Mourning rituals planned for CentrePointe block

How do you mourn the loss of a historic building or a favorite nightspot?

That’s what artist Bruce Burris wanted to know last month when he sent out a call for mourners.

Burris asked how people would like to mourn the ­demolition of 14 old ­buildings on the downtown Lexington block being cleared to make way for the CentrePointe development.

Sound a little goofy? That’s what I thought, too.

However, Burris got 18 proposals from people who wanted to mourn the buildings, which included Morton’s Row, built in 1826 and one of Lexington’s oldest commercial structures, and the century-old building that housed The Dame, a popular music club.

One of Burris’ ongoing art projects is called Greengrief. Its mission is to provide “compensation to mourners for grieving, praying, singing and for giving thoughtful consideration and sincere apologies to our Earth for the environmental and cultural devastation wrought by us humans to it in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.”

Usually, Burris said, Greengrief doesn’t focus on real estate development, or even large sites of destruction, such as strip mines. It looks at small places where human activity has hurt the environment — such as Wolf Run Creek along Southland Drive. “Little projects that hardly no one notices,” he explained.

CentrePointe wasn’t a typical Greengrief project, but after hearing a lot of people upset about it, Burris said, “What the heck?”

He chose three mourners from the 18 applicants, each of whom will receive $100 from his pocket to help fund their projects. They’re now seeking the necessary city permits for their events, which are all planned for Sept. 12 and 13.

“The three of them are very different. And not anything like what I ­expected, either,” said Burris, who operates the Latitude Artist Community on Saunier ­Alley, which works with adult ­artists who have disabilities. “I really couldn’t decide, so I just went for three.”

Jenny O’Neill, an English teacher at Tates Creek High School, decided to apply right before the Aug. 1 deadline. She’s writing a historical novel set in Lexington in 1833, when the oldest of the recently demolished buildings were in use. She also was touched by the destruction of The Dame, because her three children — ages 30, 28 and 22 — all loved to go to shows there.

“I was so angry about the way this thing (CentrePointe) has come down,” she said. “But anger is one of the stages of grief. And I’m in grief. We were so insensitive to our history, and our young people.”

Her idea is to have a ­public funeral at 10:45 a.m. Sept. 13 in Phoenix Park. She will ask those who come to write about what they’ll miss most about the block the way it was. “I’m giving people a way to grieve in a public way for what they’ve lost,” she said.

O’Neill plans to ask those who attend to then walk three times around the block — the first time expressing their grief, the second time in silence “in respect for what has died,” and the third time with music. She hopes to recruit some musicians who will begin by playing a dirge, then end with New Orleans-style jazz. “That’s the time for moving on,” she said.

Lyndsey Fryman, 26, of Paris, has a much different plan, scheduled for noon on Sept. 12.

“Dressed in Victorian-era mourning clothing, I will create a dollhouse-size replica of the buildings during that time,” she wrote in her ­proposal. “I will walk around the block while creating ­paper flowers on stems and other mementos that will be left as I pass the replica … . The arrangement will hopefully evoke symbolic attachments to the process of mourning (being a form of memory), and a spiritual ­rebirth of those things gone.”

Fryman said she comes from a military family, so has lived many places. “I have a great appreciation for this history and the architecture that has been lost,” she said. “It was part of history, a part of Lexington.”

Brittany Clark, 23, who works for a marketing ­company, hopes to re-create one last ’80s party like the ones she enjoyed at The Dame. She hopes to begin this one at 1 a.m. Sept. 13 in Cheapside Park.

Clark says she went to the Dame once a week for more than a year. “It was a very big part of my life,” she said. “It was a dive bar. It wasn’t the same genre of people you run into at other bars. You ran into people from all different groups. I was more comfortable there than anywhere else.”

She also is angry about the way CentrePointe was sprung on the public. “I felt like everything was done in the worst possible way,” she said. “No one took any time to listen to anyone. I wanted to let people know how I felt about it.”

It should be an interesting weekend.

Council should look closely at CentrePointe TIF

I’ve been skeptical of using tax-increment financing for a project related to Dudley Webb’s proposed CentrePointe development.

The more I hear about it, the more skeptical I become.

Here are my concerns: Is CentrePointe really an economically viable development? If the state approves a CentrePointe TIF project, will it be as good for Lexington as it is for Webb?

And, most of all, could a flawed CentrePointe TIF proposal poison the well for future projects that work the way the law intended — as an up-front partnership, rather than a tag-along grab for goodies?

