creates a separate path for absorbing glucose,” Esser said.

The center’s researchers are working with UK’s Barnstable Brown Kentucky Diabetes and Obesity Center and Markey Cancer Center to look at muscle strength’s effects on disease and prevention.

“A lot of us believe that exercise is an anti-cancer approach,” Esser said. That is because muscles send chemical and electrical signals to the brain and other organs that aren’t fully understood.

Drs. Gerald Supinski and Leigh Ann Callahan are studying ways to improve the strength of diaphragm muscles to help patients get off ventilators. It is a huge problem: about 60,000 Americans are on ventilators at any given time, and it costs billions of dollars to care for them, Supinski said. Besides, the longer most people are on a ventilator, the more likely they are to die.

“Is the problem with their lungs or their breathing muscles?” Supinski asked, adding that muscle weakness is the main culprit in about 70 percent of ventilator patients. They are investigating drug therapies that could be used to strengthen those muscles.

Muscle weakness is most often caused by inactivity or infection, Supinksi said. But other causes are not well understood. Why, for example, do some patients lose strength so rapidly after being hospitalized and others don’t?

“My father died of cancer a few years ago, but he actually died of weakness,” Supinski said. “I wish I had known then what I know now.”

Drs. Tim Uhl and Patrick McKeon, who are certified athletic trainers, run a lab that uses high-tech gadgets to study muscle function and improve rehabilitation. They do a lot of work with stroke and breast cancer surgery patients.

They also use mobile labs to go out and screen high school athletes for risk factors that can lead to injuries. Preventing injuries is not only beneficial now; it can help those young athletes stay active as they age. Old injuries are a frequent reason people become less active later in life.

Massage and ice have long been known to play important roles in muscle repair and strength. The reasons aren’t fully understood. Dr. Tim Butterfield has built a machine to standardize massage stimulation, and he uses it to study the effects of massage on mice, rats and rabbits to figure out how to optimize it for humans.

Similarly, researchers know that muscle resistance training — lifting weights — can improve memory in elderly people. Why? Nobody is sure.

How can skeletal-muscular injuries caused by repetitive motion be avoided? It’s not just “tennis elbow” anymore. Researchers now see cases of what they call “Xbox syndrome” and “Nintendonitis.”

Dr. Esther Dupont-Versteegden studies inactivity — what Men’s Health magazine says Lexingtonians are so good at — and the detrimental effects it has on overall health.

“We know that people feel better when they exercise regularly, but why is that?” she asked. “What is inactivity doing to people?”

Much of her work focuses on what she calls “frailty prevention” in old age.

“The elderly in particular are really sensitive to inactivity,” she said. “It’s probably an additional stress on their already physically stressed makeup, but we don’t really know.”

One area of investigation is what she called “prehabilitation.” For example, can exercise before some kinds of surgery hasten recovery? When and how should it be done?

Dupont-Versteegden said there is promising research that indicates an individual’s level of activity may even have benefits for others. Pregnant mice that exercise a lot tend to have healthier babies than those that do not. Is it also the case with humans?

“This is exciting stuff,” she said. “You can imagine short-term intervention that could produce significant public health benefits.”

Help with research

University of Kentucky doctors and scientists are always looking for people to help with their research. For details of clinical trials and research projects now seeking subjects both with and without health problems, go to this website and click on the title of each study.

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I have a framed photograph of my 35-year-old self covering the 1994 Winter Olympics. I am wearing a colorful Norwegian sweater. But what I always notice first is my chubby face. For the first time in my life, I was getting fat.

My doctor called me on it a few months later. “You need more exercise,” he said bluntly. “Ride a bike. That’s what I do.”

I was never much of an athlete. I hiked as a Boy Scout. I marched with the Lafayette High School band. But after college and marriage, about the only exercise I got was chasing after my two young daughters.

So I bought a road bike, helmet and padded shorts, and started riding around my Atlanta neighborhood. The more I rode, the better I liked it.

I began riding on weekends with the father of one of my daughter’s friends. Soon, I had the stamina and courage to accompany him on long rides. I was comforted that he was an emergency room doctor.

