More CentrePointe questions worth asking

Tom,

I continue to follow the conversation on your blog about CentrePointe with great interest.

Most of the comments, pro and con, are thoughtful and, I hope, move us closer to a compromise that will realize much of the developer’s vision while preserving the historic, architectural and cultural character of this block that many in Lexington treasure.

A couple of the commentators raised some very good questions that I thought were worth addressing.

On April 14 “UGDAY” wrote:

“Do any of you really believe that any of the old buildings could withstand the required blasting to dig the underground parking? The buildings are past their prime, they are beyond the tipping point where rehabilitation could make them profitable. How is one to recoup the cost to restore these buildings?”

These are good questions that merit much more discussion than a couple of lines here. Perhaps the best way to start, though, is with a few more questions.

Are there examples in Lexington, in Kentucky, or around the United States of large in-fill developments placed adjacent to historic buildings?

Have the developers prepared any expert engineering studies on these questions that they would share with the public?

Are there any independent engineering studies that would shed light on this question?

What is the actual square foot cost to restore some of the older and architecturally significant buildings on this block?

Have the developers investigated this? Have they prepared any feasibility studies on this issue that they would share with the public?

What is the square foot cost of new construction associated with CentrePointe?

How do these two costs compare?

Most of the existing significant buildings on this block are eligible for large state and federal tax credits to help fund rehabilitation.

More than 18 months ago, the Director of the Kentucky Heritage Council and the President of the Blue Grass Trust met with the developers to discuss the rumors then circulating about this project. Both the Heritage Council and the Blue Grass Trust made their concerns clear regarding the importance of incorporating the preservation of some of the significant buildings into any development. They also explained to the developers that many of the buildings on the block would be eligible for state and federal historic rehabilitation tax credits.

Have the developers contacted the Kentucky Heritage Council to learn more about how these tax credits could help to defray the costs of rehabilitation?

On April 16 “Obrian” writes:

“Where…are those historic old buildings on this block?”

Preserve Lexington has answered this question many times, in public and in writing. And I believe many of your commentators have addressed this as well. But we are more than happy to answer this question again.

At least 10 buildings on this block are eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. Eligibility for the National Register is the benchmark locally and nationally for determining the significance of a building. Determinations of eligibility are made by professional architectural historians.

In making these determinations, architectural historians consider the history of a building, the architecture of a building, and the evolution of that architecture over time. Each of these factors tells a story about a specific building, and about the time and culture that produced that building and the changes to it over time.

Do we erase that story, do we erase that history and architecture, or do we marry it with a vision of our future?

Do we repeat the development mistakes of the past, or do we, along with vibrant cities like Charleston and Asheville and Ann Arbor, wed yesterday with tomorrow?

I hope that my comments and questions will be helpful in moving us a step further from pointless debate and a step closer to compromise.

Sincerely,

Hayward Wilkirson

President of the Board of Directors

Preserve Lexington

CentrePointe: More thoughts, national coverage

The controversy over the proposed CentrePointe development in downtown Lexington is generating more opinions at home and some coverage nationally.

Ned Crankshaw, a professor in UK’s landscape architecture department who specializes in urban design in historic districts, wrote this commentary piece in Monday’s Herald-Leader. He discussed how the building should relate to street activity.

And on Wednesday, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which publishes Preservation magazine, posted this this article about the CenterPointe situation on its Web site.

Historian’s memo as current as today’s headlines

I always think of Thomas D. Clark in the spring.

Perhaps it’s because, soon after I returned to Lexington in the spring of 1998, I asked Kentucky’s historian laureate to speak to the Herald-Leader staff. He stood and lectured for nearly an hour without notes, putting Kentucky’s array of issues, controversies and quirks into the context of history’s great sweep.

It was an impressive performance, especially for a man about to turn 95.

While cleaning out files recently, I found a 15-page autobiographical memo Clark sent so I could introduce him properly that day. Hammered out on his manual typewriter, it was filled with typos and seemed to be missing a page or two. Mostly it was his exposition of Kentucky problems that need to be fixed.