At Tuesday’s work session, Urban County Council members will have their first chance to discuss a specific list of “public infrastructure” projects proposed as part of a CentrePointe TIF project. Let’s hope council members ask tough questions and demand good answers.

Tax-increment financing, known as TIF, is a great tool for redeveloping blighted urban areas and thus reducing suburban sprawl. TIF allows some of the new tax revenues generated by a big private development in a run-down neighborhood to be used for up to 30 years to pay for public infrastructure needed to make the development possible.

Louisville, Northern Kentucky and Bowling Green have begun projects since the TIF law was passed in 2007, but the CentrePointe proposal would be Lexington’s first.

Mayor Jim Newberry has been a strong supporter of Webb’s plan for CentrePointe, which calls for a four-star hotel, luxury condos, offices, restaurants and shops in a 35-story tower on the block bounded by Main, Vine, Upper and Limestone streets.

One of the most vocal of Webb’s many critics has been Vice Mayor Jim Gray, who is president of his family’s large construction company. He has questioned CentrePointe’s massive scale, its uninspired architecture, the demolition of the block’s historic buildings and the development’s economic viability. He thinks Lexington is being short-changed by a development that embraces urban design principles two or three decades out of date.

Webb claims to have equity investors willing to put up more than $200 million to build CentrePointe, and he says he can do it without TIF financing. Nevertheless, he is going to a lot of trouble to help the city prepare a TIF proposal, which would include millions of dollars worth of “public” improvements to benefit CentrePointe.

Gray has repeatedly asked where Webb is getting the money for CentrePointe — and Webb has refused to say.

In essence, Webb is asking Lexington to trust him. But many people who have followed his career are reluctant to do that.

The community has a lot of questions about CentrePointe: Does Webb really have financing? Or does he need the TIF enhancements to attract investors? Will he scale back plans for his own costly parking facilities if the city builds a parking garage for him? Does he really have something else in mind for the block?

Against this backdrop, a task force of council members chaired by Newberry last week approved a preliminary list of projects that could be paid for with CentrePointe TIF revenues. Estimates of the money that could be available range from $35 million to $190 million over 30 years.

The task force’s project list includes some great downtown improvements, such as new sewers and streetscapes, underground utilities, a park along Vine Street and public art for the new courthouse plaza.

Perhaps the best project on the list is a restoration of the old Fayette County Courthouse, which now houses the Lexington History Museum. When built a century ago, it was one of Lexington’s most beautiful buildings – and it could be again.

The list also includes a relocation plan for the displaced Farmers Market that is, at best, speculative. It would put the market in Cheapside Park and on the block behind the old courthouse – although there have been no discussions with the block’s owners.

The most questionable parts of the TIF project list are those of most interest to Webb: A city-owned parking garage beneath Phoenix Park and pedways connecting CentrePointe to that garage and the garage across Upper Street built by the state in the 1980s for Webb’s Lexington Financial Center.

Even if you think downtown needs another parking garage, it’s hard to imagine a more expensive way to build one. An underground garage costs at least one-third more than an above-ground one. This garage would cost nearly $10 million for 331 spaces, plus $4 million to rebuild and improve Phoenix Park once it was done. Plus, underground parking is a lot more popular with urban planners than with the public.

But the first thing council members should question – and delete from the list – are the two pedways. Most cities stopped building pedways 20 years ago because they sucked life from the streets. These pedways would cost about $1.5 million each. Does anyone but Dudley Webb think that’s a good investment for Lexington?

But there’s a lot more at stake than this project.

Kentuckians like to think of their state as rural. But three of every four jobs are in a city. Lexington accounts for 10 percent of the state’s economic output. The metro areas of the so-called Golden Triangle – Lexington, Louisville and Northern Kentucky – account for 45 percent.

TIF is a vital tool for keeping Kentucky’s cities — and thus Kentucky — economically healthy.

A lot of improvements could be made in Lexington with smart, intentional urban revitalization projects that use TIF. The proposed Distillery District project on Manchester Street, whose developers will make their pitch for TIF financing to the task force next week, is a good example.

But some rural legislators resent TIF because it keeps tax money generated in cities from flowing to the rest of the state. They tried unsuccessfully last year to dramatically scale back the TIF law. There’s no reason to think they won’t try again.

Does Lexington want to risk giving TIF opponents in the General Assembly a big target to shoot at — a questionable project built around an unpopular development?