Within a year, I had ridden 2,000 miles. I was 35 pounds lighter, I felt great and friends kept telling me how much healthier I looked. Most of all, I was constantly looking forward to my next ride.

Since moving home to Lexington in 1998, I have continued to ride at least 2,000 miles a year. Now almost 53, I have yet to weigh as much as I did at 35, despite my love for barbecue and bourbon balls.

Men’s Health magazine recently ranked Lexington as the nation’s most sedentary city. That might or might not be true, but studies have shown that most Kentuckians don’t get enough exercise. Doubt the studies? Look around you. Or look in the mirror.

Here is what I have learned from my fitness adventure: Exercise works only if you enjoy it. If you don’t enjoy it, you won’t keep doing it. So find an activity you enjoy.

There is something magical for me about the biomechanical harmony of riding a bicycle. I love going places under my own power. It is a lot like hiking, except the scenery changes faster.

Climbing a big hill on a bicycle is challenging. The reward is the rush you get from flying down the other side. All you hear is wind and the whir of your back wheel’s sprocket; it sounds like a fly reel when a big trout is pulling out the line.

Cycling is best when you ride with other people. You can have some wonderful conversations while pedaling along at 15 or 20 mph, once you learn to pause and resume talking with the noise of wind and traffic.

Several people I ride with in rural Central Kentucky have become close friends. We have shared a lot with one another. It only makes sense; we have had so many miles to talk.

But this might be what I like best about cycling: Each ride is like a mini-vacation in one of the world’s most beautiful places.

I see nuances in the rural Bluegrass landscape on a bicycle that I never notice from a car. Were I not cycling, I would have had no reason to discover  the dozens of lightly traveled country lanes I now know so well. I often ride past beautiful antebellum homes, abandoned distilleries, caves, creeks and waterfalls that most people around here don’t even know exist.

Tuesday morning’s ride was typical. A friend and I met soon after dawn on the edge of Lexington. The sun shone through plank fences, creating beautiful shadow patterns on the road. We sped by horses grazing in fields and saw a young colt being taken for a walk. Birds danced across meadows filled with wildflowers. Squirrels gathered walnuts around stone fences.

We stopped at Windy Corner Market for coffee and a country ham biscuit. I enjoyed those Kentucky Proud calories all the more because I knew they would be long gone by the time we finished our fast, 28-mile ride and parted for our weekday routines.

Cycling has made me healthier and happier. It isn’t just exercise. It’s fun.

I am increasingly impressed with the leadership of the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce. Rather than just taking care of business, it seems to realize that improving life in Kentucky will help create economic prosperity.

That was apparent at last week’s annual meeting in Louisville. The agenda focused on substantive discussions of two of Kentucky’s biggest issues, coal and education.

For example, the keynote speaker on coal was journalist James Fallows, whose Atlantic magazine cover story last December was one of the best things I have read on the subject. “Coal is inevitably going to be a major part of the world’s energy solution for the foreseeable future,” he said. “But that role will be and has to be different.”

While Fallows characterized his remarks as a “good news speech,” it was nothing like the hot air we usually hear from the coal industry and its cheerleaders.

No matter how successful the world is at developing alternative energy, coal will remain a vital fuel for decades, Fallows said. But he stressed that global economic, scientific and political trends will require that coal be mined and burned in more environmentally friendly ways. It is smarter to lead change than be trampled by it.

Solutions built around market incentives — such as the ill-fated “cap and trade” proposal — would be better than regulation because they would encourage business creativity and flexibility, Fallows said. But if business wants market-driven change rather than regulatory change, he said, “high-level industrial leadership is important.”

Fallows was followed by Michael G. Morris, chairman of American Electric Power, whose remarks were titled “Coal Under Attack.” While saying that coal must get “cleaner,” his rambling presentation was filled with the usual clichés about new environmental rules being unfair and unreasonable.

Morris bragged about how much less pollution coal-fired power plants emit now than they used to — as if that were the result of industry leadership rather than government regulations that most utilities fought every step of the way.

