The Bluegrass and Beyond

Joe Riley is an evangelist for historic preservation, good urban design and proven strategies for making cities more livable and economically successful.

He founded the national Mayors’ Institute for City Design. The Joseph P. Riley Center for Urban Affairs and Policy Studies at the College of Charleston is named for him. But Riley’s best credential is his day job: since 1975, for an unprecedented nine terms, he has been the mayor of Charleston, S.C.

People who know Charleston often remark on what a great city it is — the beautiful waterfront, the Spoleto arts festival and the colorfully painted historic homes. Those old enough to remember what the city used to be like talk about how much it has improved.

During Riley’s tenure, Charleston’s annual tourist trade has increased from 1.7 million to 4.4 million visitors. At the same time, the city has often made lists of the best places to live and do business.

Riley was in Lexington last Wednesday to speak to an overflow crowd at the Downtown Public Library. Many civic leaders were there, as well as all four candidates for mayor.

With a rapid-fire PowerPoint presentation that lasted for more than an hour, Riley flashed slide after slide showing Charleston’s transformation from the time when “our downtown almost died.”

The pictures showed dozens of dilapidated buildings restored to elegance and commercial success; modest but well-designed public housing so attractive that expensive condos were later built across the street; neighborhoods and commercial streets rescued from neglect by city leaders who demanded and got high-quality private development; an elegant public park on what was once a waterfront eyesore.

“A big challenge was this vacant lot right in the middle of downtown,” Riley said at one point, prompting the crowd to erupt in laughter. “Oh, you have one of those, too?”

A key factor in Charleston’s success has been historic preservation. “We work hard to keep the bulldozers out,” he said.

Historic preservation hasn’t been so much about preserving the past — “we’re not a movie set or a theme park,” Riley said — but about creating an authentic, irreplaceable and human-scaled environment where people naturally want to be. The city also insists that new development be well-designed, well-built and, well, worthy of being in Charleston.

That means having effective laws and regulations, but also the kind of professional architectural review processes Lexington lacks. Such a process helps ensure that new development is appropriate, well-designed and in the best interests of the entire city and not just an individual developer or property owner.

“Try not to plop things down,” Riley said of new development. “Make it work. Make it fit.”

Excellence is often achieved with that last 5 percent of effort, the mayor noted. He repeatedly gave examples of using his political skills to make sure old buildings were saved, money was found to restore them and proposed new construction added to rather than detracted from the rest of the city. Riley said he once called then-President Bill Clinton to insist that a new federal building respect Charleston’s downtown esthetic.

“There’s never an excuse to build anything that doesn’t add to the beauty of a city,” Riley said, acknowledging that “the political land mines are all over the place.”

Successful cities put a lot of emphasis on beautiful public space that attracts people. “The things of value are increasingly the things we own together,” he said. “When you build a great public realm, the private money and development will follow.”

Riley’s strong leadership is controversial; he has always had a re-election opponent, and last time he had three. But Riley’s approach has clearly worked for Charleston and most of its citizens. He was re-elected for an eighth time in 2007 with 64 percent of the vote.

City-building is a complicated stew, but the principles Riley outlined are simple: vision, leadership, and a commitment to long-term value for the entire city rather than just short-term profit for individuals.

When Lexington has followed those principles, it has enjoyed some of its greatest success: creating the Urban Services Boundary in 1958; restricting rural lot sizes in 1964 and 1999; starting the Purchase of Development Rights program in 2000; and creating historic districts over the past 50 years (often, though, after significant damage was already done.)

Lexington has failed when it ignored those principles and allowed tacky, vinyl-box housing, commercial sprawl, haphazard architecture and, since the 1950s, the destruction of classic downtown buildings to make way for parking lots, drab concrete boxes and ego-driven glass towers.

“Our success as a culture, economic and otherwise, will depend on our cities,” Riley said. “We must treat them as precious heirlooms that we inherit and hold in trust for future generations.”

While I appreciate the kind words about my writing in Urban County Councilman Ed Lane’s letter to the editor today, his critique of my Dec. 20 column shows that he completely missed the point of it.

I did not suggest that a government-subsidized art museum like the Guggenheim Bilbao — or a government-subsidized anything — should be built on the CentrePointe site. I merely used the Guggenheim, the Humana Building in Louisville and the Ascent in Covington as examples of how quality architecture can contribute to a city.

The point of the column was that the high-profile CentrePointe site is an opportunity for outstanding architecture, something rarely produced by Lexington’s commercial developers.

Efforts to build the 35-story CentrePointe tower seem to be as dead as developer Dudley Webb’s mysterious financier.

Since the project stalled more than a year ago, CentrePointe has become the ultimate Lexington irony: a block developed for more than two centuries that has been cleared, planted in grass and fenced like a horse farm.

As CentrePointe became CentrePit and then CentrePasture, I received many calls and e-mail messages from readers with ideas for what that block in the center of Lexington should become.

Some wanted to see it remain a grassy park — sans fence — or planted in trees or even vegetable gardens. Others would like to see the next herd of Horse Mania statues graze there during the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games. My younger daughter thinks it would be a great place to give pony rides.

Conspiracy theorists have whispered that the block was always intended to become the new federal courthouse or local government center. The strangest rumor I’ve heard? A casino will go there if the General Assembly allows them.

CentrePointe never made much economic sense, even before the real estate bubble burst. Hotel people doubt Lexington can support a J.W. Marriott. Real estate people question the market for 91 million-dollar condos.

But I think a big reason CentrePointe has drawn public ire is that its design just isn’t good enough to be Lexington’s centerpiece. Renderings make the tower look massive, generic and out-of-place — a monument to a developer’s edifice complex.

Earlier this month, I attended a presentation by some University of Kentucky landscape architecture students who re-imaged the 1.7-acre block for a class project. Their concepts were thoughtful and engaging.

The designs called for clusters of buildings, with no tower taller than 15 stories. The students factored in the block’s surroundings and patterns of sunlight and shade. They included creative use of open space, water features and roof gardens.

In a grander academic exercise, the UK College of Design brought in prominent architects for a 48-hour workshop in July 2008 that produced three fascinating redesign concepts for CentrePointe. Traditionalists giggled and gasped.

But if Webb wanted to make a bold statement about himself as a developer and Lexington as a city, iconic architecture would get the world’s attention.