Do we really want to enter this race on a donkey instead of a thoroughbred?

CentrePointe: What we can do before next time

What can Lexington learn from the CentrePointe fiasco?

It’s probably too late for anyone but Dudley Webb to make his hotel, condo, retail and office complex in the middle of downtown a better development. But this is the perfect time for the rest of us to make sure it isn’t repeated.

Don’t get me wrong: we need high-quality development, and lots of it, to make Lexington a vibrant place to live, work and visit.

Mayor Jim Newberry and Vice Mayor Jim Gray took steps last week to seize this opportunity to improve the way planning, development and public process are handled. Now the rest of us need to step up to the plate.

I’m no expert, but I’ve talked to a lot of people who are. Here’s some thinking about where we can go from here.

A vision for downtown

Many people object to CentrePointe’s design because it is too massive and ignores many aspects of the Downtown Master Plan, which was developed in an extensive public process at a cost of about $400,000. Lexington’s Planning Commission hasn’t adopted all of the plan’s recommendations, so more work is needed.

The plan is important, but it should not become a straitjacket. It needs to be a suit of clothes that allows city officials, developers and the public to handle specific projects with both flexibility and shared understanding about Lexington’s vision and expectations. There needs to be an ongoing conversation, and the plan needs to be flexible enough to change with conditions, new opportunities and new ideas.

City officials should use the tool of tax increment financing, known as TIF, in an intentional way, rather than in just a reactive way, as is being done with CentrePointe. TIF allows some future incremental tax revenues from a private development to be used to pay for surrounding public infrastructure.

What if city officials sought out developers for projects that could help accomplish the community’s infrastructure and development goals? That way, the city could drive the process, rather than risk being run over by it.

Lexington could get a lot of low-cost imagination and expertise by becoming more engaged with the University of Kentucky’s College of Design, which has fine architecture and preservation programs.

There has never been a better time to do that: The former dean, David Mohney, is the new chairman of the Downtown Development Authority; the new dean, Michael Speaks, has enormous skill and enthusiasm; and UK President Lee T. Todd Jr. is passionate about having the university reach beyond its stone walls to improve life in Kentucky. It could be a powerful partnership.

”I hope we can get involved with the city in some early stages of thinking and help people see outside their comfort zone,“ Speaks said. ”Design is all about “what ifs.’ It gives you possibilities to think about.“

The college also could be helpful in one of Mohney’s goals for the DDA, which is to increase public awareness of the role good architecture and design can play in improving a city’s economy and quality of life.

Good architecture isn’t just about what buildings look like; it’s more about how people use them and how buildings can inspire people. It’s also about the image a city projects to the world.

You don’t have to look only to cities such as Chicago and London to see the value of good architecture and redevelopment. You can look at places like Paducah and Greenville, S.C. And while you’re watching the Olympics, think about how some of China’s stunning new architecture is likely to shape its international image.

Better public process

In most cases, developers aren’t required to engage the public in private projects, even ones as prominently located as CentrePointe. That’s the law and process now – and it’s wrong. Lexington needs to open up its process, and maybe change some laws, to give the public more voice. The task force created recently to study TIF opportunities is a good start.

The Downtown Development Authority has been criticized for being more of a facilitator for CentrePointe’s developers than an advocate for the public interest. ”That dynamic needs to change,“ said Mohney, who is working with the authority’s board to update its mission statement.

That’s a good thing, because the DDA should be a key place where ideas and players come together. It’s an independent agency, designed to be insulated from political pressure.

A proactive DDA could look at what’s working in other cities, foster public education and discussion and prompt action. There are many good tools other cities are using.

One is a design review board, such as Cincinnati and other cities have had for years. Such professional boards interpret and enforce standards defined by a community to make sure new developments are appropriate.

While CentrePointe’s design has received a lot of criticism, it’s hardly the worst example of mistakes that could have been prevented by a good design review process. The post office on High Street looks like it belongs in a suburban shopping center. And the ugly new U.S. Justice Department building on Vine Street manages to look both fortress-like and cheap.

Another tool is form-based zoning, which regulates building height, setback and other specifications based on surrounding structures. Another is a so-called Community Benefits Agreement, which at the least can require developers to engage the public.

It’s a careful balancing act, though. The last thing Lexington wants to do is create laws so strict and bureaucratic processes so cumbersome that developers won’t want to build here. But there’s a lot of middle ground between that and the process that produced CentrePointe.