It was classic Clark. He didn’t study history to bask in the glow of a romanticized past. Rather, he saw history as the recipe for who we are and as a guide to the future that could help us learn from the mistakes of the past.

After Clark retired from a long and distinguished teaching career, he became even more active and outspoken. He drove himself around the state, speaking to legislative committees and garden clubs alike — anyone who was willing to listen. And he never pulled punches. Herald-Leader reporter Andy Mead wrote my favorite description of Clark, calling him “a sort of unofficial state grandfather - but not the kind who spoils you.”

Clark didn’t let up until his death on June 28, 2005 — 16 days short of his 102nd birthday.

Perhaps I also think of Clark this time of year because spring is a time of renewal, a time to sort through old things and get serious about the future.

This is an especially good day to read Clark’s observations, as the General Assembly heads home from Frankfort, having left so many of Kentucky’s needs unmet.

Here are some excerpts:

“I thoroughly abhor the political corruption which has so often stained the democratic process in Kentucky’s history. Every vote “bought”, every private driveway paved at public expense, every mean and selfish act of a public school board, failure of the courts and criminal act by a public official has soiled Kentucky’s image and diluted its integrity. One has only to examine the electoral statistics of past elections to see how much Kentuckians lack faith in their governing process.

“There has ever run through Kentucky history the not-so-subtle impact of provincialism. Often this has been a costly thing. Communities have been set against communities, there have been failures in the creation and operation of regional institutions …

“On the broader statewide scale, sectionalism has often generated a shortsightedness which has kept many Kentucky public institutions in a state of mediocrity, or has involved a wasteful use of limited financial and other resources. …

“It is highly frustrating to see Kentuckians fail to live up to the potentials of their land and place. They have at once a passion for the past and too often have revealed a shortsighted indifference to their potentials. Too often they have been slow if not actually resistant to changes, changes which are exerted largely by local native inertia, and, paradoxically, by outside forces which may too often have been of an exploitative nature.

“Never at any moment have Kentuckians been fully alerted to the fact its human population is as much a resource as are the land and its forests and mineral resources, all demanding effective processing. …

“It is painful to see the very bosom of the state desecrated with trash in myriad forms, to see sloven domestic premises, pollution of streams, erosion of the hills and ravenous log and lumber exploiters rob that forest twenty years ahead of profitable harvest time. …

“ … democracy in Kentucky is stained often by weak-kneed political opportunists who failed to discuss intelligently and openly the major issues of the moment, often preferring to make personal and scurrilous attacks on opponents rather than tackling devitalizing problems. Too often the Kentucky gubernatorial administrations and legislators have failed their constituents by not exerting forthright and honest political leadership.

“Every time the General Assembly adjourns without having resolved basic and nagging problems, it leaves behind a body politic suffering a chronic condition of public cynicism.”

To download a PDF copy of Clark’s whole memo — wisdom, typos and all — click here.

Thomas D. Clark at his typewriter, 1998. Above, in front of the governor’s mansion in Frankfort, 2002. Photos/Charles Bertram

Look at this design concept for CentrePointe

The proposed international competition to come up with a better design for the CentrePointe development in downtown Lexington has yet to be launched. But we already have our first unofficial entry, sent to me by Robert Snyder of Lexington, who earned a BArch in Architecture from UK in 1996. (Click photo to enlarge.)

Here is Snyder’s explanation of his concept:

I’ve long had an interest in the value of architectural design within the context of good urban design. I offer the following ideas as a possible beginning of a resolution for the CentrePointe Development, for the consideration of the Webbs and everyone else interested in the design proposal:

1. Retain the design of the Hotel and the Condominium tower as is, except as modified below.

2. Jettison the 4-story base buildings at the perimeter of the Webb’s properties (the perimeter of the block).

3. Bisect the block with a new street, north-south, perpendicular to Main, connecting Main and Vine Streets through the center of the block. Name this new street in honor of the World Equestrian Games.

4. Rotate the Hotel and Condominium tower 90 degrees so that the hotel faces this new street that divides the block in half. This provides better access to the hotel.