Morris repeated an earlier claim that new regulations will have a “devastating effect” on AEP, shutting down 6,000 megawatts of generating capacity. But as another speaker pointed out later, two-thirds of that capacity was going to be retired anyway because of a 2007 pollution settlement with the Bush administration.

I was impressed that so many chamber members seemed wise to Morris, even ignoring most of his attempts at applause and laugh lines.

Morris was followed by Rodney Andrews, director of the University of Kentucky’s Center for Applied Energy Research. He gave an excellent but rushed presentation that echoed many of Fallows’ points and made a persuasive economic and environmental argument for making coal-fired power plants more efficient. I would like to have heard more from him.

The chamber announced some initiatives that could have a big impact. The New Agenda for Kentucky Campaign focuses on action plans in five areas: improving schools, modernizing government, remaining competitive in energy resources, doubling international exports within five years and improving Kentuckians’ health and wellness.

Perhaps the most impressive effort is the Kentucky Leadership Institute for School Principals. AT&T and other companies are giving money to send many Kentucky school principals to the respected (and expensive) Center for Creative Leadership in North Carolina to get the kind of high-level leadership training that business executives receive.

The chamber also unveiled a follow-up to its 2009 “Leaky Bucket” study, which underscored how huge increases in state spending for public employee health care, Medicaid and prisons were contributing to a short-change of education.

That report provided encouragement — and political cover — for landmark legislation earlier this year to rewrite Kentucky’s criminal code. It will reduce the number of non-violent offenders in jails and prisons, send more drug offenders to treatment and save a lot of taxpayer money in the process.

The chamber’s new report, called “Building a Stronger Bucket,” offers more suggested policy changes, including moving new state employees to a 401(k)-style pension plan.

Too often in the past, Kentucky has fallen behind the rest of the nation when narrow economic or political interests wielded too much power. Building a better future will require that many perspectives be considered and many voices be heard.

Still, no single group can do more to make this state a better place to live than a progressive organization that represents a broad spectrum of the business community. The Kentucky Chamber of Commerce seems to be stepping up to the challenge.

Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang Architects, left, with staff members Michan Walker and Beth Zacherle, discusses a model of her proposed design for CentrePointe after a public meeting Thursday at the State Theatre with Richard Levine, right, principal in one of six Kentucky architecture firms she chose to work with her on the project. Photo by Tom Eblen

It would be hard to imagine a bigger contrast between the CentrePointe public meeting that filled the State Theatre last Thursday and the one that filled the same room a little more than three years ago.

At the meeting in March 2008, citizens pleaded with CentrePointe developers Dudley and Woodford Webb not to tear down a block of historic buildings to construct a massive tower that could have just as easily been designed for downtown Austin or suburban Atlanta.

Public anxiousness later turned to anger as the block was demolished. But before CentrePointe construction could begin, financing evaporated and the two-acre block became a vacant lot.

Fast forward three years. The crowd that filled the theater this time came to hear Jeanne Gang of Chicago-based Studio Gang Architects discuss her plan for redesigning CentrePointe. She also introduced the team of Lexington architects who will help her give the complex variety and local flavor.

Most people in the audience liked Gang’s designs for CentrePointe’s cluster of buildings and were impressed by the thought that went into them. It was easy to see why.

Five low-rise buildings facing Main Street, which will have retail space on the ground floor and residences above, will be similar in scale and variety to the century-old buildings across the street — and the ones that were torn down. An eight-story asymmetrical office building is imaginative, and street-level spaces look as if they will be pedestrian-friendly and inviting.

The proposed 30-story tower that would house a hotel, condos and apartments is simply stunning: light and airy with lots of visual variety, including roof gardens on various levels. The more you look at the tower, the more interesting details you notice. It looks like a place you would want to spend time in.

CentrePointe has been transformed from a project many people hated to one those same people are eager to see built. (Not everyone likes the new design; but not everyone likes anything.)