You can’t make a rule for everything, and you don’t want to. You need both good rules and city leaders willing to use them intelligently. Other cities do it. Lexington can, too.

Rethinking preservation

Newberry last week directed the DDA and the city’s Division of Historic Preservation to update the list of downtown buildings more than 50 years old, work with property owners and conduct public hearings on which are worth preserving. The council is supposed to receive that list by March.

That’s a good start toward ending Lexington’s tendency to act on historic preservation only when the wrecking ball arrives. But it’s only a start. People and groups interested in preservation and reuse of old buildings need to take more initiative.

The Blue Grass Trust for Historic Preservation has done a lot of great work over the years, but it has been reluctant to take the lead in development battles. Perhaps that’s because it’s hard to fight the establishment when you are the establishment. The charge against CentrePointe was led not by the Trust, but by a new citizens group, Preserve Lexington.

While many downtown buildings were surveyed and their historic significance documented in the late 1970s, pressure from property owners kept most of them from being protected. That left the door open for CentrePointe and the developments that preceded it.

Several buildings on the CentrePointe block, such as the circa 1826 Morton’s Row, were deemed worthy of preservation. But it’s hard to protect a building against the owner’s wishes.

There’s more to preservation than saving old buildings from destruction. Preservationists must help building owners get the expertise, financing and tax credits to rehabilitate historic properties for new uses that will boost both their businesses and the local economy. There have been many recent old-building success stories downtown, and there could be many more.

”Historic Preservation needs to be on the forefront and be proactively making recommendations,“ said Phil Holoubek, developer of the Nunn Building and Main & Rose condo projects.

There also needs to be a broader discussion about preservation. Sometimes preservation is about saving truly historic structures such as Morton’s Row, one of Lexington’s oldest commercial buildings, which since 1929 has housed Rosenberg jewelry and pawn shop.

Other times, it’s about incorporating old buildings that are interesting but not necessarily historic into contemporary structures that can add value to the city’s streetscape. Those developments can be both more charming and more economical than all-new construction.

City officials and community activists also need to take a deep look at building inspection and code enforcement. The CentrePointe block’s old buildings were dilapidated because their owners and the city let them get that way.

Newberry’s administration has done a lot to improve code enforcement, such as cleaning up long-ignored trailer parks. Gray said he wants his task force to look at these issues, both downtown and throughout the city. Other council members want to go after apartment complexes, rental houses and stores that have become dangerous eyesores.

”What’s going on in the neighborhoods is the same thing that’s been going on downtown,“ said Diane Lawless, a 3rd District Council candidate who has been researching the issue.

It is often said that Lexington deserves an urban landscape as beautiful as the rural landscape that surrounds it. What do you think we should do to achieve that?  Comment and offer your suggestions below.

Wisdom from the past about downtown’s future

Lexington has been lucky to be home to some great academic minds who have been keen observers of the local scene. They have sometimes been listened to, and often ignored.

The first one who often comes to mind is University of Kentucky historian Thomas Clark, who died in 2005, just short of his 102nd birthday. A native of Mississippi, Clark understood Kentucky and its people perhaps better than anyone ever has.

Another is Raymond Betts, a University of Kentucky history professor and founding director of UK’s outstanding Gaines Center for the Humanities, who died in 2007. Betts wrote a couple of op-ed pieces for the Herald-Leader in 1976 and 1983 discussing the future of downtown Lexington. In light of the CentrePointe controversy and renewed interest in downtown redevelopment, they’re well worth reading. You can see PDFs of the articles by clicking here and here.

CentrePointe: Two see divergent paths to one goal

To see the range of public opinion about CentrePointe, you need look no further than Mayor Jim Newberry and Vice Mayor Jim Gray.

Gray has been among the most vocal critics of Dudley and Woodford Webb’s plan for the CentrePointe development downtown, which would include a four-star hotel, luxury condos, offices, restaurants and shops.

Jim Gray

Gray has questioned the plan’s economic viability, its scale and design, its destruction of historic buildings and the process that allowed it to be sprung on the public as virtually a done deal.

Newberry backs CentrePointe. This week, he sent a series of four e-mails to the community endorsing the project again and scolding some of its critics.

“I do not consider it to be a perfect development,” Newberry wrote in one e-mail, “but on balance there has never been any doubt in my mind but that the best interests of Lexington are served by the completion of CentrePointe.”

