Dudley Webb reads your comments and responds

Good afternoon Tom:

I read Hayward’s e-mail of yesterday, found it very conciliatory and thank him for it.

We felt that it embodied the spirit and good faith of the agreement to which we had all committed earlier in the week and that all involved are truly intent on trying to make this project the best that it can be. We are looking forward to sitting down with all interested parties during the coming weeks to try to reach intelligent compromises on these issues and concerns so that this project can move forward.

I don’t want to digress, but I also read several of the trailing comments from certain of your other readers that were about us and, in fairness, I feel that we need to correct some of the things that they said that simply aren’t accurate:

(1) First, as to Nonnie Muss, all I can is that we have not closed the door on new ideas for the development and are still inviting them so please send us yours. Nonnie, I think you also need to appreciate that two years ago, the City Tourism and Convention Bureau asked us to consider building a new Convention Hotel with more upscale hotel rooms so that Lexington can attract bigger and better conventions to our city. Why? In hopes that such visitors will use our new Civic Center that the City is obligated for, visit our tourism attractions, eat at our restaurants, enjoy our entertainment venues and to generally,spend their money while here. Why is this important? Because first and foremost, this project will create jobs, some 900 during construction and over 1,000 upon its completion.

Likewise, I would remind Nonnie that the latest Comprehensive Plan adopted by our City reflected a preference for going up so that we can achieve more concentrated residential and retail development in our downtown rather than growing out into our horse farms and further invading our green space. I think that few would argue that this was not the right decision. This is why this project and its timing is so appropriate, whether we do it or someone else does it for that matter.

(2) Secondly, as to “S’s”assertion that we somehow brought down Kentucky Central, this is simply not true either and the Court that tried these cases emphatically confirmed that. In fact, that Judge even went so far as to also rule that Kentucky Central and its attorneys owed us money rather than the reverse. Not that it matters anymore as these matters have long since been settled, but the fact is that nobody lost more money as a result of its unfortunate and unnecessary demise than did the Webb’s, The real tragedy here is that Kentucky Central was a great corporate citizen of Lexington that employed over 700 of its people and did more for downtown Lexington than will ever be known or imagined. Tragically, it is now gone forever and any reopening of old wounds and controversies are a waste of time and will not bring it back. All we can now do as a community is to move on and to hope that others will step up and try to continue and resume its good work.

(3) Thirdly, contrary to what “Scott” stated in his e-mail to you, neither I, nor any member of my family, nor The Webb Companies, has ever filed for bankruptcy and “Scott” needs to get his facts straight before publishing such libelous and slanderous remarks. I will assume that his was simply an unintentional “misstatement” and let it go at that.

(4) Next, as to “Miller’s” question about “why these frauds and charlatans were allowed back into town?”, I can tell you that it was because we never left. I have lived here since 1965 and I am not going anywhere and I am raising my family here in hopes that they will stay on as Lexingtonians as well. I will also assume that you too mis-spoke with your characterizations and I will let that go at that as well.

I would however also remind “Miller” that we have invested well over $300,000,000.00 into this community and are still one of its larger employers, property owners and taxpayers. As I said before, I don’t appreciate your insults and would remind you that we do not owe you, or anyone else, an apology for our projects or for what we have done with and for this community.

As to “Miller’s” other assertion that we have bankrupted contractors, etc, in this process, this isn’t true either. In fact, we would challenge “Miller” or anyone else to identify even one instance where this has happened. To the contrary, we still use hundreds of local contractors, sub-contractors and consultants who still depend on us to generate the business that helps them to meet their payrolls and feed their families. “Miller”, your comments are not only unfounded and untrue, but are those that have hindered the constructive dialogue that is now well underway. Enough said on that as well. If you want to discuss it further, I invite you to call me.

As to “Miller’s” comments about another “Webb Fiasco” called “The Festival Marketplace”, I would only remind him/her that this was yet another experimental development concept of the ’80’s that the Federal Government fostered and which most urban planners across America thought would save their downtown’s by drawing shoppers from the suburbs and outlying communities. Lexington was not the only City that joined in this experiment. Cities like New York with its South Street Seaport, Boston with its Faneuil Hall, Baltimore with its Inner Harbor, Norfolk with its Harborside, Toledo with its Portside, Cleveland with the Flats, Louisville with its Galleria, and hordes of other cities all thought that specialty retail would save their downtowns. Obviously, it didn’t quite work out as anticipated, but, in fairness, why doesn’t “Miller” dig deeper into this to find out why it didn’t work in Lexington?