I saw a great example of that when I went to Spain recently. People from all over the world have come to Bilbao, an out-of-the-way industrial city, to see Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum Bilbao since it opened in 1997. It is a magnet that the Basque government estimates has pulled more than $2 billion into the local economy.

There are many more modest examples, including several close to home. Michael Graves’ 1985 Humana Building brought a lot of attention to Louisville. Daniel Libeskind’s 2008 condo tower, Ascent at Roebling’s Bridge, is doing the same for Covington.

Webb and landowner Joe Rosenberg have millions tied up in the CentrePointe block. Once the economy improves, something important is sure to be built there. Something important needs to be; it’s Lexington’s best development site.

I just hope that whatever is built is a long-term success. We sure don’t need what Don Blevins Jr., the Fayette County clerk and former Urban County Council member, warned could become “a vertical Lexington Mall right in the heart of downtown.”

I also hope that Webb — or whoever ends up developing the property for whatever purpose — hires a great architect to create something of lasting esthetic value.

Lexington hasn’t paid much attention to architecture in a very long time. Good design just hasn’t been part of our civic conversation. Whatever was profitable for developers was good enough for us. The more conventional — and boring — the better.

CentrePointe seems to have changed the civic conversation. I now hear people talk about how great design could help make Lexington more economically successful and a more interesting place to live. I hope the talk continues — and leads to an urban landscape that is as special as the rural landscape that surrounds it.

Vice Mayor Jim Gray’s decision last week to enter the Lexington mayoral race means the field is likely set for next year’s election.

Campaigns tend to take on lives of their own. So before the jockeying begins in earnest, here’s an assessment of the candidates’ records, strengths and weaknesses.

What do I know? I constantly talk to people all over Lexington who have worked with the three major candidates for years, in a variety of situations. So these observations are not just my own.

In addition to Gray, Mayor Jim Newberry faces challenges from the mayor he easily unseated three years ago, Teresa Isaac, and political novice Eric Patrick Marr.

Newberry

Newberry and his hard-working staff have done a good job of managing the city in a tough economy. He has had the courage to tackle difficult issues he inherited, such as the police and firefighters’ pension shortfall and decades-old storm water and sewer problems.

Newberry is solid and pragmatic, a detail-oriented manager who isn’t afraid of heavy lifting. He is a clear public speaker, if not a very exciting one. But Urban County Council members and community leaders often complain about his skills at interpersonal communication. He can be stubborn, abrasive and thin-skinned.

Before becoming mayor, Newberry managed a law firm and, like a corporate lawyer, he can be cautious to a fault. He sometimes misses leadership moments, such as his slow response to the Blue Grass Airport scandal.

Newberry is decisive, but his decision-making process often lacks the kind of inclusiveness that encourages buy-in and allows the best ideas to come forward. For example, more inclusive planning and communication could have made the South Limestone Street project less costly and disruptive.

Gray

Newberry says the right things about urban redevelopment, but doesn’t always seem to understand it. He has been a key champion of the Lyric Theatre restoration, recognizing what a catalyst it can be for the East End. But he has otherwise been hostile to historic preservation, not realizing that it can be a driver of economic development rather than an obstacle.

He has been a strong supporter of trails and making Lexington more bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly. But he has dragged his feet on two-way streets and opposes design guidelines like other cities use to promote good downtown development.

Perhaps Newberry’s biggest misstep was his facilitation of the now-stalled CentrePointe development. And the less popular CentrePointe became, the more he seemed to embrace it.

Meanwhile, Newberry has given lukewarm support to the Distillery District project, which many people think has far more potential for economic development than CentrePointe ever did.

While Newberry talks a lot about the 21st century economy and attracting the “creative class,” Gray seems to have better instincts about how to do it.

Gray was squeezed out of a three-way mayoral primary in 2002 by Isaac and lawyer Scott Crosbie, who has endorsed Gray in this race. Gray was elected to council in 2006, becoming vice mayor by receiving more votes than any other at-large council candidate.

Gray is an idea man who is less intellectually rigid than Newberry. While more inclusive than Newberry, he is less decisive. Gray can suffer from a short attention span and a lack of follow-through.

Isaac

While good at using his bully pulpit as vice mayor, Gray hasn’t been as skilled at building coalitions to pass legislation. He can be a dynamic public speaker when he’s prepared. When he tries to wing it, though, he can quickly turn esoteric.

Gray is most articulate about development issues, because that’s his business. He is trained in architecture and is chairman and chief executive of his family’s highly regarded construction company.

If CentrePointe was Newberry’s biggest mistake, it was Gray’s shining moment. His critiques of the project have proven remarkably prophetic. However, in the year since CentrePointe stalled, council has yet to revise development laws to prevent that kind of debacle from happening again.

People often remark that if we could combine the two Jims from Barren County we would have a great mayor. Each has important skills, traits and sensibilities the other lacks.

Good management is important during times of economic transition. But so is vision and making the right strategic decisions and investments for the future.

In many ways, the voters’ choice could come down to this question: Is it more likely that Newberry will become willing to listen to people more visionary than he is, or that Gray will hire good detail people who can help him get things done?

Marr

Then there is Isaac, who was turned out of office by a wide margin three years ago.

Isaac got good marks for her leadership during the 2003 ice storm. Otherwise, she was largely a disaster as mayor. She loved the job, but lacked many of the skills to do it. She didn’t communicate well, she couldn’t work with people and she sometimes seemed reckless.

Isaac is a good campaigner and still has pockets of support. But most community leaders think her time has come and gone.

Marr says he entered the race because he doesn’t think Lexington is doing enough to develop a 21st century economy. He cares a lot about Lexington, but there’s no evidence he has the skills to be mayor.

In case you missed them, the Herald-Leader carried two excellent op-ed columns Sunday and Monday from two of Lexington’s most knowledgeable and passionate advocates for smart growth and preservation of what’s special in the Bluegrass.

Here’s the Sunday piece by Knox van Nagell, executive director of The Fayette Alliance.

Here’s the Monday piece by Hayward Wilkirson, who was a founding board member of Preserve Lexington, which last year opposed destruction of a historic block that’s now a downtown meadow.

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?

I returned to Lexington this week after a long vacation to find that CentrePit had been transformed into a grassy meadow, and workers were installing a classic horse-farm fence around the perimeter.