Newberry’s e-mails focus more on the advantages of a big downtown development than on the specific plans for CentrePointe. The project will create jobs, increase downtown density and maybe even preserve farmland, he wrote.

Jim Newberry

But Newberry seems to have missed the point of CentrePointe’s critics. Nobody opposes development on the block; critics just want some city leadership to get a better development plan.

I’ve watched the CentrePointe debate at City Hall with great interest, because it mirrors some of the conversations I hear on the street.

If you follow this column, you know that I think Gray has been right about CentrePointe from the beginning. But I also have a lot of respect for Newberry.

I think they both want what’s best for Lexington. And, ironically, they have the same vision for Lexington — a future based on preserving our culture and character while building a knowledge-based economy that attracts the “creative class” of workers who will make it possible.

So why the disconnect?

Newberry comes from the world of corporate law, where he was managing partner of a major firm. He’s practical, careful and literal. What do our laws require? Is the developer following the law? Will the developer go away if we demand more of him?

Gray, the president of his family’s large construction company, comes from a much different sphere, and this controversy plays to his professional expertise.

Gray knows a lot about development, construction and architecture. His company helped build the 21C hotel and museum in Louisville, an innovative redevelopment project that has drawn international acclaim. And he understands the power that good architecture has to inspire a city’s residents and attract the world’s attention.

Ever since the CentrePointe plan was unveiled, Gray has insisted that Lexington deserves better than it is getting from the Webbs.

In many ways, Newberry and Gray represent the yin and yang of Lexington.

This is a conservative, practical and careful city — but one that knows it must become more creative and innovative to succeed in the 21st century and beyond.

It’s also a city uncomfortable with change and conflict, even though conflict is often the path to dialogue that leads to better results.

CentrePointe has been a wake-up call for both Newberry and Gray — and, I hope, for many others — that Lexington needs to become more intentional about how it handles development, especially downtown.

I’ll write more about that on Sunday.

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Worth reading: Dan Rowland, a UK professor and former director of UK’s Gaines Center for the Humanities, has a good op-ed piece in Thursday’s paper about lessons we can learn from CentrePointe. Read it here.

Any CentrePointe TIF needs a close look

The best thing city officials have done so far in the CentrePointe fiasco is to begin studying how tax increment financing could be used to help downtown.

The Urban County Council created a task force, which includes seven council members and Mayor Jim Newberry. It could be a valuable forum for them and the public to ask questions and make decisions that will shape Lexington for decades.

Tax increment financing, known as TIF, is a great tool. It allows cities to use a portion of local and state taxes generated by a major private development for up to 30 years to pay for public improvements needed to make that development possible.

There are three big questions that need answering soon: Can CentrePointe qualify as a TIF project? If so, is it the right project for the TIF tool? And, if so, what downtown improvements should be bought with that tax money – improvements that will be in Lexington’s best interests, and not just in the best interests of CentrePointe’s developers?

State law requires that TIF financing be essential to a project, which could be an problem with CentrePointe. That’s because developers Dudley and Woodford Webb say they will build no matter what. Can Lexington convince the state that CentrePointe qualifies for TIF?

“It’s a challenge,” acknowledged Jim Parsons, a Newport attorney hired by the task force to be its TIF consultant. “I’ve never seen a TIF like this.”

The key, Parsons said, could be how the project is presented to state officials: Is the project just CentrePointe, or is it a downtown revitalization plan of which CentrePointe is a key part?

Lexington officials also need to decide if CentrePointe is the right project for raising the money they want for downtown improvements. Whatever portion of downtown is included in a CentrePointe TIF district will essentially be locked up, precluding any other TIF projects there for 30 years.

If bonds were issued to pay for the improvements, they could generate between $35 and $70 million, officials estimate. Newberry raised an intriguing idea at the TIF task force’s meeting Tuesday: If the city used tax revenues gradually to pay for public improvements rather than issuing bonds, it could, by the CentrePointe developers’ estimates, have as much as $190 million to work with.

One problem with that approach, though, is it shifts the risk from bondholders to the city. If CentrePointe’s four-star hotel, shops, offices and luxury condos are wildly successful, the city could get even more money. If they’re not, the city could get far less.

Is CentrePointe a viable project? There are many skeptics, including other hoteliers who see little demand for a new luxury hotel and people who see lots of vacant retail space downtown.

Vice Mayor Jim Gray and Councilman Tom Blues, who are skeptical, sought proof Tuesday that the Webbs have the more than $200 million needed to build CentrePointe. They asked for letters from the investors promising that the money has been pledged.