I think that most of those who were tenants in our “Festival” will now tell you that such a project was then premature and that we first needed to have more accessible and affordable downtown parking, more housing and more full-time residents. The second problem with it was that it was only stand alone specialty retail without adjoining anchors. The third reason was that the then City Leadership suddenly and abruptly decided to give up the parking spaces in the Victorian Square Garage that served the merchants and customers of Victorian Square and the Festival, electing to instead give them to the jurors that were adjudging trials in the old Courthouse situated nearby. Then lastly, the “Festival’s” final death knoll came when even though it was still then 90% leased, the then Liquidator of KCL publicly called it and our downtown a “black hole”, threw out our tenants, turned off its lights and shut it down completely. Shortly thereafter, the project was sold at a more than bizarre Liquidator and Court Ordered Auction that netted us less than 5% of what it cost us to build it. This was the another story never really told, but so be that also.

Admittedly, we and Kentucky Central had by then spent a small fortune to try to make the “Festival Market” work, but for numerous reasons, it didn’t and we were sorry for that. At least we tried and fortunately, neither the City of Lexington or any of its other creditors lost any money on this prematurely aborted experiment. To the contrary, the City of Lexington made millions from it from it while The Webb Companies and Kentucky Central lost their respective investments in it. “Miller”, in regards to downtown retail, I would be curious as to how many times you have shopped downtown in the last year or how much you have spent with the merchants that are already down here during this time frame? Not a meaningful sum I am sure, but yet your criticize them and us for trying.

“Miller”, while we are on this subject, we also find that many others want to promote an “Entertainment District” for the downtown. We dare say that nobody believes that downtown should include an “Entertainment District” more than we do. In modern times, we were the first as well as the only ones that tried to establish a downtown restaurant-entertainment district in the decades of 1970’s,1980’s and 1990’s. Remember “The Upstart Crow”? “Postlewaite’s Tavern”? How about “Greenstreet’s”? “Oliver’s”? “Old Water Street”? “Morgan’s Cafe”? “The Rosebud”? Do you know who did them all? I can tell you – it was the Webb’s.

Also, who do you think brought “Deshea’s” downtown? Or “Bravo Pitino’s”? “Jay’s Seafood”, “Silks”, and others. Who orchestrated bringing “Breeding’s” to downtown. I can again proudly say, it was the Webb’s and we are as proud of these developments as we are those tenants who stepped up, paid the price and tried to help us make this happen. The shame is that these were wonderful establishments for which the timing was too early and all too many of them did not get the public’s support to help keep them afloat while our downtown was making its comeback. To those who again want to try to create and foster an “Entertainment District” in our downtown, all I can tell you is that even though you are a little late in getting here, we are with you and we welcome you on board since this is an idea whose time has finally come.

(5) “Riverrat”, you are right. Although I had a lot to say in my e-mail of last week, it could have been more concise and to the point. Such happens when you are being criticized for doing what you think is right and so be it. As to the distinguished Dean’s comments, I suspect he too got a little carried away and so be that also. You are also correct in that there is a fine line between priceless and worthless and we are trying to find it. I hope you will help in this process and I invite you to do so.

(6) To “A”, all I can say is that the City of Lexington, The Bluegrass Trust, Preserve Lexington and most other affected special interest groups have been aware of this proposed project for more than 18 months now. Interestingly enough, during this period, we have had numerous meetings with them to review our proposed plans for this block. Not once did any of these people voice their opposition to the project or express concerns about it until about a month ago when the imminent closing of The Dame was publicly announced. The good news is that during times since, arrangements have been made for these venues to locate elsewhere in the downtown and we were pleased to help in that effort. What more would you have us do?

(7) “Josie”, as we have said all along, this project is not being driven by the 2010 Games as absolutely nobody would invest $250,000,000.00 in downtown Lexington for a three week event. It would be nice to have it ready by then and this could still happen if we can get going, but if not, so be it. As to your statement that “the taxpayers/the City will be paying for the building of Centrepointe”, that isn’t true either as the project will be paid for by its owners. Under the TIF as proposed, the “lift” that will be created by this project and the new taxes that it will generate will amortize the cost of the bonds that will pay for the “public infrastructure” which the City would normally have paid for, but now have no responsibility for. Again, all we ask is that you please further investigate and evaluate our plan, but until you do so, please do not intentionally misstate what we have proposed.

Finally, as to “S”, who has referred to the current PVA assessments for the buildings in the block, I would suggest that you need to extrapolate from these assessments, the taxes that will be flowing from the block and compare them to the rentals that are now being generated to the owners from the tenants in the block. I think you will find that these properties hardly generate enough in rents to even pay these property taxes, let alone amounts that would be required to amortize the costs of bringing them up to current building codes, or further improving them, or even covering their maintenance cost and/or any generating any reasonable return on the investments in them by their owners. This is why we and our consultants have concluded that they are not economically viable for either restoration purposes or for incorporation into our proposed new buildings and we will be demonstrating this predicament to the appropriate parties with whom we will be meeting during the coming weeks.

Tom, once again, I have probably rambled on far too long with this, but I again felt that in fairness, both sides of this story need to be told and it takes a while when you have so many that are trying to tell it.

Thanks for listening,

Dudley Webb

Centrepointe, LLC

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