The past half-century of Lexington’s growth has been defined by grassy meadows and horse-farm fences giving way to homes, office buildings and shopping centers.

Dudley Webb may go down in history as the only Lexington developer to do just the opposite. And he did it in the center of town, on a block that has been developed urban space since the 1700s.

Seriously, though, I have to give Webb credit. I’ve always thought his CentrePointe development was poorly conceived and not in the community’s best interests. The fact that he can’t seem to find financing for the $250 million project speaks to some of its issues.

But in this instance, Webb is doing the right thing: Making his demolition site look attractive until he and landowner Joe Rosenberg decide the block’s ultimate fate.

Other local developers of stalled projects, such as at the corner of Richmond Road and Man O’ War Boulevard, and abandoned eyesores, such as Lexington Mall, should follow his lead.

Thank you, Dudley Webb.

Fencing is installed around the CentrePointe block. Photo by David Perry

After the big storm Tuesday afternoon, I drove down Main Street to check on Lake Lexington. As I was waiting to turn left from Upper to Vine, I looked back at the CentrePointe site and saw Coleman Larkin and his dalmatian, Sal. I’ll leave any commentary to Sal.

Today’s meeting of the Courthouse Area Design Review Board offered a few updates on CentrePointe, the massive downtown development project that 16 months after its announcement remains a mirage.

Darby Turner, the attorney for developer Dudley Webb, said Webb is in Europe working to secure financing for the $250 million project from the estate of a mysterious, unidentified investor who is said to have died last fall, leaving the hotel-condo-office tower in limbo.

“We hope to have that (financing) in 30-to-60 days,” Turner said. But he quickly acknowledged, “We’ve been saying that, frankly, for some period of time, but all in good faith.”

The three review board members present seemed understandably skeptical. A year ago, they accepted Webb’s argument that he needed quick permission to demolish a dozen buildings on the block, including one dating to 1826, because his development was too important to delay.

Turner said today that once financing is secured, excavation work could begin within a month. Digging down three stories for an underground parking garage will take about three months. Then, foundations must be built before the proposed 35-story tower can begin rising from the ground.

The big issue, of course, is financing. The global economic meltdown has stopped similar projects worldwide dead in their tracks. The demand for big four-star convention hotels and luxury condos just isn’t what it used to be.

Because CentrePointe sits inside the historic overlay district of the old Fayette County Courthouse (now the Lexington History Museum), the review board had to give permission for the old buildings to be demolished and CentrePointe to be built.

The board gave that one-year permit last November. The permit won’t expire until November, but Turner was appearing to ask for a one-year extension. Now.

The board was confused. Why would Webb want an extension that would expire in July 2010 rather than asking in the fall and getting one that wouldn’t expire until November 2010?

Turner said having more lead time would “give assurance to our investor that this project is still doable in Lexington.”  He also said he wanted to avoid someone trying to challenge an extension in the fall.

What Turner didn’t say — but several people were thinking — was that it also would move the next renewal request, if there is one, to July 2010 instead of November 2010, when the mayor and Urban County Council members must stand for re-election. CentrePointe’s public credibility isn’t what it used to be.

Asked about that after the meeting, Turner said politics had nothing to do with his request.

Review board Chairman Mike Meuser, a lawyer, wanted to delay action on Turner’s request until the board’s next regular meeting in October. But a staff attorney told him that wasn’t allowed under city ordinance.

“It just doesn’t make any sense to me, either for the applicant or the community or the board to reauthorize these permits now,” Meuser said.

Still, the board ended up approving the extension request. Legally, it seemed to have no other choice.

In other news, Turner said J.W. Marriott, which Webb says plans to put a luxury hotel in CentrePointe, wanted interior design changes that will require some architectural revisions, such as moving elevators.

But Turner said the exterior design hasn’t been changed. I guess that means it still looks like some of those developments I saw going up around Atlanta in the 1980s.

While the review board was meeting at city hall, a bulldozer was rumbling around the CentrePointe site, three blocks west on Main Street. It was spreading fill dirt recently brought in so grass can be planted.

Despite the latest “30 or 60 days” estimate, I’m not holding my breath. CentrePointe may defy the global economic odds. Construction may really begin in a few months.

But I think a better bet might be on who will get next summer’s mowing contract for the empty block in the center of Lexington.

It takes a pretty good seminar to keep me inside on a warm, sunny Saturday when I could be out biking. But Planning for Livability and Sustainability: Lessons of the Vancouver Achievement for Lexington and the Bluegrass was fascinating.

The seminar today at the University of Kentucky was organized by UK professors Ernest Yanarella and Richard Levine. It was a followup to a similar seminar at the Kentucky Horse Park in 2007.

About 40 people attended, including Vice Mayor Jim Gray, Urban County Council member Diane Lawless and David Mohney, chairman of the Downtown Development Authority. I wish some others from council, the city planning staff and Commerce Lexington whose name tags I saw on the registration table had been able to come.

Ian Smith, Vancouver’s former senior planner and now project director for the 2010 Olympic Village, gave a terrific presentation about how his city has in just the past two or three decades transformed itself by bringing many segments of the community together around the goals of making Vancouver a model for urban livability and environmental sustainability.

Early next week, I’ll write more about that, as well as about the presentation by Mark Roseland, director of the Centre for Sustainable Community Development at Simon Fraser University near Vancouver. He talked about what that university is doing, and the role universities can play in helping a city and region improve its environment and economy.

But here was an interesting sidebar from today’s session:

Gray, who has been critical of the Downtown Development Authority for supporting the secretive development of the controversial CentrePointe project, said during a discussion that Lexington’s council members and the mayor need more help and leadership from senior planning staff members to make good policy decisions.

“We don’t have the level of competence that our city deserves in these roles,” Gray said. He added that Lexington government needs a change of political culture to allow senior staff members to feel empowered to seek out innovative ideas and help lead policymakers and the public toward good solutions.

That brought a sharp response from Mohney, who in addition to being the DDA chairman is a UK College of Design professor and former dean who has worked for years to involve students in helping Lexington do a better job of urban planning.

“It’s a tough town to make this work,” Mohney said. “It’s going to take time.” (quote corrected from initial post)

Lawless jumped in, complaining that the city’s bureaucracy is too fragmented. “It’s often like a shotgun, with each pellet being powered by a different division,” she said. “We need an urban planner who has that over-arching vision.”

