The Bluegrass and Beyond

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.

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.

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.

I know the real reason those nice people behind the betting windows at Keeneland always smile when I walk up: I’m no good at handicapping anything.

But this time, I think I’ve picked a winner.

I was asked to handicap the Herald-Leader’s Most Intriguing Kentucky Newsmaker of 2008 contest. I began by ruling out horses, the frog, the tree, the music club and people who could be punch lines for Jay Leno.

I’ve admired the 300-year-old bur oak tree on Harrodsburg Road since childhood. And it’s hard not to appreciate the determination of the filly Eight Belles or the longevity of Jojo the frog. But intriguing? I don’t think so.

I’ve followed the CentrePointe controversy closely, so I thought about going with the tag team of Dudley “back to the ’80s” Webb and Jim “we can do better” Gray.

I’m intrigued by smart people such as Gray, State Auditor Crit Luallen and Alltech founder Pearse Lyons, the Irishman who is one of Kentucky’s true visionaries.

Nancy Jo Kemper gets points for always having the courage of her convictions.

Olympians Elaine Breeden and Tyson Gay made us proud in Beijing.

But the Kentuckian who intrigues me most is Adam Bender, the Lexington boy who hasn’t let a missing leg slow him down, much less stop him. He inspires everyone by just being himself. And I suspect we haven’t seen anything yet.

I wasn’t surprised by the public’s negative reaction to three out-of-the-box designs dreamed up over the weekend as alternatives to Dudley Webb’s proposed CentrePointe tower.

A story in Tuesday’s Herald-Leader included renderings of the concepts developed during a marathon 48-hour workshop. The designs were done by three teams of students from the University of Kentucky’s College of Design working under prominent architects from UK, Los Angeles and Chicago.

The designs were unconventional. A couple of them were almost bizarre. They were nothing like traditional Lexington architecture. And they were nothing like Webb’s 1980s-style glass tower that has been criticized as too massive and bland to put in the middle of Lexington for the next century or so.

Readers posted dozens of comments about the designs on Kentucky.com — and most of them were scathing.

I understood the reaction. It was my first reaction, too.

Then I took a deep breath and thought again.

These weren’t finished plans, or even real ­proposals. They weren’t meant to be. They were creative ideas, developed quickly and offered up to spark other ideas that might lead to something special. That’s the way innovation works.

Like Webb, I was out of town Monday and couldn’t attend the students’ presentation. So I went over to UK on Tuesday to get a briefing from Michael Speaks, the college’s dean, who organized the workshop.

”It’s a lot of stuff to do in a couple of days,“ Speaks said before walking me through each concept. ”These are not final designs by any stretch of the imagination. But they show what can be done.“

Each team was told to confine itself to the block and try to stay true to the ­CentrePointe proposal — a hotel, luxury condos, a restaurant and retail space.

”These architects approached this in very different ways,“ Speaks said. But he noted that there were many things all of the designs had in common.

All three teams wanted to keep some of the historic buildings that have been a big part of the CentrePointe controversy and weave them into contemporary new construction. The most valued buildings were the Joe Rosenberg building, which dates to 1826, and the century-old building that housed The Dame music club.

All of the teams wanted to keep the Farmers Market on the block, and some added an amphitheater, a small park and other public space. Indeed, perhaps the most appealing part of all of the concepts was how they offered open, inviting pedestrian space at street level.

All three teams thought the project could be more effectively developed in phases, rather than all at once. And they all thought Webb was trying to cram too much square-footage onto the 1.7-acre block.

All chose to have several towers, rather than the one monolith Webb has proposed.

Speaks noted that in all of the designs, the towers were the wildest and least-finished part of the concepts — and the part that elicited the most negative public reaction.

”You look at these project concepts and think how crazy they are,“ Speaks said. ”Then watch the Olympics, look at what they’ve recently built in Beijing, and think again. They won’t look so crazy a month from now.“

By late afternoon Tuesday, more than 1,500 people had voted for their favorite design in the Kentucky.com poll. Webb’s design was leading the closest alternative 2-to-1.

”We’d be surprised if CentrePointe wasn’t winning, in a way,“ Speaks said. ”A lot of people want to support what’s easy, what they’re used to seeing, what’s being done elsewhere.“

Of course, the workshop process was all backward. This type of brainstorming session should have been done at the beginning, as has been done by developers of the proposed Lexington Distillery District project on Manchester Street.

Architecture workshops like this are intended to look at the location, the surrounding areas, and the needs a building is trying to satisfy, and to explore ways to meet those needs.

The goal is to produce a design that solves all of the development’s ”problems“ and adds something more: Value for an entire area, or even a city.

CentrePointe, on the other hand, was developed in secret and unveiled as a done deal. Webb has wanted no creative or public input. So it looks like we’re stuck with a piece of recycled architecture two decades out of date.

