Lexington in 1826: What’s left? What will be?

I posted an item Thursday that reproduced a brief story from the July 6, 1826, edition of the Kentucky Whig about how Lexington celebrated the 50th anniversary of Independence Day. It mentioned two downtown establishments — Sanders’ Garden and Mr. Connetts — where Lexington residents partied that day.  I have no idea where they were or what they looked like.  After all, there’s not much left of Lexington from 182 years ago.

It’s worth noting, though, that 1826 was the year Morton’s Row was built.  It was the store of William “Lord” Morton, an early Lexington entrepreneur.  Since 1929, the building has been Joe Rosenberg’s jewelry store and pawn shop.  Any day now, it could be a pile of dust. Joe Rosenberg and Dudley Webb have permits to demolish the building to make way for CentrePointe, their $250 million luxury hotel, condo and retail development.

In an unsuccessful attempt to appease critics of the project, Webb proposed incorporating the pediment facade from the main Morton’s Row building into CentrePointe.  No word on whether that proposal still stands, now that a demolition permit has been issued.  Let’s hope the facade is preserved. Once our historical legacy is gone, it’s gone for good.

A demolition permit has been issued for Morton’s Row, built in 1826, to make way for the CentrePointe development. Since 1929, the buildilng has been owned by the Rosenberg family.  Photo/Tom Eblen

Council arrived late to the CentrePointe ball

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.

There’s a lot of history on CentrePointe block

Dudley Webb is hardly the first ambitious businessman to want to leave his mark on the block in the center of downtown Lexington.

A five-member city board will decide this week whether Webb should be able to erase the marks of all those who came before him.

The Courthouse Area Design Review Board meets at 2 p.m. Wednesday in the Urban County Council chambers to hear Webb’s request to demolish the 14 buildings on the block bounded by Main, Upper, Vine and Limestone streets to build his proposed 35-story CentrePointe tower. The $250 million development would house a luxury hotel, high-priced condominiums, stores and restaurants.

The board must approve demolition of the buildings that face Main Street, which are included in the courthouse area historic overlay zone. The board also must approve the design of new buildings so they fit the character of the neighborhood.

Vice Mayor Jim Gray has spoken for a broad coalition of preservationists, architects and downtown activists who want Webb to change his CentrePointe design to be more in scale with surrounding buildings and to preserve some of the block’s existing structures — or at least their facades.

Webb argues that it isn’t economical to keep the old buildings, many of which suffered “modernization” in the late 1940s and more recent neglect by their owners. Webb says none of the buildings, which date as far back as 1826, are truly historic or worth preserving.

The Blue Grass Trust, the citizens group Preserve Lexington and others disagree, noting that these are some of the city’s oldest surviving commercial buildings.

Much of the discussion Wednesday is likely to center on the neo-classical building on Main Street that houses The Dame, a popular music hall that closes Sunday night and is looking for a new home.

Built in 1901, the building was a late work of noted Lexington architect Herman L. Rowe, who also designed the Opera House on Broadway and the Carnegie Center — the old Lexington Public Library — at Gratz Park.

A 1979 survey of the block by architectural historian Walter Langsam said the building, which originally housed a candy factory and ice cream parlor, is notable for its “Chicago School” influence, which was then emerging from the work of such architects as Frank Lloyd Wright. The building later housed the offices of Lexington’s utilities and trolley line, a florist shop and clothing stores.

But the buildings that most concern preservationists lie outside the courthouse overlay zone, and thus beyond the board’s reach.

Most significant is “Morton’s Row” — three structures built in 1826 along South Upper Street and anchored by what is now Joe Rosenberg’s jewelry store and pawn shop. The main building is recognizable by its pediment roof with a half-circle window. It is an early example of the Greek Revival style that became popular in 1830s Lexington.

“Although the interiors have been remodeled, it remains one of the most important early buildings in downtown Lexington, both historically and architecturally,” Langsam wrote in 1979 for the Kentucky Heritage Council survey.

Morton’s Row housed a store and other businesses started by William Morton, an Englishman known as “Lord” Morton because of his aristocratic bearing. He started as a Main Street shopkeeper in 1787 and became one of Lexington’s richest and most colorful characters.

Morton built himself one of Lexington’s finest homes, the 1810 Federal-style mansion on North Limestone that is now the centerpiece of Duncan Park. (After Morton’s death, it became the home of Cassius Clay, the fiery abolitionist and namesake of Muhammad Ali.)

Morton helped start Lexington’s first bank and first Episcopal church. He was among those who gave the land where Christ Church now stands. Upon his death in 1836, he left $10,000 for Lexington’s first public school, which was built in 1849 and named for him. He is best known today as the namesake of Morton Middle School.