Lawless said the result is a slow decision-making process where each interest group works with a different part of city government, but there’s too little coordination, leadership or vision. To help with that, she is pushing to have 16 recommendations from the lengthy Downtown Master Plan process finally adopted into  law.

Mohney noted that Lexington was at the forefront of American urban planning in 1958 when it created a growth boundary to protect Bluegrass horse farms. “The problem is we did nothing after that to redefine our growth strategy,” he said.

Lawless said this is a good time to do that, noting that the current mayor and council seem to have the political will to address tough, long-neglected growth issues. “The only way it’s going to happen is for us to roll up our sleeves and do something about it,” she said. “Now is the time.”

Soon, it was time for Roseland to begin his presentation. But the discussion continued for a few minutes on Twitter, with Gray, Mohney and Lawless — along with me and local bloggers Eric Patrick Marr and Taylor Shelton — typing away on their BlackBerrys.

Thanks to that social media platform, several hundred people could follow that conversation. It even prompted one of them — Rob Morris, owner of Lowell’s Toyota repair shop downtown and a budding blogger — to leave work and come over to listen to the rest of the seminar.

Will this be another downtown survey that is filed away and forgotten?

Or will Lexington follow through and take steps to leverage what’s left of its rich architectural past for a more prosperous future?

The city historic preservation division last week unveiled a survey of every building on 34 downtown blocks. It graded each pre-1965 structure’s historic and architectural merit as “outstanding,” “significant,” “contributing” or “non-contributing.”

Mayor Jim Newberry ordered the survey after controversy erupted last summer over developer Dudley Webb’s demolition of a block of buildings dating to 1826 to make way for the CentrePointe tower he has yet to begin building.

Preservationists were outraged, but Webb claimed the old buildings were insignificant and too dilapidated to reuse.

Newberry said a comprehensive survey was needed as “a reference point from which our conversation can begin” about which downtown buildings are worth renovating and reusing.

“That will be a substantial step in the right direction so our discussions can be more productive than they have been in the past,” Newberry said last week. “I think it’s healthy for us to have a community discussion of those values now rather than in the heat of the battle.”

Newberry also ordered code enforcement officers to sweep downtown to make sure old buildings aren’t suffering “demolition by neglect” as many of those on the CentrePointe block had.

The mayor’s strategy makes sense. The survey, which will be posted for public comment on www.lexingtonky.gov beginning Monday, is a useful first step.

But it is at least the third first step Lexington has taken in the past three decades.

After an earlier downtown demolition controversy, then-Mayor Pam Miller commissioned a similar survey in 1993. Several of that survey’s “significant” buildings have since been demolished.

Most of the buildings on the CentrePointe block, which is now an empty mud hole, were rated “significant,” except for the 1826 building that housed Joe Rosenberg’s jewelry store, which was rated “outstanding.”

The 1994 survey recommended that the city prevent demolition of those buildings. It also recommended that the city “encourage property owners, through code enforcement, to provide continued maintenance for buildings in the area.”

The Kentucky Heritage Council has other downtown surveys, most done in 1979 and 1980 by architectural historian Walter Langsam. They describe in detail the architectural and historic merit of many of the now-demolished buildings on the CentrePointe block.

Do you see a pattern here? Many of the more than 50 people who came to a meeting last week to see the latest downtown survey did, too. They asked about next steps. Where do we go from here?

Lexington has done and continues to do a lot of good historic preservation, thanks to the Blue Grass Trust, other organizations and many dedicated individuals and businesses. Among them: Bank of the Bluegrass, Ben Kaufmann, Gray Construction, Thomas & King, Peter Armato, Holly Wiedemann.

And just west of downtown, visionary developers Barry McNees and Rob McGoodwin are working separately to redevelop industrial complexes built for two of Lexington’s former signature industries, bourbon and tobacco, into assets for the new economy.

But historic preservation has always been a struggle in Lexington, because too many people have the wrong idea about it. They see preservation as an economic drag instead of an economic engine.

Preservation is rarely about recreating the past to make a museum piece. Instead, it’s about mixing the best of the past and present to create interesting, useful buildings for the future that speak to Lexington’s unique heritage and culture.

It’s really not so much preservation as recycling.

Look carefully around Lexington and in other cities around the country and world and you will see fine old commercial buildings being given new life. And they’re usually a lot more special than the new, generic towers built by cost-conscious developers.

Downtown revitalization isn’t an accomplishment, it’s an ongoing process that requires vision, leadership and citizen engagement.

It’s not about creating laws for everything, because laws and process can do as much to prevent great development as bad development. The key is creating sensible, flexible laws that allow leaders, under the watchful eyes of citizens, to help a city achieve its potential.

During the next few weeks, as citizens comment on the latest downtown building survey, Urban County Council members should adopt the Downtown Master Plan and proposed new zoning laws. They, business leaders and interested citizens also should look at strategies other cities are using to protect their historic assets and recycle them for the future.

Creating a successful downtown Lexington isn’t a destination, it’s a journey. But we’ll never get very far if all we ever take are first steps.

This 1826 building, one of the first Greek Revival structures built in Lexington during the mid-1800s, was demolished for CentrePointe. Photo by Tom Eblen

Fourteen months after the CentrePointe development was announced, all that exists is a crater full of mud.

As I listened to developer Dudley Webb and Vice Mayor Jim Gray verbally wallow in it at the Urban County Council meeting Tuesday, I kept thinking of philosopher George Santayana’s famous line: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Gray had asked Webb to appear before the council to explain why the construction he had said would start six months ago has yet to begin. Gray also wanted to point out that because Webb hasn’t applied for a building permit, it won’t begin anytime soon.

Webb read a six-page statement filled with righteous indignation and enough spin to dizzy anyone who has closely followed the CentrePointe saga.

Webb said he has been unfairly targeted by Gray, other council members, preservationists, the Herald-Leader, bloggers, naysayers and negativism. He hasn’t been deceptive — just optimistic.

It was a speech so Nixonian, all he needed was a dog named Checkers.

Amid the bluster, Webb revealed some essential truths: He has never had financing in place to build CentrePointe, and he won’t know for perhaps 90 days whether he will.