Mayor Jim Gray has gone from being the Webbs’ biggest critic to a valuable ally. He introduced them to Gang, and the mayor said Thursday he will do what he can to help CentrePointe succeed. “As somebody said, a little creativity goes a long way — in this case, a lot of creativity,” said Gray, who called the redesign “awesome.”

The big question, though, is whether any of it will be built. Can the Webbs find tenants and more than $200 million in financing?

It won’t be easy in this economy, but I have to think their odds are much better now that they are selling a beautifully unique complex designed by one of the world’s hottest architects rather than a generic monolith.

“Where else in the world is a city’s center available for an inspiring piece of architecture?” asked Gray, who has spent his career in the construction business.

Whether or not this CentrePointe is built — and I hope it is —Lexington will have learned some valuable lessons about successful city-building. Dudley Webb, who more than any other developer has shaped the face of downtown Lexington over the past three decades, said he has certainly learned some things.

“In the old days, it was about free enterprise and you just went out and did it,” he said. “Now, there’s a lot more public interest in what you want to do. Everybody perceives it as their downtown, which is good.”

Why are these lessons important? Think of CentrePointe — as big and important as it is — as the dress rehearsal for something much bigger and potentially more important. That would be the redevelopment of Lexington Center, Rupp Arena and 40 acres of surface parking that surrounds them.

CentrePointe began as a typical Lexington “like it or lump it” real estate deal, the product of one entrepreneur’s vision and effort. It has become a model for creativity, collaboration and public engagement that could be better for the city and more successful for the developer.

All of this newfound creativity, collaboration and public engagement will be needed to make the Lexington Center property live up to its enormous potential. If done well, it could redefine much of downtown Lexington for decades.

“CentrePointe has become a beacon in terms of process,” Gray said. “It’s a wonderful testimony for how we can learn from difficult experiences, move on and accomplish more than was ever hoped.”

This rendering, looking west on Vine Street, shows a bundled tower concept for the tallest portion of the CentrePointe development. The tower would contain a hotel, condos and apartments. The tallest portion of the tower would be 388 feet, slightly shorter than Fifth Third’s neighboring “blue” building, architect Jeanne Gang said Wednesday. Over the existing Phoenix Building at right is a rendering of what the top of CentrePointe’s eight-story office building portion might look like. (Click on the image to make it larger.) Image: Studio Gang

This view from Vine Street shows what the lower portion of CentrePointe’s tower and the eight-story office building at the corner of Main and Limestone streets could look like. The rendering doesn’t show five buildings that five Lexington architects would design along Main Street. (Click on the image to make it larger.) Image: Studio Gang

Ron Klemencic, a structural engineer from Magnusson Klemencic Associates, architect Jeanne Gang and Lexington developer Dudley Webb discuss design concepts during a meeting at Studio Gang Architects in Chicago. Gang will show and discuss a current model of her firm’s concepts for CentrePointe at a public meeting Thursday at 4 p.m. at the Kentucky Theatre on Main Street.  Image: Studio Gang.

* * * * * *

Jeanne Gang of Chicago-based Studio Gang Architects will be back in Lexington for a public meeting Thursday at 4 p.m. at the Kentucky Theatre to show her refined concepts for redesign of the proposed CentrePointe block — and they are impressive.

“We’ve made a lot of progress,” Gang said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

Gang, one of the nation’s most celebrated young architects, unveiled initial concepts for re-imagining CentrePointe at a public meeting June 2 that packed an old courtroom in the Lexington History Museum.

At this meeting, Gang will show a model, discuss refined concepts and announce the five Kentucky architects who will work with her firm to design five buildings in the project that will run along the block’s Main Street side.

Gang said the five were selected from 25 architects who applied to work on the project. Selection criteria included their design ideas for the block, experience, connections to Kentucky, history of collaboration and previous work with environmentally sustainable development.

Gang said her firm has worked closely with The Webb Companies during the design process “to get their feedback. I’ve found them to be very positive … relationship at this point, and fun to work with. I think they’ve really tried hard to engage the new process.”

Gang and her firm have done several major projects around the world, including Chicago’s acclaimed new Aqua tower.