“Is the financing committed?” Gray asked. “Is the project real? I’ve learned over time that all that glitters is not gold.”

The Webbs’ attorney, Darby Turner, refused to provide any proof of funding or identify the investors. Based on previous comments by Dudley Webb, the investors are foreign.

“We’re going to build the project,” Turner said. “The financing is in place. Do you all want to come along or not?”

Turner said CentrePointe’s investors want their business to stay private, adding that might pose a problem with underwriters if the city seeks to issue TIF bonds.

In other words, Lexington just has to trust the Webbs. And that trust must extend well beyond the next couple of years, when CentrePointe either will or won’t be built.

As Gray noted, most of the revenue the city would use for improvements would come from state sales taxes – and that money won’t come unless CentrePointe’s hotel and shops succeed long-term.

Assuming Lexington does a CentrePointe TIF project, everyone should take a close look at how that future tax money is used. An initial list of possible projects prepared by the mayor’s office and given to task force members Tuesday raised concerns.

The proposal – and it is just a proposal – listed $48 million in projects, including some great ideas: $2 million CORRECTION: $14 million for renovating the old courthouse, which houses the Lexington History Museum; $2 million for renovating the old courthouse plaza; $1.5 million for a permanent Farmer’s Market facility; $2.5 million for public art; and $3 million for downtown entertainment venues.

There also was money for improvements to Phoenix Park, utilities, sewer and streetscape improvements.

However, the list also included projects that bear close scrutiny. There’s a $1 million outdoor Jumbotron that could be used during the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games in 2010 and for things like Friday night movies. OK, that’s worth discussing.

But there are a couple of things I’m very skeptical of. The first is a proposed two- or three-level parking garage below Phoenix Park, with as many as 331 parking spaces costing $30,000 each.That could cost $10 million, plus a few million more to put Phoenix Park back together.

The garage would be good for CentrePointe, but is it a wise investment for the city?

Street parking downtown is popular and limited. But there already seems to be plenty of available space in downtown parking structures. In general, people don’t like parking structures, and they like underground parking even less. Before city officials invest millions in this costliest form of new parking space, they should do a thorough study of downtown’s parking inventory and anticipated needs.

It’s also worth asking whether those millions might be better spent on downtown public transportation. Trolleys? Streetcars?

But the thing I’m most skeptical of is a proposal for $3 million worth of “pedways,” also known as skywalks, to connect CentrePointe to the proposed parking garage and the garage at the Webbs’ Financial Center (”the big blue building”) across Upper Street.

If CentrePointe’s design looks like something out of the 1980s, skywalks are an idea from the 1960s that have been widely discredited since then. Why? Because they take human activity off the street.

(READ MORE about other cities’ experiences with skywalks here and here and here.)

One of the biggest complaints many people have about CentrePointe’s design is that it isn’t friendly to street activity. Pedways would make it even less so.

The first public hearing about a CentrePointe TIF was held after Tuesday’s task force meeting. It was lightly attended, and only a handful of citizens spoke. Maybe that was because it’s early in the process, and people have little information to react to.

Our elected city officials have provided a great forum for discussing these issues. They, and Lexington citizens, should make the most of it ­- and soon.

Have your say on CentrePointe TIF, local parks

This week offers a couple of good opportunities to learn more about plans for improving Lexington and to have your say about them.

The Urban County Council panel that is studying tax increment financing (TIF) for downtown improvements related to Dudley Webb’s proposed CentrePointe development will have a public hearing Tuesday at 6 p.m. in council chambers at Main Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

I’m skeptical about a CentrePointe TIF project for several reasons, but I’m keeping an open mind. I’m glad city officials are studying the issue closely. I’m also glad they have hired their own TIF expert for advice, rather than relying only on The Webb Companies’ consultant.

Another good opportunity for civic engagement is a series of public meetings tonight, Tuesday and Wednesday on the future of Lexington’s excellent system of public parks. It’s an opportunity to have your say as city officials put together a parks master plan for the next decade. Click here or here for more details.

Passing of The Dame a blow to young people

As I watch The Dame on Main Street being demolished, I see a neglected, century-old building that could have been reused to give the proposed CentrePointe development more character and class.

But many others – people the age of my daughters – see something different: They see the loss of an important piece of their culture. To them, it’s almost as if somebody took a wrecking ball to the Lexington Opera House or the grandstand at Keeneland.