5. Begin construction of the hotel and condominium tower immediately, to allow for occupancy prior to the 2010 games.

6. Retain and renovate the historic buildings on the west end of the block (The Dame, Busters, Rosenbergs). The hotel and condominium tower will be built behind these existing buildings, will not require their demolition, and will face primarily the new street bisecting the block.

7. Excavate under the new proposed location of the hotel and condo tower, under the new street, and under the entire eastern half of the block (the other side of the new street), for underground parking.

8. Initiate an international design competition for the eastern half of the block, on the eastern side of the new street. Design proposals for the eastern half of the block can proceed on their own schedule without delaying the immediate commencement of renovation of the historic buildings on the western half of the block and the immediate commencement of construction of the new hotel and the new condo tower.

You can download a 3-dimensional PDF view of Snyder’s concept, which allows you to zoom in and out and see the rendering from all angles, by clicking here. To see it properly, though, you’ll need the latest version of Adobe Acrobat Reader 8.0, which you can download for free here. Also be advised that the PDF is nearly 5 megabites, so if you’re on a slow Internet connection, it could take a few minutes to download.

I’m no architect, but this seems like an intriguing compromise and a good start to a broader discussion about CentrePointe’s design.

What do you think?

Interesting reading on a cold, rainy Sunday

After I finished reading the Herald-Leader and went to church, I had some time on this cold and rainy Sunday. So I went in search of more good reading. Here’s what I found:

As if airline passengers and employees didn’t have enough to worry about, the long-discussed merger of Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines could be getting closer. The Financial Times is reporting that a deal could come as early as Monday. The merger could have a big impact on Kentucky as the airlines try to merge operations to cut costs. Some aviation consultants think Delta’s Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky hub may take a hit. Fasten your seatbelts; it could be a bumpy ride.

Casino promoters may have come up with a losing hand in this legislative session, but they’re sure to return, especially with a state budget like this one. Christopher Caldwell has an interesting piece In the New York Times Magazine about the economics of state-sponsored gambling.

In The Courier-Journal, Erik Reece, the UK writing professor and anti-strip mining author, draws his own analysis from the industry publication Kentucky Coal Facts.

The Bowling Green Daily News follows up on that city’s worst storm, which caused a half-billion dollars worth of damage 10 years ago this week.

In the Truth is Stranger than Fiction Department, this report comes from Pikeville, which will host its annual Hillbilly Days festival Thursday through Sunday. The Appalachian News-Express reports that federal officials have recalled 26,000 sets of plastic “Hillbilly Teeth.”

Could Wal-Mart thinking improve healthcare?

Wal-Mart revolutionized the way we shop by making America’s retail trade system more cost-efficient. Could it do the same with our dysfunctional health care system?

That’s a big question being asked these days at the headquarters of the world’s largest retailer.

One of the bright minds trying to answer it belongs to Marcus Osborne, 32, a Transylvania University graduate from Frankfort.

The way Osborne and other Wal-Mart executives are thinking about that question has huge implications.

Rising health care costs stung Wal-Mart several years ago when critics pointed out that many of its workers were on public assistance because they didn’t have health insurance. Rather than keep trying to avoid rising healthcare costs, Wal-Mart decided to attack them.

The company revamped its insurance plans to cover more employees. The company says nearly 93 percent of its workers now have health insurance, more than half of them through Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart also began launching initiatives to cut health care costs for customers. It started selling hundreds of generic prescriptions for $4, forcing other retailers to do the same. It started a chain of in-store medical clinics, which it hopes to have in 400 stores by 2010. In those clinics, nurse practitioners from local hospitals will provide basic medical services, and Wal-Mart will design and manage the business systems behind them.

Those ventures could be just the beginning.

“We’re looking at things like how could we work with providers to increase productivity, increase efficiency,” said Osborne, who joined Wal-Mart last June and is now senior director of business development/healthcare.