Over the past seven months, while Webb was making a variety of excuses for CentrePointe’s delay, he knew that his unidentified foreign financier was dead. But he didn’t bother to tell the city and state officials who were approving a tax-increment financing plan based on CentrePointe.

Gray complained that the city had been “hoodwinked.”

“We didn’t hoodwink anybody,” Webb replied. “Each step of the way throughout this project, we’ve believed everything we have told you.”

Two other council members also tried to press Webb for answers, but several more were quick to defend him, to thank him for bulldozing the center of town and to apologize for bothering him.

Amid the bluster, they also revealed some essential truths: Lexington doesn’t seem to learn from its past, whether it be the collapse of Kentucky Central Life Insurance Co. or Wallace Wilkinson’s “world coal hole” fiasco.

Also, city officials have never had the political will to make developers and large property owners — especially those downtown — look out for the city’s best interests as well as their own. Money talks. In this case, even the illusion of money talks.

CentrePointe is just the latest example of these essential truths. But it won’t be the last, unless city officials find some political will.

“Lexington is a sitting duck,” council member Diane Lawless said afterward. “Unless we fix the systematic problems, we’ll continue to fight one zone change at a time, one building at a time, one block at a time — not just downtown but in the neighborhoods.”

Improved downtown zoning regulations are working their way through council, as is an ordinance that would require a building permit to be issued before the structure it would replace can be demolished.

Those are good starts, as is Mayor Jim Newberry’s suggestion that historic preservation be addressed in a comprehensive way.

Last year, Newberry ordered the city’s historic preservation office to identify structures that should be preserved. The results of that work will be unveiled in a public meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the Downtown Public Library basement.

“I think you’ll find the results to be interesting,” Newberry told council members Tuesday.

Whatever is unveiled should be the start of a thorough conversation. So far, the city’s work has been done without consulting preservation groups or the public.

The conversation also must focus on more than traditional notions of preservation. It must look at the potential for adaptive reuse of old buildings, a technique that is helping other cities revitalize their economies.

Some good preservation work has been done over the years. But city laws and processes leave ample room for failure, as the CentrePointe block has shown. Try to do the right thing and restore an old building and the city will regulate you to the last cornice and gutter. But ignore an old building and the city will stand by as it falls down.

Many buildings on the CentrePointe block suffered from demolition by neglect for decades before they were demolished last summer. City building inspectors dropped the ball. For example, the circa 1826 Morton’s Row was deemed worthy of preservation years ago. But it wasn’t legally protected because its owner, the Rosenberg family, didn’t want it to be.

Market forces will ultimately determine whether CentrePointe is built as planned and succeeds over the long term.

Perhaps its four-star hotel will be filled. Maybe the people Webb says have made “handshake” agreements to buy 64 of the 91 luxury condos won’t suddenly die before they’ve handed over the cash. Maybe. Maybe not. We’ll see.

What’s important now is for Lexington to avoid the next CentrePointe.

Council members and the mayor must get serious about good urban planning so they’re not constantly playing defense. They must improve building inspection and historic preservation processes, revisit the Downtown Master Plan and give it some teeth.

They must find the political will to strengthen Lexington’s laws so that development is as good for the city as it is for developers.

Download a pdf of Dudley Webb’s Statement and a letter of support from Marriott International Inc. that he gave council members Tuesday.

Like many journalists, I’ve always dreamed of writing the great American novel.

I have an idea for one. I even have a title: All That Glitters.

Here’s the plot: A real estate developer announces plans to build a massive tower in the center of town. He touts it as an economic boon. He calls it DazzlePointe, with the extra “e” on the end to add some class.

Some of this developer’s previous projects have been successful; others haven’t been. For various reasons, some people in town don’t trust him. But most of the city’s powers that be are, well, dazzled by his proposal.

Think of it as The Music Man without the music.

The developer has been secretly working on DazzlePointe for a couple of years. But when he unveils the renderings, they show a generic tower that looks as if it was designed in a couple of weeks.

The developer’s business plan is suspect. It’s straight out of the fast-buck days of a real estate bubble that’s getting ready to pop: A luxury hotel, nearly 100 million-dollar condos, upscale shops and restaurants.

Where’s the money for DazzlePointe coming from? It’s all cash, the developer says, but it’s coming from a foreign investor whose identity he can’t disclose.

The developer says he needs government help, in the form of tax-increment financing, to make the project truly special. Unless, that is, people want to ask too many questions; then he can build it on his own, but it will be much less special.

The money is in place, the developer says. He’s ready to go. Except for one thing: The block contains some very old buildings that his silent partner has let crumble for years while city officials looked the other way.

Many good architects say some of the old buildings are special. They say they could be incorporated into a beautiful contemporary structure that would be better for the city and still accomplish the developer’s financial goals. But the developer scoffs. The old buildings must go! City officials snap to attention, and the bulldozers roll in.

With the DazzlePointe site now cleared and ready for construction, everyone waits. And waits. Months go by. Then, city officials are told that the mysterious investor died. Months ago. Without leaving a will. But don’t worry, the developer says. Everything will be fine.

How will the novel end? I’ve thought about several possibilities.

The developer might find the money and build his tower, only to see it fail within a few years (perhaps after he has sold it and pocketed a handsome fee). The real estate bubble has burst, taking much of the economy with it. The tower’s business plan makes less and less sense with each passing day.

Another ending could be that the developer doesn’t really have the money to build DazzlePointe. But now, with the block cleared, he and his partner have more flexibility to build something else there. Except for the loss of the old buildings, things work out fine, because the new project makes more long-term sense than DazzlePointe ever did.

Of course, a third ending could be that DazzlePointe is built and is a long-term success, defying all of the skeptics — and all of the nation’s economic trends. But it has been years since I read many fairy tales, so I doubt I could write a good fairy-tale ending.

The part of this plot where I’m stuck isn’t the end; it’s the middle. I’m to the point where the DazzlePointe site is a big hole, the mysterious investor is dead and nothing seems to be happening.

How do the powers that be react? Do they continue taking everything the developer says as gospel? Or do they finally begin asking tough questions and demanding answers?

Here are some of the questions they might ask: When did the mysterious investor die? When did the developer find out? How long did he know it before telling government officials? Was it before the block was cleared? Was it before application for tax-increment financing was made or approved? Are there legal issues here that authorities should investigate?