The circa 1901 building that housed The Dame is being demolished to make way for the CentrePointe development. Photo by Mark Cornelison

One of those people is Matt Jordan, 22, a University of Kentucky senior from Elizabethtown. I got to know him last year when he was a student in the journalism class I teach.

Jordan’s passion is music, and last month he wrote a touching piece in the Kentucky Kernel, UK’s student newspaper, about what The Dame meant to him and his generation.

“It was a cultural breeding ground for Lexington that can’t be bought, copied or easily replicated,” he wrote. “This one venue drew together punk rockers, bluegrass purists, Latin dancers, indie hipsters and average Joes … It was a gift while it lasted.”

When I called Jordan the other day, he had trouble putting into words what made The Dame special during the five years it existed. It wasn’t the building or location, although both were great. It was the way the club became a magnet for up-and-coming musicians and their fans, and the way it created a sense that buttoned-down Lexington could be a cool place for young people to live.

No urban planning expert planned it, no architect designed it, no developer built it. It grew organically and became an artistic success, if not always a financial one.

“I don’t want to say The Dame was the Lexington music scene, but it was pretty much the most important spot,” Jordan said, noting the club’s willingness to take risks on emerging bands and artists with limited appeal. “They were willing to book almost anybody once.”

While The Dame was most popular among over-21 college students and young professionals, it also attracted regular patrons in their 30s, 40s – and a few older ones.

The Dame’s owner, Tom Yost, said Tuesday he is actively looking for a new location either downtown or close to UK.

“We haven’t found the right fit yet,” Yost said. “Several landlords have come to us, and the support in the community has been off the charts.”

Jordan said he hopes it doesn’t take much longer for The Dame to reopen or a similar venue to emerge.

Fans standing in line at The Dame braved frigid temperatures to see Kenny Chesney perform in March. Chesney was the biggest act to play at the club, which took a chance on up-and-coming performers. Photo by David Stephenson

“I was in Athens, Ga., recently, and several musicians I know asked about The Dame and said, ‘So where do we play there now?’” he said. “The Dame was something that made people my age proud of Lexington and gave them a reason to stay here.”

Jordan noted that the fire marshal last February closed The Ice House, on Cross Street off West Maxwell, which was becoming a popular venue. It wasn’t zoned as a music club, and there were fire safety concerns. Local officials also have shut down performances in residential neighborhoods. Jordan doesn’t blame the officials; they’ve done the right thing, given the circumstances.

“But it just seems that this city keeps sabotaging itself,” he said.

There aren’t many places in Lexington for twentysomethings – and almost nowhere for those younger than 21 – to go for cutting-edge music.

However, Jordan is encouraged by growing support among city officials and business leaders for creating downtown entertainment venues. Good things are happening at Victorian Square, and ambitious proposals have been made for entertainment districts along Manchester Street and around Cheapside.

When Commerce Lexington took 175 local leaders to Austin, Texas, in early June, officials there stressed the huge role live music and entertainment play in their city’s economic vitality.

Austin civic and business leaders have figured out how to nurture music clubs and other venues, which often aren’t the most profitable enterprises, because they realize they help provide the quality of life sought by bright, creative people – especially up-and-coming young people. Those are the people who power the companies that can become a city’s economic engines of the future.

Many Lexington leaders seem to get it. There has been a lot of encouraging talk, and some good work done by the city’s Downtown Entertainment Task Force.

Matt Jordan is a bright, creative guy – the kind Lexington needs to attract and keep. While middle-aged professionals like me have been fretting about the future of the media business, Matt has been creating it. His blog, www.youaintnopicasso.com, covers popular music and attracts enough readers and advertising to pay his rent.

Jordan graduates from UK in December. He hasn’t decided whether to stay in Lexington, although he would like to. Where else might he go?

“I would love to move to Austin, Texas, which has tons of appeal,” he said.

There are many important questions to consider as we watch bulldozers finish clearing debris from what was The Dame. Here are three of them: Will The Dame reopen or be replaced? Will bright, young people find reasons to stay in Lexington? What more can we do to keep them?

READ music critic Walter Tunis’ reflections on the dame at his blog, The Musical Box.

CentrePointe: Ignoring past won’t move us forward

The Webb Companies’ motto is ”Developing Tomorrow’s Landmarks.“

A more appropriate one might be ”Stuck in the 1980s.“

The company’s handling of the ­CentrePointe hotel-condo-retail project has reeked of 1980s development strategy: Plan in secret, avoid public input, cut back-room deals with key city leaders, bulldoze citizen opposition and bulldoze the site.