Many readers were touched when I wrote about the “extreme makeovers” that a Lexington modeling agency owner and her friends gave to 47-year-old twin sisters Hilda Bevins and Wilda Bryant.

The new hairstyles, clothes and makeup were great. But the most valuable help Bevins received was for her health, not beauty. Untreated tooth decay had left her in constant pain; a dentist and an oral surgeon donated their services to make it go away.

Oral health is a national problem, but it is worse in Kentucky than in most states. Untreated dental disease causes other health problems, hurts performance at school and on the job, and can make life miserable. Perhaps the biggest barrier to adequate dental care is cost.

“What do you do if you don’t have insurance and you’re barely making ends meet?” asked Dr. Robert Henry, who practices dentistry at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Lexington.

That question led Henry and others from Faith Lutheran and Calvary Baptist churches in 2006 to renovate a building at 216 South Limestone and open Mission Lexington Dental Clinic.

Since then, three more churches — Good Shepherd Episcopal, Maxwell Street Presbyterian and First Presbyterian — and local organizations have joined in support of the volunteer work by 28 dentists, other dental professionals and students from the University of Kentucky College of Dentistry.

“Dental pain can be devastating, and our true mission is to get people out of pain,” said Henry, whose wife, Donita, a dental assistant, is the clinic coordinator. “This has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done — and the most rewarding.”

Mission Lexington is one of several local organizations, including Southland Christian Church’s Refuge Clinic, that provide dental services to low-income people without insurance. But the need is far greater than the services available, and it is only getting worse as treatment costs rise and fewer jobs offer affordable dental insurance.

Mission Lexington’s waiting list exceeds 600 people. Patients must be at least 18 years old, live in Lexington, lack dental insurance and have income below the federal poverty level.

“If we had six times the resources, we could see six times the patients,” said Christopher Benham Skidmore, executive director of Mission Lexington, which also operates a medical clinic at 1393 Trent Boulevard for uninsured working adults whose earnings are no more than 185 percent of the poverty level.

Mission Lexington will have a fund-raiser at 7p.m. July 23 at the Barrel House, 903 Manchester Street, with food, music and a silent auction. Tickets to the Taste of Grace event are $35 in advance, $40 at the door. For more information, call (859) 273-5077.

The Mission Lexington Dental Clinic is in a building owned by Calvary Baptist that was restored with volunteer labor. Thanks to donations, a clinic worth about $300,000 was furnished for about $50,000. The clinic’s annual operating budget is about $140,000, Skidmore said.

Care is free except for dentures, which are made for dental surgery patients at a fraction of the normal cost, thanks to volunteer work by dental technician Laurie Eads.

The high cost of dentistry kept Wyvitta and Grover Brooks from seeking treatment for years, until their painful mouths led them to Mission Lexington in 2009.

“These people are a godsend,” said Grover Brooks, 55, whose restaurant cooking jobs never included dental insurance. “They’re good, man; really thorough.”

Wyvitta Brooks, 51, said she has always struggled with dental care because of her small mouth, a partial cleft palate and other birth defects. She hasn’t had dental insurance since she took a buyout from a telecommunications company several years ago. Dental care wasn’t affordable until she found Mission Lexington.

“I was so used to being turned away and going through so much pain,” she said. “You don’t realize until you get it fixed how much it affects your life. The people here are just wonderful.”

Henry, the dentist, said that is typical of Mission Lexington patients. “Most of the people who come here have been in pain for months, if not a year, and this literally changes their lives,” he said. “We’re a very small answer to a major problem.”

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How can Lexington be both the nation’s most sedentary city and the fourth-best city for business and careers? Those seemingly contradictory rankings came out recently in Men’s Health and Forbes magazines.

The laziness award from Men’s Health — that peerless monthly guide to flatter abs and better sex — gave people a good laugh at Lexington’s expense. I didn’t hear the news for several days; I was with a large group of Central Kentucky friends in Virginia, where we were bicycling 300 miles up and down mountains.