Other initiatives that Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott has talked about include contracting with other U.S. companies to help manage how they process and pay prescription claims. Wal-Mart also is promoting the use of electronic health records and prescriptions, which Scott says would improve quality and safety while driving down costs.

Fixing inefficiency

“I’m personally amazed by the sheer inefficiency in the (American health care) system,” Osborne said. “I’m amazed by the lack of transparency, particularly to the customer. With all the political, business and social rhetoric around the need for change in the health care industry, I’m just astounded how little change is occurring.”

Wal-Mart doesn’t seem to be looking for big profits in health care. Rather, it wants to protect its core business. If customers can spend less on health care, they’ll have more to spend on the zillions of products Wal-Mart stores sell.

The company is looking for market solutions to rising health care costs, as opposed to government solutions, which Osborne also knows something about. After graduating from Transylvania in 1996, he worked in the White House for Clinton adviser Ira Magaziner and his public policy team. The team was then working on Internet policy, having just flamed out in its controversial effort to reform health care.

“I learned a lot from their pain,” Osborne said.

After leaving the White House, Osborne worked as a corporate consultant and earned an MBA at Harvard University. What led him to Wal-Mart were the opportunities he saw in both the company’s huge size and its innovative corporate culture.

“It strikes me as one of the few entities around capable and willing to take the action necessary to deliver meaningful change,” Osborne said.

Wal-Mart has been successful — and often controversial — because it knows what it does well and how to make the most of it. It creates efficiencies by squeezing costs, streamlining systems and giving customers what they want at the cheapest possible price.

Osborne thinks the problem with American health care is that companies and whole industries profit by exploiting inefficiencies in the system. That leaves little incentive to make the system efficient.

Lessons for Kentucky

That sounds a lot like Kentucky, where some people have prospered for generations by exploiting the inefficiencies of a small state with 120 counties and even more school districts.

And it makes you wonder: What could Kentucky learn from Wal-Mart? What core strengths could Kentucky government and industry leverage to solve health care problems and maybe even grow the economy?

Osborne notes that parts of Kentucky have an excellent health care infrastructure, yet the state overall has huge problems with obesity, diabetes, heart disease, poor dental health and substance abuse.

“Are there opportunities in business to actually create solutions from a wellness point of view?” he wondered. “Is there some way to make a business out of engaging people to take action?”

As it happens, Osborne’s wife, Cara, is part of one such Kentucky effort.

The 28-year-old Grayson native, who graduated from Transylvania and earned a doctorate in public health from Harvard, works from their home in Arkansas as a professor in the distance learning program of Frontier Nursing Service. The Hyden-based service is one of the nation’s largest trainers of nurse practitioners and midwives.

Whatever Wal-Mart does has a big impact. It is Kentucky’s largest private employer, with nearly 32,000 workers at 99 stores and two distribution centers. Wal-Mart’s approaches also could serve as models for other Kentucky companies, as well as government agencies, non-profits and entrepreneurs.

Like Wal-Mart, Kentucky must face up to some tough issues it has always preferred to avoid. If we are ever to improve health care in Kentucky, we must squeeze out unnecessary costs, invest wisely and encourage creative thinking by our brightest minds — minds like the Osbornes, the Kentuckians who now live in Arkansas.

Precious bottles of bourbon they’ll never drink

It has to be one of Kentucky’s stranger traditions: Buy a couple of expensive bottles of bourbon you would never think of opening and stand in line all night so famous people can sign the labels.

That was the attraction that drew 1,000 people to Keeneland for this year’s limited edition Maker’s Mark bottle. More than an hour before dawn on Friday, the line to the autograph table finally started moving.

Most of those in line under the Keeneland grandstand had been there all night, through wind and rain. Some had come as early as Thursday morning for a choice spot. They carefully carried a precious bottle or two, juggling them amid folding chairs, blankets and coolers.

The destination was a long table where former University of Kentucky basketball Coach Joe B. Hall, Keeneland President Nick Nicholson and Maker’s Mark President Bill Samuels were chatting with fans and signing bottles as fast as they could.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” said Jerry Cummins of Cynthiana, who was there to have bottles signed for his brother and a friend.