As a Herald-Leader editorial pointed out Wednesday, the whole fiasco has been a failure of civic leadership and public process.

It also has been a failure of imagination by developers Dudley and Woodford Webb and by Joe Rosenberg, who owns much of the block.

The wrecking machine has torn down several buildings and may soon come for the one truly historic building on the block, which has for years housed Rosenberg’s jewelry and pawnshop.

Built in 1826 as part of ”Morton’s Row,“ it is downtown’s second-oldest commercial building. If it looks dilapidated, you can blame Rosenberg’s neglect of the building.

Dudley Webb has said that none of the buildings on the block is truly historic. ”It’s not like Lincoln ever shopped there,“ he once said. (Actually, Abraham Lincoln may have shopped there. It was a store when he visited his in-laws in Lexington.)

Until the past couple of decades, buildings weren’t considered worthy of preservation unless they were associated with a famous person or event, or unless they remained architecturally intact and in their historic context.

Since the 1980s, though, preservationists and urban planners have seen another value for old urban buildings of character, even if they weren’t ”historic“ by the traditional definition. They don’t want to preserve them as relics, or save them as museums. They want to incorporate them, or their façades, into contemporary buildings with new uses.

If you’ve listened to Webb’s critics — from Vice Mayor Jim Gray to the Blue Grass Trust for Historic Preservation to the citizens’ group Preserve Lexington — that’s what they’ve argued for all along.

Why? Such ”historic fabric“ reflects a city’s history and unique sense of place. And when old and new are woven together in creative ways, it makes for a more interesting — and valuable — development.

If that weren’t the case, you wouldn’t see that kind of project being done all over the country — and all over the world. The old buildings are those developments’ prime space for restaurants, bars and shops. That’s because they are unique and inviting, and they give a project a human scale.

I just came back from a few days in New York City and was amazed at the transformation of the SoHo neighborhood, where formerly dilapidated old industrial buildings with cast-iron façades have been turned into ritzy shops and some of the city’s most expensive loft apartments. Streets that were deserted in the 1980s are now filled with people.

By contrast, ­CentrePointe’s massive, monolithic design looks like what developers were building in Atlanta in the late 1980s when I was living there. Granted, many Lexingtonians would prefer that to some cutting-edge modern architecture. And it’s certainly better than all of the ugly 1970s-style buildings Lexington is saddled with downtown, on the UK campus and at schoolyards and office parks around town.

But as many architects, developers and construction executives have told me, CentrePointe could be so much better than the renderings Dudley Webb unveiled in March. And it would be a more successful project if he had engaged the public and gotten more creative professional advice.

That’s sad, because CentrePointe could define downtown Lexington for a century.

A development that could creatively blend Lexington’s colorful past with architecture that looks toward the future would be much more inspiring, especially to the bright young people Lexington needs to attract and retain. Those people may have been born in the 1980s, but they won’t stay long in a city that looks like it’s stuck there.

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Here are several examples of historic buildings and architecture mixed into contemporary redevelopment. Do you know of other good examples? Send me an email with a photo or link.

A closer look at the CentrePointe concepts

Beverly Fortune’s story Tuesday and my column Wednesday gave an overview of three alternative design concepts for CentrePointe that were developed over the weekend by students at the University of Kentucky’s College of Design working with prominent architects and designers from UK, Los Angeles and Chicago.

The goal of the 48-hour workshop wasn’t to develop finished designs or exact plans. It was to look at ways the 1.7-acre block could be used to accomplish the goals developer Dudley Webb has stated as well as to create inviting street-level space and a signature piece of architecture. The main goal, though, was to stimulate thinking and explore possibilities.

Here are some of the renderings the three teams came up with during the workshop, which was organized by Michael Speaks, the dean of the college, and architecture faculty member Drura Parrish. The workshop also included advisers from UK’s Historic Preservation Program.

The first group of concept designs was developed by a team led by UK faculty members Liz Swanson and Mike McKay. Swanson and McKay have been based in New Orleans for the past three years leading a UK design studio there. The second group was developed by the team led by Paul Preissner of Chicago, head of Quavirarch and a faculty member at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The third group was developed by a team led by Heather Flood and Ramiro Diaz Granados of Los Angeles, partners in the design firm of F-Lab and faculty members at the Southern California Institute of Architecture. Click on each photo to enlarge it.