When I returned home, I also discovered that Forbes had ranked Lexington No. 4 in its annual Best Places for Business list, up from 9th last year. (Louisville ranked No. 14.)

I don’t put much stock in magazine rankings, which are designed mostly to draw attention to magazines. But people love lists, no matter how suspect they seem. The good rankings give us something to brag about; the bad ones, something to fuss about — or think about.

The slap from Men’s Health was another reminder that Kentuckians need to adopt healthier lifestyles. One more reminder came last week, when two public health groups reported that nearly one-third of all Kentuckians are obese, making this the nation’s sixth-fattest state.

Maybe the drumbeat will persuade more Kentuckians to give up smoking, cut back on fatty foods and sugary drinks, and get more exercise. Lexington lags many cities when it comes to bicycle lanes, trails and a pedestrian-friendly environment that allows physical activity to be part of everyday life. But recent improvements show that when facilities are built, Lexingtonians will use them.

Forbes said it arrived at its list by weighing a series of metrics, including job and income growth, cost, quality of life and educational attainment. Lexington ranked higher than all of the cities that Commerce Lexington members have visited in recent years to gather improvement ideas: Greenville, S.C., was No. 60; Pittsburgh, No. 69; Madison, Wis., No. 63; Austin, Texas, No. 7; Boulder, Colo., No. 44; and Oklahoma City, Okla., No. 28.

Most Commerce Lexington trips have focused on downtown development and quality-of-life improvements — important factors in long-term economic vitality. All of the cities visited have offered good ideas for Lexington. But as last month’s trip to Greenville showed, Lexington has more going for it than we often assume.

Some Lexington businessmen — impressed by Greenville’s success in recruiting industry — were quick to tout South Carolina’s low-tax, low-regulation, anti-union environment. But economic statistics show a more complicated picture.

Before Forbes ranked Lexington a whopping 56 places above Greenville, I was looking through the “regional economic scorecard” that Clemson University economists compile for Greenville’s leaders.

Greenville considers Lexington one of its “peer” cities, and our metropolitan area outperformed theirs in almost every measure on the scorecard: work-force education, cost of living, knowledge workers, innovative activity and capacity, entrepreneurial environment, employment diversity and high-wage employment opportunities.

Even more telling, Lexington leads Greenville in per-capita income, perhaps the best measure of economic health. (Still, both places trail the national average, and the gaps have widened in recent years. That is neither a healthy sign nor an argument for “business-friendly” low wages.)

Economists in both South Carolina and Kentucky say one of the main keys to long-term economic prosperity is education. Still, many business and political leaders find it easier to fuss about taxes, regulation and unions than to make significant, long-term investments in education.

What lessons should we draw from economic comparisons? In a nutshell, Lexington should more aggressively build on its strengths and focus on initiatives that will promote long-term, broad-based economic prosperity.

And what about all of those magazine lists? Be neither discouraged nor deluded; just consider them tools. Brag about the Forbes ranking — it might bring in some business — and use the Men’s Health ranking to rally support for mending our unhealthy ways.

Lexington is neither as good nor as bad as others say we are. But if we are smart, we will use both the praise and criticism to get better.

Kentuckians love to embrace a lost cause, especially one that deserves to be lost.

The state stayed in the Union during the Civil War, yet many Kentuckians switched sides and mythologized the Confederacy after the war was over. Long after everyone else recognized smoking’s deadly toll, Kentucky leaders remained apologists for tobacco.

Now, federal regulators are finally acting to curb the damage mining and burning coal does to human health and the environment. So where are Kentucky’s leaders? Many have stormed the ramparts, vowing to fight what they call the “war on coal.”

The hollering grew louder Thursday when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced new standards that will require utilities in 27 Eastern states to reduce power-plant emissions. The EPA says the stricter limits will prevent tens of thousands of premature deaths, heart attacks and cases of bronchitis and asthma, creating up to $280 billion in annual benefits by 2014 — well beyond the cost of compliance.

These science-based standards have been in the works for years, and big business has been fighting them every step of the way. But pollution is becoming harder to ignore as health-care costs rise and the damage is more obvious and measurable.