As I said, this is the part of the novel where I’m stuck. How the powers that be react at this point could have a big effect on how the end of this story is written.

On second thought, maybe I should just stick to journalism. I probably wouldn’t make a good novelist. After all, this plot is so implausible, who would ever believe it?

I became a columnist a year ago this week. It has been a fascinating journey, exploring Kentucky places, people and ideas.

I hope you are enjoying it as much as I am.

I took you to the last Great American Steamboat Race between the now-retired Delta Queen and the Belle of Louisville. We had a great view, too: the Belle’s roof, just outside the pilot house.

We went to Graves County for the 128th annual Fancy Farm Picnic. Sure, I wrote about the political speeches. But what I really went to write about were the folks of St. Jerome Catholic Church, who each year cook fresh vegetables, homemade pies and 18,500 pounds of the best barbecued pork and mutton you’ll ever taste.

I brought you the sights and sounds of Danville’s Brass Band Festival, the Kentucky Derby and the state high school marching band championships. I took you to meet the “green jacket” men and women who help make Keeneland special and the Lions Club members who organize the Blue Grass Fair.

We sat around the boardroom table with the Dawahare cousins as they talked bravely about the demise of their family’s century-old chain of clothing stories.

You met some fascinating people and their work: entrepreneurs Pearse Lyons and Pete Mahurin; artists Verna Mae Slone, Seth Tuska and Lino Tagliapietra; journalists Al Smith, Don Edwards and Don Neagle; and innovators such as architect Helm Roberts, who designed the unique sundial that honors Kentucky’s Vietnam veterans.

I have reached into the past for wisdom that could help Kentucky build a better future. Lessons came from the likes of Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Henry Clay and Thomas Clark — and from a faded, forgotten book I found in the Lexington Public Library’s basement.

I looked for new ideas that could make Kentucky a better place — innovation, entrepreneurship, environmental stewardship, smart growth and sustainable development — and the people working to make those ideas reality.

A year ago, many people in Lexington were upset about developer Dudley Webb’s plan to demolish a downtown block to build the 35-story CentrePointe tower with a luxury hotel and million-dollar condos.

The old buildings, which dated to 1826, are now gone. CentrePointe has yet to rise out of that crater, and I doubt it ever will.

I wrote a lot about CentrePointe because I saw the controversy surrounding it as a turning point for Lexington. More people than ever seem interested in downtown revitalization, citizen participation in development decisions and creative reuse of the old buildings that reflect Lexington’s history and character.

The old style of adversarial development seems to be giving way to a more community-friendly process. Lexington has several developers who understand good urban planning, and a couple of true visionaries, Barry McNees and Holly Wiedemann. Even some of the old dogs are learning new tricks.

Development decisions say a lot about what kind of future a city sees for itself. Is it about making a quick buck, or creating sustainable quality of life? The latter requires innovation, and sometimes returning to tried-and-true principles like two-way streets, mixed-use neighborhoods, good pedestrian and bicycle access and reliable public transportation.

I’ve shared some things Lexington could learn from Austin, Columbus and Louisville. And some things other Kentucky towns could learn from Berea and Morehead.

I’ve complained about things in Kentucky that frustrate me: The lack of respect for knowledge and education; petty politics; wasteful highway spending; the power of the coal industry; the fear of change; and the reluctance of political leaders to create a modern tax system.

During the nearly 10 years I was managing editor of the Herald-Leader, I got a lot of calls and e-mails from readers. But, as a high school principal once told me, “Your job is like mine. Nobody calls because they’re happy.”

One of the joys of being a columnist has been getting a lot of calls and e-mails from people who like what I write. Of course, others write or call with other views. Often, those lead to good discussions. Most people who don’t like a column prefer to leave anonymous comments online, and that’s fine, too.

I get a good laugh when a critic begins by saying that he never reads my column or the Herald-Leader, but just happened to see this particular piece. Those people often are the first to send an e-mail or leave a comment online. And they do so repeatedly.

I like to hear from readers, whether it’s compliments, criticisms or ideas. Some of my best columns have come from readers’ tips and suggestions.

During the next year, I hope we’ll continue to have some fun, learn a few things and perhaps share some knowledge that could make Kentucky a better place.

Just a few years ago, two of America’s most downtrodden Main Streets were those in Los Angeles and Louisville. Their once-grand buildings had been abandoned or mangled. Vagrants wandered the streets.

Many people in those cities — like those in Lexington who cheered demolition of the old buildings on the block of our Main Street where CentrePointe is planned — thought the only hope was to bulldoze and start over.

Louisville and Los Angeles now have very different stories to tell about their Main Streets. At a symposium last week sponsored by the University of Kentucky College of Design, those stories were told by the architect/developers whose innovation and determination made them happen.

Tom Gilmore of Gilmore Associates is the force behind what is now known as the Old Bank District — three 100-year-old buildings in downtown Los Angeles that have been converted into 230 lofts surrounded by a neighborhood of restaurants, shops stores and cafés. He also saved a historic downtown cathedral the Catholic Church wanted to tear down. It has become a popular concert and event venue that is paying for the restoration.

Bill Weyland, managing director of CITY Properties Group, led the renaissance of Louisville’s West Main, where he built the Louisville Slugger museum and baseball bat factory and the Glassworks complex of art studios, offices and lofts. He also restored the abandoned Henry Clay Hotel building on South Third Street into a popular complex of lofts, shops, restaurants, theaters and event space. He has several other projects under way.

At the heart of both stories was the vision each man had for restoring beautiful old buildings for new uses, and the tenacity it took to convince bankers, city officials, Realtors and bureaucrats that it could be done profitably.

The developers had many great war stories, but my favorite came from Weyland.

He had bought an old building that he thought had potential for something, but he didn’t know what. Then he read that Hillerich & Bradsby was looking to modernize its Slugger factory in southern Indiana and build a tourist attraction. Weyland pitched his building, but Slugger executives wanted visibility from Interstate 64.

To get interstate visibility from a downtown site, Weyland’s company proposed creating a 120-foot tall baseball bat to lean against the building. Slugger executives loved the idea, but city bureaucrats were aghast.

A huge bat would violate Louisville’s restrictive sign ordinance, and the trademark Hillerich & Bradsby brand disqualified it from being considered public art. But Weyland wouldn’t give up. If city officials wanted to bring Louisville Slugger back to Louisville, they had to find a solution, he said.