Morton’s Row has housed groceries, shops and restaurants through the years. The Rosenberg family bought the main building in 1929 and the rest of Morton’s Row in the early 1950s, according to Langsam’s survey.

On the opposite corner of Vine Street at Limestone is a three-story, neo-classical structure with distinctive oriel windows, built in the late 1880s. Older Lexington residents will remember it as Levas’ restaurant, but it was originally Robinson’s European Hotel Dining Room and Eugene Buchignani’s meat market.

By the turn of the century, the building housed Mooney & Klair’s Saloon, which drew a steady clientele from the nearby railroad depot. It was owned by William F. Klair, a colorful character who rose from General Assembly page boy to state representative, railroad commissioner, businessman and Democratic wheeler-dealer.

When Prohibition shuttered Lexington’s saloons, the building became a grocery until the Levas family opened a restaurant there in the 1920s.

A plain but notable building with little chance for survival is the late 1880s shop of R.H. Gray, an African-American tinsmith and inventor who held several patents. The deep, narrow industrial structure, which faces Vine Street in the middle of the block, later housed saloons, a dance hall and several restaurants.

Preservationists would like to see some of this historic fabric woven into a unique piece of contemporary architecture that would help bring people and activity back to the center of Lexington. They want a development that will blend in with the surrounding historic structures — a place people will want to go because it meets modern needs while reflecting Lexington’s rich cultural heritage.

A century from now, Dudley Webb’s mark on Lexington will be considerable. But think how much greater that mark — and Lexington — would be if Webb also could find a way to acknowledge the likes of “Lord” Morton, Herman Rowe, William Klair — and maybe even R.H. Gray.

Guest post: An Austin perspective on CentrePointe

Here is a guest post from Billy Hylton, a 1998 University of Kentucky graduate who then lived in Austin for six years before moving to Chapel Hill, N.C., where he is a Web designer. He contacted me today after reading my posts from the Commerce Lexington trip to Austin.

* * *

CentrePointe Tower has been ridiculed as bland, uninspired, and elitist. It could be worse. Austin’s glass-skinned Frost Bank Tower was once described as “an enormous set of nose hair trimmers.” Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones even claimed that Frost was built at the direction of the secretive Bohemian Club. Something about it resembling an owl.

What did Austin’s vaunted creative class think? They wanted to keep the city weird and the “world-class tower” was the antithesis of funky, vibrant Austin. Build it in Houston, they said. But an interesting thing happened after the tower pierced the sky in 2003. Frost was voted “Best New Building” by readers of the influential progressive weekly Austin Chronicle for a whopping five years in a row. Huh?

The Frost Tower story offers a lesson for CentrePointe advocates and detractors. From a visual standpoint, Frost is certainly an impressive addition to the skyline. But what earned the building props in the Chron has more to do with what’s happening at the street level. There are no quasi-public plazas or landscape features set back from the road. Similarly, marble-walled fountains are missing too. Frost is pure urbanism, with retail and restaurants pushed right to the sidewalk. Standing in front of the building’s Congress Avenue entrance, you don’t appreciate the massive scale of a 33-story skyscraper looming above. Traditional urban form and shimmering post-modernism make the tower a success with high-minded architectural critics and the folks alike.

What can be learned from the success of this project? Good architectural design and aesthetics are often debatable, but what everyone in Lexington should agree on is that all four sides of the tower engage and energize the city around it. Here’s what that means:

• Entrances to the hotel, restaurants, and retail should be easily accessible on all sides from the sidewalk.
• Restaurants and cafes should be encouraged to include sidewalk tables.
• No poorly conceived garage parking, surface parking, or blank walls.
• No parks or plazas set back twenty feet, even if packaged as “greenspace.”
• Local businesses should be included in retail plans.

These simple considerations will go a long way to ensuring that this project is an asset to downtown Lexington. In fact, if CentrePointe is properly executed, Lexington’s creative citizens and downtown aficionados may recognize that losing the Dame, Mia’s, and other buildings on the block was ultimately worth the trade-off — just as Austinites now love Frost Tower.

Realizing the potential for downtown redevelopment

I first heard people fretting about the future of downtown Lexington when I was a kid and Turfland Mall had just opened.

Now, Turfland Mall is an almost-empty shell surrounded by big-box chain stores and restaurants. The mall’s biggest tenant, Dillard’s nee McAlpin’s, is wrapping up its going-out-of-business sale, fixtures and all.

Downtown Lexington, on the other hand, is on a roll that seems to be just beginning.

Old buildings around the new courthouse plaza that were once in the wrecking ball’s shadow have been reborn with such businesses as Giacamo’s Deli and Molly Brooke’s Irish Bar. Condos are sprouting up all over downtown, both in rehabbed old buildings such as the Kimball House and in new developments such as Main & Rose.