Kentucky is the third-largest coal- producing state, and federal regulators have gotten more aggressive about reining in destructive mining practices.

Federal regulators eventually will limit carbon dioxide emissions from burning coal, a major contributor to disastrous climate change. Yet, many Kentuckians continue to deny climate science.

Burning coal generates more than 90 percent of electricity in Kentucky and 46 percent nationally. Many business and political leaders complain that the economy can’t bear the cost of cleaning up after coal, which will include higher power rates. As if sickness, death and pollution don’t have huge costs, too.

But here’s the thing: We will be burning coal for decades, because we must. No other energy source can replace coal any time soon. Environmentalists who demonize coal are ignoring reality just as much as the business people and politicians who demonize regulators and fight to protect pollution.

“I wish we could get away from this ‘war on coal’; it doesn’t help anybody,” said John Morgan, a mining engineer and president of Morgan Worldwide Consultants Inc. “We should be having debates about facts and not hyperbole, and quit demonizing everybody.”

Morgan’s Lexington-based firm has found a niche helping the mining industry and regulators figure out more environmentally friendly ways to mine. “If you’re going to mine coal, you need to do it both economically and with less impact, and realize that mining is a temporary land use,” he said. “It’s not just the industry that needs to think more creatively, but the regulators.”

That means designing mines that produce more coal while disturbing less land and fewer streams. And it means more planning for uses of reclaimed mine land.

Morgan points out that tighter regulation hasn’t hurt coal production. And after nearly three decades of decline, the number of Kentucky jobs in underground and surface mining has been rising since 2004. “People say the war on coal is hurting employment, but the numbers tell a different story,” he said.

One reason more jobs are being created is that mine productivity has been falling since a peak in 2000. Easy-to-mine Kentucky coal is becoming more scarce, so the trend of bigger machines and fewer miners is reversing. “As productivity goes down, it’s going to mean more people,” Morgan said.

“Long-term, there’s going to be more underground mining because easily minable surface reserves are almost gone,” he said.

Kentucky mines will get smaller. Permits will need to be more sophisticated. And all of that means there will be more demand for well-trained mining professionals, even as some work is automated. “The biggest long-term challenge is the human resource side,” Morgan said.

The lost cause that so many Kentuckians have embraced is not coal but the idea we can continue mining and burning it in the same old ways. Rather than fighting a doomed “war” to preserve the past, our leaders should focus on the future and the role Kentucky coal must play.

You may have heard about or caught a glimpse of the grassroots renaissance happening along Lexington’s historic North Limestone Street corridor. Tonight you have a chance to see if for yourself, meet new people and have some fun.

Debra Hensley, the insurance agent and former Urban County Council member, brings one of her free-and-open-to-the-public Social $timulus events to North Limestone beginning at 5:30 p.m. to showcase the good things happening there. What is Debra’s Social $timus all about? Read my column from February 2010.

Tonight’s event takes place around the corner of North Limestone and East 6th streets. Among the featured people and places: Broke Spoke Community Bike Shop, Al’s Bar, the new Supreme Service Barber Shop, the Lexington Visual Collective and artist John Lackey’s Homegrown Press studio in the beautifully renovated Spalding’s Bakery building. (Lackey designed the promotional poster here. Click the image to make it larger.)

For more information about the event, including videos about featured people and places, click here. I hope to see you there.

Soon after Men’s Health magazine made Lexington an international laughingstock by naming it America’s most sedentary city, Forbes magazine has given the local business community something to brag about.

Lexington’s No. 4 ranking in Forbes’ annual Best Places for Business list is up from No. 9 last year. Louisville is ranked No. 14.

Forbes ranked Lexington better than all of the cities that Commerce Lexington’s annual Leadership Visit has gone to recently: Greenville was No. 60; Madison, No. 63; Pittsburgh, No. 69, Austin, No. 7; Boulder, No. 44 and Oklahoma City, No. 28.