“They’re not going to be around here next week,” Cummins said of Hall, Nicholson and Samuels. “And they’re getting old like me, so they won’t be around forever.”

Cummins, 58, was especially excited about seeing Hall, a fellow Harrison County native. He said his grandfather and Hall’s father once had adjoining farms, and he had done work for the Hall family.

This year’s blue bottle honored Hall on the 30th anniversary of his team’s 1978 NCAA championship. The limited edition of 18,000 bottles went on sale April 4.

“They were gone in Lexington in about 40 minutes,” said Maker’s Mark spokesman Alan Kirschenbaum. “Statewide, they were gone by the end of the day.”

The blue bottles sold for $45 to $47. All profits, when combined with matching funds, will raise $3 million for the Markey Cancer Foundation.

Fans could have only two bottles signed. Some who waited in line all night were serious collectors. Some planned to sell their bottles or give them to friends. Others were there because they — or someone they love — thought it would be fun. After all, this event combines everything Kentuckians love: basketball, bourbon and talking all night. Plus, it happens at Keeneland.

“I’m a big basketball fan,” said Trinity Schafstall, a Richwood native and UK graduate who drove up from her home in Nashville to wait in line with friends. “We listened to music and talked all night.”

Neil Tewes of Big Bone didn’t know what he would do with his bottles. “Probably put them in a display case and save them for the grandkids, if I ever have any,” he said.

Steve Head came with four relatives from Louisville and spent the night sitting in a folding chair watching DVDs and visiting. This was the fourth year in a row his family has made the trip. But Head didn’t have a bottle of his own to be signed. “I’m just here for the ride,” he said.

Cindi Lindsay of Lexington was on a more serious mission: Add two new bottles to her collection, which is so big she can’t remember how many she has. Lindsay has been coming to this event for 10 years, and she had been waiting in line since 4:30 p.m. Thursday.

Asked if she would ever consider opening one of her bottles, she shook her head and laughed. “They’re off limits.

Steve Head of Louisville watched DVDs to pass the time during his all-night wait.

Above photos: Former U.K. Coach Joe B. Hall signed a bottle for fellow Harrison County native Jerry Cummins. Keeneland President Nick Nicholson signed bottles beside Hall and Maker’s Mark President Bill Samuels. Cindi Lindsay of Lexington has been coming to the event for 10 years to add bottles to her collection. Photos/Tom Eblen

Rendering shows Webbs’ impact on Lexington

Developer Dudley Webb has been irritated by some of the anonymous comments readers have left on my blog about his CentrePointe development. What really set him off were the ones criticizing the previous buildings he and his brother, Donald, have added to Lexington’s skyline.

The Webb Companies‘ motto is “Developing Tomorrow’s Landmarks.” And the company is headquartered in perhaps its most distinctive local project, Lexington Financial Center, better known as the “Big Blue Building.” At 410 feet, it is Lexington’s tallest building.

Webb sent me an interesting artist’s rendering that groups the many buildings he and his brother have built in Lexington since they moved here from the Hot Spot community of Letcher County several decades ago. The buildings are grouped into a single village set in a rolling bluegrass landscape.

“As they used to say back in Hot Spot, ‘a picture is worth a thousand words,’ and this one best tells this story,” Webb wrote in an email.

Speaking of CentrePointe, Webb and representatives of the Blue Grass Trust for Historic Preservation and the citizens group Preserve Lexington met Thursday afternoon.

“This was the first of what we hope will be several meetings to discuss possibilities for compromise related to the proposed development,” Preserve Lexington said in a statement. No other details were released.

On March 4, Webb announced plans to build CentrePointe as a 40-story hotel, condo and retail development that would cover a block in the center of Lexington bounded by Main, Vine, Upper and Limestone streets. He later scaled back the tower to 35 stories.

Critics say CentrePointe would be too tall, too massive, would not promote street-level activity and would look out of place amid the buildings that surround it. Many people also are upset that Webb proposes to demolish 14 structures on the block that date as far back as 1826 and house several popular night spots and The Dame music hall. (Click on the rendering to enlarge it.)

