Woodford Webb, president of the company that wants to build CenterPointe in downtown Lexington, has an 
op-ed piece in today’s Herald-Leader that explains some design changes made in response to community opposition to the project. “We have taken serious looks and made deep analysis into this project while preserving the building program elements required to make this a successful block and with the confidence that it will serve as a catalyst for the neighboring blocks’ imminent revitalization,” Webb writes.
Here are PDFs of revised renderings for CentrePointe released by The Webb Companies. The files are large, so they could take awhile to download. Click here for a Main Street view. Click here for an Upper Street view.
Donovan Rypkema of PlaceEconomics, a Washington, D.C., consulting firm that specializes in the economic revitalization of city centers and development of historic properties, discusses CentrePointe on his blog. He writes about LEED certification, which is intended to result in more environmentally friendly buildings and construction practices. But he says CentrePointe is an example of what is becoming a national pattern of “using LEED certification as the club to demolish historic buildings.”
Preserve Lexington, a community group formed to urge that CentrePointe incorporate some or all of the 14 buildings on the block that date as far back as 1826, plans a rally and fundraiser on Friday, June 13. The event will be from 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Limestone Club, 213 North Limestone St. Admission is $20. There will be two bands — “The Swells” and “Between Clark and Hillsdale” — along with beer, barbecue and a silent auction of art posters.
Meanwhile, the South Hill Neighborhood Association has donated $2,000 to Preserve Lexington and challenged other downtown neighborhood associations to donate. The Elsmere Park Neighborhood Association also has given an undisclosed donation, a Preserve Lexington spokeswoman said.
The next step in the CenterPointe dispute comes June 25 at 1:30 p.m. in the Urban County Council Chambers when the Courthouse Area Design Review Board considers The Webb Companies’ revised development plans. The board must approve any changes to or destruction of buildings on the Main Street side of the block that fall within the courthouse overlay area. To win approval to demolish the buildings, The Webb Companies must show that it can’t make a reasonable financial return by restoring them.
And, finally, somebody sent me this example of a bar/restaurant in a century-old building in New York City that has helped humanize the scale of the skyscraper that covers the rest of the block. Something like this may or may not work on the CentrePointe block, but it’s interesting.