Finally, a code enforcement officer asked Weyland if it would be possible to vent plumbing up through the bat. Weyland was puzzled. “The guy then pointed out that there is nothing in the Kentucky building code that restricts the shape of a plumbing vent,” he said. Problem solved, new Louisville landmark created.

The American Planning Association last year named West Main Street one of “America’s 10 Great Streets.”

What can Lexington learn from these examples, and many similar ones elsewhere? Weyland and Gilmore offered these thoughts:

Downtown historic preservation can’t be just about preserving the past or creating museums; it must be about adapting the best of the past to the economy of the present and future.

“It’s a touchy subject in the preservation community, because the first word in ‘adaptive reuse’ is ‘adaptive’,” Gilmore said. “You can’t just save old buildings; you have to find ways to get people into them.”

Old buildings are often worth reusing because they were built to last and are more structurally sound than they look. They have craftsmanship that can’t be replicated, and they convey a sense of a city’s history and culture. Still, some buildings must occasionally be sacrificed to save more significant structures around them.

Developers, bankers and city officials must be innovative, flexible and think long-term. Cities must abandon precise, restrictive rules in favor of more flexible processes that allow for dialogue and big-picture thinking.

“West Main Street’s transformation almost seems magical, but it was a 30-year war in which we had to overcome the status quo and the thinking of bankers who said, ‘There’s no way to redevelop something like that’,” Weyland said.

Downtowns must be designed for people and not automobiles. The key is creating a place where people want to walk and gather. Successful downtowns must work around the clock, allowing people to live, work and play in the same area.

“It’s about building communities,” Gilmore said. “And local mom and pop businesses are the lifeblood of cities. They make them unique.”

Downtown housing is most attractive to young people and empty-nesters; growing families usually prefer the affordable spaciousness of suburbs. “Cities are for people who are young and people who are young at heart. It’s not about age, it’s about attitude,” Weyland said.

“Ultimately,” he said, “the success of our cities are about the experiences people have in them and the memories they create.”

Here’s a question: What development over the next year or two will have the biggest impact on Lexington’s future?

The 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games? The Newtown Pike corridor? Redevelopment around the University of Kentucky campus? Whatever does — or doesn’t — rise out of the CentrePointe crater?

Any of those projects would be a good guess. But a decade or two from now, I think they will pale in comparison to the redevelopment of the Eastern State Hospital property into a new campus for Bluegrass Community and Technical College.

In a brilliant land swap announced a year ago, BCTC will move to the 65-acre Eastern State property north of downtown. Eastern State will get a badly needed new hospital on UK’s Coldstream property, and UK will get BCTC’s current Cooper Drive campus for future expansion.

Why is a new BCTC campus such a big deal? Two reasons. The first is what it will do for the college, and what it will allow the college to do for Kentucky.

“It’s almost unheard of today for a community and technical college to have the opportunity to build a brand new urban campus,” said BCTC President Augusta Julian.

The college is making long-range plans to determine how its program offerings should change to support the 21st-century economy. Julian thinks it is possible that the college, which has 12,000 students at several campuses, could double enrollment within 10 years.

BCTC has 800 nursing students, so health-related fields are a natural growth area. Julian expects a large need for lab technicians. Other opportunities could include training people for Kentucky’s hospitality and tourism industries, and teaching BCTC trade school graduates the business skills they need to start their own companies. Julian thinks the need for retraining older workers of all kinds will be huge.

The second reason this is such a big deal is what redevelopment of those 65 acres of prime real estate could do for Lexington — if it is done right.

How could it be done wrong? Easy: Throw up a poorly planned, automobile-centric campus of nondescript, suburban-style buildings and lots of surface parking. In other words, build the higher education equivalent of Hamburg Pavilion. And then give little thought to how it affects the surrounding neighborhoods or the city as a whole.

Or, officials could take this unique opportunity to use good design, architecture and urban planning to create a world-class campus that will spark quality redevelopment throughout Lexington’s north side.

The initial signs are encouraging. BCTC has assembled a talented team of architects and planners who combine deep local knowledge with international vision and experience.

EOP Architects is overseeing the campus master plan along with M2D Design Group, a landscape architecture firm. Ross-Tarrant Architects is designing the first major building, for which $22 million was set aside long ago. The three Lexington-based firms are working with Perkins + Will, an international company based in Minneapolis that has extensive campus-planning experience.

In an especially smart move, Urban Collage, an acclaimed urban design firm, has been hired to look at how the campus can be used to create good mixed-use redevelopment around it — housing, shopping and restaurants.

“It will be a tremendous economic anchor,” said Stan Harvey, a partner in Atlanta-based Urban Collage who lives in Lexington. “We just need to work through all the puzzle pieces.”

Construction of the new campus could take two decades, Julian said. Even when it is finished, BCTC will probably still have several locations in Lexington, in addition to its satellite campuses in surrounding towns.

The planning schedule is aggressive: Officials hope to finish a campus master plan late this year. Within a few months, there will be opportunities for surrounding neighborhoods and citizens to review and comment on those plans, Julian promised.

“We have to fit into the neighborhood,” she said. “We really want to do it right in terms of being visible, transparent, getting a lot of people involved.”

Julian said her vision is for an urban-style campus of multi-story buildings. The campus’ style and look could depend on whether consultants think any of Eastern State’s old buildings are worth reusing. The Kentucky Heritage Commission The Kentucky Archaeological Survey — a partnership between the Kentucky Heritage Council and the UK Department of Anthropology — is looking at that, along with investigating burial sites known to be on the property, which has been a mental hospital since 1816.

Julian is especially interested in looking at mass transit possibilities. That’s because BCTC students will still need to go back and forth between there and the UK campus, and because she doesn’t want to have thousands of cars passing through the surrounding area each day. The Newtown Pike extension could offer some creative opportunities for that kind of mass transit.

This project has the potential to transform Lexington. The first steps look promising, but the devil is always in the details. It should be everyone’s responsibility to make sure it’s done right.

Lexington, like most American cities, created a complex system of zoning regulations a generation or two ago to make its bustling downtown more neat and orderly.

In recent years, like most American cities, Lexington has been trying to figure out how to make its dull and dying downtown bustle again.