An update: Dudley Webb on Friday clarified that this rendering was done in 1986. Since then, all of these projects were completed, except for Lake Lexington. The company has done a few others since then, too.

From Kentucky to India, with love

It’s a long journey from a childhood in the Kentucky governor’s mansion to a wedding in India, complete with elephants and a white horse to ride in on.

But that’s the path of sculptor Edward Breathitt III, 48, who last month took an Indian bride in an elaborate Hindu ceremony.

Breathitt, whose late father Edward “Ned” Breathitt Jr. was Kentucky’s governor from 1963-1967, met his wife Prachi, 22, in an art and book store where she worked when he was on vacation last year in New Delhi.

Don Mills of Lexington, who was the governor’s press secretary, was among about 20 family members and friends who came from Kentucky, California and Arizona to attend a week of wedding events that included hundreds of guests.

“I went to represent his father,” said Mills, who has remained close to the Breathitt family. “I’ve been to a lot of weddings, but never one like this.”

Festivities began March 9 with a ceremony where the bride and groom exchanged rings. Breathitt arrived riding a ceremonial elephant. That evening, the bride’s older sister was married. (By tradition, she had to be married before her younger sister, Mills said.)

Breathitt’s wedding ceremony was on March 13 at a hotel in downtown New Delhi. Breathitt rode to the wedding on a white horse. Mills and others in the party rode in on three elephants, although Mills finished the journey on a white horse.

When Breathitt arrived, he was met at the door by his future inlaws and ushered into a room where he was surrounded by a group of men called pundits.

“Edward sat on the floor with them to participate in a prayerful ceremony,” Mills, a former editor of the Lexington Herald, wrote in an email the next day. “First of all, Edward’s feet were washed by his future father-in-law to cleanse sins of the past, as the pundits sat cross-legged, chanting ever-increasing rhythmic hymns. The ceremony covered a number of personal matters related to Breathitt, including his future prosperity, his religious thinking and what he hopes to contribute to the marriage and life in general.”

Breathitt, who was born in Hopkinsville, has lived and worked in Sedona, Ariz., and been an artist in residence at Murray State University. The bride is attending law school after earning an economics degree. The couple will live in New Delhi and a second home Breathitt renovated north of there in the foothills of the Himalayas.

Here are more details Mills sent the day after the wedding:

Prachi, his bride-to-be, entered the ballroom escorted by a number of Indian women, both young and old, including her mother. She joined Breathitt at the well-decorated, flowery stage to participate in the exchange of the garland, wrapping them together with a necklace-like arrangement of flowers. Then, countless photographs were taken of the sitting couple with just about everyone who attended the wedding coming to the stage.

The religious ceremony, including dinner but no liquor, went on for hours with one centered around a burning fire discussing seven vows for a happy marriage. Another one featured a marriage event, which took place in the 1800s between the Cherokee Indians. A special friend of Edward’s — Standing Bear, who knew the Hopkinsville native when he lived in Arizona — conducted the ceremony.

The evening ended with two events, both humorous and meaningful to the wedding. One involved dropping a ring into a bowl of water and flowers with Prachi catching the bouncing ring twice, meaning that she would be dominant in the marriage.

The other was the playful stealing of shoes worn by Edward by some young cousins of the bride. Breathitt’s sister, Linda, had to pay 5,500 rupees ($140) for their return. The wedding, finally, ended at about 2:30 a.m. It was a long and tiring day, which included an elephant ride to top it off.

Edward Breathitt III and his bride, Prachi Pratap, at the ring ceremony. Photo/Don Mills

Breathitt and wife at the wedding. Photo/Don Mills

Don Mills rides an elephant to the wedding. Photo/Albaelena Wejebe

Where else to buy rain barrels?

I’ve been flooded (no pun intended) with calls and emails today from readers wanting to know where else they can buy rain barrels in Kentucky. Or good plastic or wooden barrels with which to make rain barrels. If you can offer help and advice on that subject, please post a comment below.