As big events always seem to do, the Alltech FEI 2010 World Equestrian Games has given Lexington a new sense of energy and urgency. It’s like your mother yelling, “Clean up your room — company’s coming!”

For many people, the debate over Dudley Webb’s proposed CentrePointe tower has helped change the tone of the downtown conversation from “any redevelopment will do” to “what’s the best redevelopment we can do?”

The Downtown Development Authority, which the city created six years ago, recognizes the new climate. The authority is now reviewing and updating its mission statement, goals and objectives to reflect it. A revised draft is likely to be discussed at the DDA’s July meeting.

The authority is looking to expand its sights to include a broader downtown footprint, such as the historic neighborhoods north of Fourth Street. It also is looking at broader, thematic issues, such as transportation and zoning and doing more to educate and involve the public in downtown redevelopment.

“I think it’s time to step back and look at the bigger picture,” said David Mohney, the authority’s new chairman and an architecture professor at the University of Kentucky.

Mohney is on the right track. The DDA must be seen as more than an arm of private developers — keeping their secrets and facilitating their individual plans. It must look at the bigger picture, and the broader public interest.

Part of the challenge is helping people in Lexington realize just how much potential is downtown.

Unlike many cities, Lexington a generation ago chose to have the interstate highways go around it rather than through it. That left the city’s historic neighborhoods and original design intact and easier to redevelop. And, because there were no big industrial sites downtown, there’s no post-industrial blight pockmarking the landscape.

With the University of Kentucky on the south side of downtown and Transylvania University to the north side, much more could be done to integrate campus life into the larger community. And those opportunities will increase when Bluegrass Community and Technical College consolidates its campus near downtown, to the Eastern State Hospital site on West Fourth Street.

If our goal is to make downtown Lexington a destination, rather than a place to drive through quickly, we must look for more and better public-transportation options, change some one-way streets back to two-way and make the streetscape more pedestrian-friendly.

And if we can preserve much of our historic architecture — or incorporate elements of it into high-quality contemporary buildings the way other cities have done — it will create an environment that’s uniquely Lexington, and not simply generic modern America.

If we create a downtown where locals want to go, tourists will also want to visit. And, perhaps most important, Lexington will have a better shot at attracting the diverse, intelligent workers of a 21st-century economy and the companies that want to employ them.

“We can create an A-plus downtown that’s equal to our A-plus rural area,” Vice Mayor Jim Gray told the Bluegrass Hospitality Association at a recent meeting. “The downtown is our touchstone … and it’s all about the economy.”

Once that’s done, then perhaps we can turn our attention to Turfland Mall, Lexington Mall and some other once-vibrant parts of Lexington that have fallen out of favor. Like downtown, they also could be better than they are now, if we’re willing to use some imagination.

Oxford American features Lexington landmark

In its latest issue, the Southern literary and culture magazine Oxford American focuses on our homes. It’s not exactly the Southern Living view of things, which makes it all the more interesting. One of the best articles profiles 11 modern masterpiece homes in the South, as chosen by contemporary architects, including the Miller House in Lexington.

French architect José Oubrerie designed the house, completed in 1992, for Bob and Penny Miller. After Bob Miller’s death, the land was sold for development and the empty house was vandalized.

Michael Speaks, the new dean of the University of Kentucky’s College of Design, writes a short, perceptive essay about the boxy, concrete house, which many Lexingtonians have found difficult to appreciate.

“The story of the Miller House is emblematic of the struggle in Kentucky, and indeed throughout the South, between the soul of modernism — note how the Miller House is both a specific place and yet universal — and the rapacious logic of suburbanization, which produces the stamp of the universal on specific places,” he writes.

A few articles from the Oxford American’s special “Home Sweet Home” issue can be read on the magazine’s Web site, although you’ll have to buy the magazine ($4.95) to see the “Beyond Nostalgia” feature that includes the Miller House. It’s worth a look.

New CentrePointe links: More news and opinion

Here are four new articles discussing the proposed CentrePointe project in downtown Lexington:

Joe Rosenberg, a jeweler who owns much of the block and is partnering with developer Dudley Webb on CentrePointe, defends his role as landlord for The Dame music hall in an op-ed piece in Monday’s Herald-Leader.

On the same page, Lexington architect Van Meter Pettit makes the case for a more open process and a public-private oversight board to guide downtown development.

Linsen Li, opinions editor of the Kentucky Kernel, the University of Kentucky’s student newspaper, comments in Monday’s paper on UK President Lee Todd’s endorsement of Webb’s CentrePointe plan the day after it was announced. The Kernel reported Friday that Todd wrote a supportive letter to the developers before controversy began swirling about the CentrePointe plan.

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.

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?