Forbes said it arrived at its rankings by weighing a series of metrics, such things as job and income growth, costs, quality of life and educational attainment. Read more about the methodology here.

In my Business Monday column, I will discuss these rankings — which are more about magazine promotion than anything else — and how comparing one place to another is more difficult than it seems.

How do you create the world’s largest outdoor American Saddlebred horse show? Tell a group of young women they can’t do it.

That’s how the Lexington Junior League Horse Show began in 1937. The show celebrates its 75th anniversary July 11 to 16 at The Red Mile.

The horse show was the brainchild of Marie Kittrell, who had become president of the young women’s volunteer organization in 1936. She was frustrated by how hard it was to raise money for charity during the Great Depression. Ladies’ teas and follies shows just weren’t cutting it.

Kittrell thought that Lexington, of all places, should be able to support a first-class horse show. The American Saddlebred was developed in Central Kentucky, but there hadn’t been a regular show since the old Blue Grass Fair closed a few years earlier.

The Junior Leaguers decided they could do it. Their husbands were skeptical. Lexington businessmen rolled their eyes. Money was borrowed for expenses, and businesses were persuaded to put up prize money. The Red Mile’s executives figured the show would be a one-time failure, so they charged the young ladies only $1 to use the trotting track.

“It was thought that this group of women didn’t know what they were doing,” said Joyce Ockerman, who, at age 11, rode in that first show. “But that Mrs. Kittrell, she had her mind set on it.

“When the show opened, they were amazed by the crowds of people who came out,” said Ockerman, who joined the Junior League in 1948, was horse show chairwoman in 1952 and still attends the event every year.

That first four-day show attracted 216 horses from 16 states, and 24,000 spectators. When the bills were paid and the books balanced, the profit was $5,500 — a lot of money in 1937 and five times more than any Junior League of Lexington fund-raiser had ever raised.

Over the past 74 years, the show has raised about $4 million to support the Junior League’s work, which focuses on improving the lives of women and children in the Bluegrass. The overall economic impact on Lexington has amounted to millions of dollars more.

Last year, the horse show raised $80,000. That’s an ambitious goal in another tough economy for this year’s show chairwoman, Alice Vance Dearborn, and her board.

Dearborn also has some personal history to live up to. Her grandmother and namesake, Alice Vance, was a member of the first horse show board. She became show chairwoman in 1939 and was Junior League president from 1940 to 1942, when the show went on despite World War II.

The horse show has changed over the years to stay fresh. This year’s edition kicks off Saturday night with a party at the Red Mile’s historic Round Barn, featuring a silent auction, the Jimmy Church Band and celebrity host Elizabeth Shatner. Competition begins Monday and continues through Saturday’s Championship Night.

Special events include American Heroes Night on Tuesday, when veterans and their families get in free and The Bravehearts, a veterans riding group from Illinois, performs. Three canned goods for the God’s Pantry Food Drive get you in free Wednesday night. That also is the night of the stick-horse race for children 8 and younger. ($5 to enter; bring your own stick horse.) There also will be free kids’ activities that night in the Round Barn.

Thursday night’s show salutes breast cancer awareness, and Friday’s show promotes the American Heart Association and St. Joseph Healthcare. After Friday’s show, at 9:30 p.m., there will be tailgating on The Red Mile apron.

For more information about the horse show, go to Lexjrleague.com.

With more than 30,000 participants and attendees each year, the Lexington Junior League Horse Show has always been a big undertaking for the young women who organize it — and for their husbands and children, who always seem to get roped into helping.

“I remember sitting in the trophy tent when I was a little girl and thinking, ‘I want to be in charge of this someday,’” said Dearborn, 32, a third-generation Junior Leaguer. “Now it’s like, what was I thinking!”

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I couldn’t resist going downtown today for the Fourth of July festivities. This is one holiday Lexington really knows how to celebrate. Main Street, Short Street, Cheapside, all of the side streets and the CentrePointe field were filled with people eating festival food and watching the parade of old cars, community bands and lots of politicians. It looked as if half of Lexington was there, and everyone seemed to be having a great time.

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