That’s because people are attracted to vibrant downtowns — especially the young, creative people who are the engines of the 21st-century economy.

The issues are complex, but one thing many planners, developers and citizens have come to agree upon is that those strict rules — and the bureaucratic systems and adversarial cultures that have grown up around them — can be a big part of the problem.

It’s a Catch 22: The rules, regulations and government processes designed to improve a city as it grows can sometimes have the opposite effect. That’s because developers and regulators sometimes don’t have enough flexibility to use common sense or foster excellence.

“There’s certainly a feeling that we can do better,” said Chris King, Lexington’s chief planner.

Lexington simplified downtown zoning three decades ago, and that has helped. The city’s Infill and Redevelopment Task Force and several public and private organizations continue to study the issues, look at what other cities are doing and recommend changes.

Last week, the Downtown Lexington Corp. hosted a delegation from Columbus, Ohio, whose members talked about what happened when that city tore up the downtown rule book and took a different approach. The result, they said, has been a more vibrant, attractive downtown with more than $1 billion in new private investment and a steady increase in residents.

It all began in 1996, when Columbus formed a 22-member committee to study downtown development issues. The group, which represented the various stakeholders and interest groups, wrote an ordinance that scrapped many of the city center’s old zoning rules.

The ordinance set out a vision for downtown as “every one’s neighborhood” — a mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly place where people would want to live, work and play. And it created the Downtown Commission, a nine-member board appointed by the mayor with enormous power and flexibility.

By law, the commission must be made up of people who live or work downtown and include a variety of interests — a developer or Realtor, an architect, a landscape architect or urban planner, a historic-preservation professional and a land-use lawyer.

The commission was charged with finding ways to make new development work — and to make it well-designed and compatible with its surroundings. “It’s totally subjective,” said Harrison Smith, an 80-something real estate lawyer who has headed the commission since its creation.

Developers like the system because they can go one place for approval — rather than a host of city agencies with narrow interests — and get decisions quickly. Rather than rejecting developers’ plans, the commission and its staff work with them to improve plans and make them acceptable. It shifts the conversation from, “You can’t do this, because … ” to, “You can do this, if … ”

Commission meetings are open to the public, and anyone can speak — no time limits. Decisions can be appealed to the City Council. But in more than 10 years, only two developers’ applications have been rejected and none has been appealed, Smith said.

“We do in 60 days what it would typically take a year to do,” said Kenneth Cookson, a Columbus attorney and downtown activist. “And, boy, have we spawned competition in the design community. They have had to take it up a notch or two.”

Want to tear down an old building to make a parking lot? It won’t be approved. Want to do a big, creative sign on your building that some people might consider public art? It will be approved — if the commission thinks it makes downtown look better and not worse.

“The key — and it’s a risk — are the people (on the commission),” Smith said. “It doesn’t work unless you get pros.”

King, the Lexington planner, was intrigued by Columbus’ approach and thought some elements of it might work in Lexington. “It would take a lot of vetting,” he said.

Vice Mayor Jim Gray was impressed and said he might appoint a task force to “examine it and see what makes sense here.” But he echoed Smith’s caution that such a powerful, flexible commission is only as good as its members and their mandate.

“They seem to have created a framework that encourages good, sympathetic and compatible development, and it’s market-driven,” Gray said. “It’s good for the developers and good for the city.”

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.

Herald-Leader reporter Beverly Fortune reports on changes developer Dudley Webb has made in the design for his proposed CentrePointe tower in downtown Lexington. The development — on the leveled block bounded by Main, Upper, Vine and Limestone streets — would house luxury condos, a four-star hotel, offices and shops.

What do you think?

If Tuesday’s public hearing had been at Keeneland instead of the Urban County Council chambers, here’s how I would have handicapped it:

The Lexington Distillery District project was the clear favorite. Everyone spoke of its good breeding and conformation, and they thought it was a great bet with the promise of a big payoff.

The CentrePointe development was a more complicated wager. Many speakers thought it was a beautiful horse, a sure thing. A few were skeptical, criticizing it as too big, ugly and lame to be a winner. Most, though, were willing to take the gamble, because the potential payoff seemed worth the risk.

Of course, horse races are over within two minutes. This one will last three decades.

What the Urban County Council and state officials must decide before the end of the year is whether Lexington can and should use tax-increment financing for these projects — two of the biggest developments proposed for downtown Lexington in a generation.

Tax-increment financing, or TIF, would allow Lexington to use 80 percent of new tax revenues generated by a huge private development in a blighted area over 30 years to pay for the infrastructure needed to make the development possible.

TIF will be a great deal for Lexington if the private developments succeed. Not only will the city get the developments, but it will get to keep tax revenues that would otherwise be shared statewide.

The Lexington Distillery District project is a textbook example of why the TIF law was created. The project would rehabilitate two former distillery complexes on Manchester Street and convert 28 of the most neglected acres in Fayette County into an entertainment, arts and multi-use neighborhood. Similar projects have worked wonders elsewhere.

The Distillery District’s developers are seeking $80 million in future tax revenues for such things as streets, sidewalks, utilities and parking. The developers plan $110 million in private investment.

The Webb Companies plans to spend more than $200 million in private financing to build Centre Pointe, a 35-story tower that would have a four-star Marriott hotel, 70 luxury condominiums, offices and restaurants.

Mayor Jim Newberry is working with the Webbs to use CentrePointe as the focus for a 14.25-acre, $48 million downtown redevelopment project that would include such popular amenities as improved streetscapes, a $16 million renovation of the old courthouse that houses the Lexington History Museum and a permanent home for the Lexington Farmers Market.

It also would include a lot of money for amenities that would directly benefit CentrePointe, such as an adjacent $10 million underground parking garage and two $1.5 million pedestrian walkways.

Architects have criticized CentrePointe’s design and size, preservationists opposed its destruction of historic buildings, and others have questioned its economic viability and secretive private financing. But most of the speakers at Tuesday’s hearing praised CentrePointe as a needed shot in the arm for downtown.

Unlike a horse race, these projects aren’t competing with each other so much as with global economic forces that have shifted dramatically since they were proposed.

As Lexington places its bets, we should keep this in mind: The payoff will come only if these projects can go the distance. There’s no such thing as a free ride, either in horse racing or in tax-increment financing.