CentrePointe seems to be a done deal, and Webb might continue to thumb his nose at critics.

But public discussion surrounding CentrePointe and the awareness of downtown development it has created might pay off in the future.

”I don’t care how many people laugh and make fun of these projects,“ Speaks said as he paged through the three workshop concepts on his desktop computer.

Then he clicked on ­Kentucky.com to check the latest online poll results.

”If we can get 1,500 people to look at these ideas and think about design, then we’ve accomplished something.“

We’ll never be the belle of the ball if everyone knows we’re easy.

That’s how I ended my first column about CentrePointe, soon after Dudley Webb unveiled plans for his $250 million luxury hotel, condo and retail complex.

I was likening Lexington to a debutante who fancies herself as someone special, yet rushes into the arms of any real estate developer with a hot proposition.

So here we are, nearly four months later. Where does the belle find herself?

She’s considering a shotgun marriage to the CentrePointe developer. Why? Because it could be an easy way to get some downtown goodies. Or maybe not.

When Webb announced CentrePointe in early March after two years of behind-the-scenes work, he said the financial plan included as much as $70 million in tax increment financing to pay for related “public” improvements. Those were described as such things as a parking garage under Phoenix Park and public art.

Kentucky’s tax increment financing program — known as TIF — is a great tool that allows a city and the developer of a “signature” project to work together to rehabilitate a blighted urban area. With TIF, some of the future taxes generated by the private project are used to pay for “public” improvements near the development.

Now, Webb says he doesn’t want any more public meddling in CentrePointe and he has enough private financing to build without TIF. But no TIF, no public improvements.

Webb’s attorney, Darby Turner, said the developer would only apply for TIF financing if the Urban County Council asks him to. The council will vote Thursday on whether to do that.

Council members were told for the first time Tuesday that representatives of Webb and Mayor Jim Newberry have discussed trying to use TIF money for a long list of downtown projects, including a much-needed renovation of the old courthouse. Also, Turner said that instead of $70 million, only $35 million or $40 million might really be available for public improvements.

So how would this all work? How much money could really be available to the city and what could it buy? Nobody seems to know.

In fact, Tuesday’s meeting was the first time council members had really ever discussed CentrePointe TIF. Several council members had some very basic questions about TIF, and the only knowledgeable person there to advise them was Webb’s consultant, John Farris.

Council members are being asked to make a quick decision with little information. Some of them are angry about it, and who can blame them?

“What this motion asks us to do is … ask if we could tag along with the CentrePointe project and maybe get some public amenities out of a deal that’s already done,” Councilman Tom Blues said. “What we see here is a failure of communication, of cooperation, of public involvement, of openness, and I’m disturbed that it has come to this, because it really indicates a significant civic failure.”

Councilman Don Blevins said more study is needed to see how CentrePointe fits with potential city redevelopment projects a couple of blocks down Main Street. Blevins noted that decisions the council is about to make could shape Lexington for a century or more and shouldn’t be rushed.

And he added: “It feels a little strange hitching our TIF wagon to a project some of us don’t like. My fear is that a large four-star hotel with huge condominums on top of it is going to fail. I hope I’m wrong. I hope they’re wildly successful and the downtown is vibrant and we sell all those condos and the hotel is full from here to eternity. But what if I’m right? What we’d have is essentially a vertical Lexington Mall right in the heart of downtown.”

Vice Mayor Jim Gray also questioned CentrePointe’s economic viability. And he wondered whether a CentrePointe TIF would even be legal because developers say it’s not essential to build their project.

Gray has been among the most outspoken critics of CentrePointe because of Webb’s refusal to allow public input on the project’s design — and Webb’s insistence on demolishing the block’s historic buildings rather than trying to incorporate some elements of them into the new building.

“I’ve learned over time that this business of building and developing is a whole lot more about process than about project,” said Gray, who is president of a large construction company.

On Tuesday, Gray read to his fellow council members from a “best practices” guide to Kentucky TIF projects. It recommended thorough study, public participation and community buy-in — none of which has happened with CentrePointe.

It might be too late for anyone but Dudley Webb to influence what happens on the CentrePointe block.

But the future of downtown shouldn’t rise or fall on one project, no matter now big it is. Council members should slow down, think things through and look at all of the options.

Two other TIF projects have been proposed for Lexington — an arena to replace Rupp and a large downtown entertainment district along Manchester Street. Given the redevelopment opportunities downtown, there could be the potential for several more big projects.

The best course of action might be to tell Webb to go ahead and build CentrePointe on his own.

City officials could then do what they should have done long ago: Engage the public in a discussion about what downtown Lexington needs and what it might get from a TIF partnership. Then the city could seek out a developer who is interested in a true partnership.

Blevins said it all: The decisions we are about to make will shape Lexington for a century or more and shouldn’t be rushed.

An intentional courtship would make a lot more sense than a shotgun marriage.