From the Lexington Herald-Leader :bash:
This is a shame!
Posted on Wed, Feb. 16, 2005
Proposed condos cut to 7 floors
Neighbors in historic district praise reduction
By John Stamper
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
A condominium complex proposed for a historic downtown neighborhood got a buzz cut last night, dropping from the 15 floors proposed in September to seven.
Many residents of the Historic South Hill neighborhood praised the height reduction during a meeting of the Urban County Board of Architectural Review, saying they now feel more comfortable with the project proposed by Gameday Centers LLC of Atlanta.
"This is a vast improvement," said Dan Terrel, who is vice president of the Historic South Hill neighborhood association.
The neighborhood group's president, Jack Ballard, is also owner of the proposed development site.
Positioned a bounce pass away from Rupp Arena at the southeast corner of Broadway and High Street, the 119-unit project is expected to provide luxury living space for "those who live for the game."
The 1.3-acre lot is now home to a vacant lot, a historic home and a one-story office building. The historic home at 316 West High Street, built in 1808 and now used as office space, will be preserved as a fitness center and conference facility. The one-story office building will be demolished.
The latest plans for the proposed development call for 8,000 square feet of first-floor retail space, topped by a two-story parking garage and four stories of residential space.
Those plans were unveiled last night after Ballard withdrew a set of drawings that called for an 11-story structure, which the Board of Architectural Review was set to vote on.
All new buildings and modifications to existing buildings within the city's historic districts must receive the five-member Board of Architectural Review's blessing. The board is now expected to vote on the new proposal at its March 15 meeting.
Ballard also asked for a postponement of a separate but related proposal to remove the project site from the South Hill Historic District, an action that would eliminate any limits on the building's height.
As part of the historic district, the new development must be on a similar scale with adjacent neighbors. The city's historic preservation office interprets that requirement to mean that any new building must be similar in size to the two and three-story residences that sit south of the development site.
However, as a property on the historic district's edge, Ballard has argued that high rise buildings along the north side of High Street and the West side of Broadway should be considered when deciding an appropriate height for the condo complex.
Although height had been the development's major stumbling block, some board members still expressed reservations about the latest proposal. Most notably, they questioned why the building was planned to extend all the way to the sidewalk's edge. Most other properties along the south side of High Street are set back about 35 feet from the sidewalk.
"I'm concerned about how the structure relates to the street," said board member Terry Hainley, who suggested he would support raising the building's height by one floor if architects would move the structure away from the street.

Posted on Thu, Feb. 17, 2005
Sisters end fight to keep airport off historic farm
RUNWAY EXPANSION WILL USE 14 ACRES

By Brandon Ortiz
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
Five sisters have given up their longtime fight to keep about 14 acres of historic Stony Point Farm, which Blue Grass Airport will now use for an expansion of the primary runway's safety area.
The final sale price has not been determined, but the farm's owners have agreed to drop their claims that the airport does not have the right to take the land in a condemnation case in Fayette Circuit Court, said Tom Halbleib, an airport attorney. In exchange, the airport will pay about $200,000 to four of the sisters for the land.
Frances Lee McKinney, the only sister who lives on the land, has indicated that she might ask a jury to determine her share, Halbleib said. She owns 6.2 percent of the property. Court-appointed appraisers valued the land at $150,000 last summer.
The agreement means that the airport could own the land by May, airport officials said.
"From a big-picture perspective, this is good for the community," Halbleib said. "It allows this project to proceed."
Attorneys for the McKinney sisters either declined to comment yesterday or did not return phone calls.
The settlement ended 20 years of feuding between the airport and the McKinneys. In 1985, the airport wanted to take much more land for a proposed 6,000-foot parallel runway, a plan that eventually stalled. More controversy erupted in the 1990s over other runway proposals.
The family had vowed to fight expansion into its property from the outset.
"This is devastating for the family," Frances McKinney told the Herald-Leader in 1985. "We'll fight to the end, we'll fight on the beaches with bottles, we'll do whatever we have to do to protect our farm."
As part of the agreement, the airport will build an access road reaching Stony Point Farm. Halbleib said the airport also will work with the family on landscaping to reduce the effect of a 328-foot long retaining wall on the scenic area.
The airport has said it needs the land to expand the runway's safety areas to 600 feet at both ends and to comply with Federal Aviation Administration regulations.
Airport officials said they had to acquire land south of the runway because they are boxed in to the north by Versailles Road and part of Keeneland Race Course, a National Historic Landmark.
The family, which trains thoroughbred horses at the farm, has said in court filings that the $35 million project will build on the only piece of flat land suitable for galloping and exercising horses on the 154-acre property.
The farm, built by Revolutionary War hero Capt. John Parker in 1790, is eligible to be on the National Register of Historic Places.

IT'S THE BIGGEST PARCEL OF PRIVATE LAND EVER GIVEN TO CITY
By Michelle Ku
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
A picturesque piece of land in rural northeast Fayette County with rolling hills, large pastures and several ponds will soon become Lexington's newest community park.
And the city didn't have to pay a cent for the land.
That's because Robert E. Hisle and Anita E. O'Roark Hisle donated their 280-acre farm at 3601 Briar Hill Road to the city. The Hisles deeded the farm to the city in 1989 with the stipulation that they be allowed to live on it until their deaths.
Robert Hisle died in 1996 at age 88.
Anita Hisle died March 1. She was 92.
In honor of the Hisles and to memorialize their gift, the city plans to name the property Hisle Park.
At 280 acres, Hisle Park will be the second largest park in Fayette County. The largest is 660-acre Masterson Station Park.
The Hisles' donation is also the largest private land donation for a park that the city has ever received. The largest parkland donation came from the federal government in 1972, when it deeded Masterson Station Park to Fayette County.
The Hisle farm is valued at $790,000.
Everyone in Fayette County should be grateful to the Hisles, Mayor Teresa Isaac said earlier this month in a tribute to Anita Hisle.
"It is through the gifts of people like the Hisles that Lexington has been able to acquire land we could never afford to buy and to guarantee green space for generations of citizens to come," Isaac said.
The farm the Hisles donated had been in the family for several generations. It was a working farm where hay and tobacco were grown. It also had an apple orchard.
Robert Hisle, a native of Fayette County, was born on the farm. Robert Hisle married Anita O'Roark in 1936.
Anita O'Roark Hisle was born in Rutherford, N.J. She grew up in New Jersey, but her family had roots in Kentucky and West Virginia. Her father was a graduate student at the University of Kentucky.
Robert Hisle was a combat engineer in the U.S. Army who fought to recapture the Philippines from the Japanese in World War II. He retired from the Army as a lieutenant colonel in 1966 and the couple returned to the farm.
"He was a rugged gentleman of the South, and he was very loyal to Kentucky and particularly Fayette County," said Del O'Roark, Anita Hisle's nephew.
Robert Hisle loved Fayette County so much that in 1987, he decided to donate his family land to the city. The Hisles didn't have any living children. Their only son, Larry, was killed in a car wreck in 1980.
The decision to donate the land was consistent with his loyalty and love of the Bluegrass, O'Roark said. "His son was gone. He felt the Hisle Farm should be dedicated to the citizens of Lexington."
When the Hisles donated the land, no one knew that residential development in Lexington eventually would move toward the northeast part of the county.
The Hisle farm is located in a part of the city that is now experiencing tremendous growth, said Chuck Ellis, director of the city's Division of Parks and Recreation. "It's really a godsend. It will definitely give us some options of how to go forward."
The size and location of the property presents the city with plenty of options for using the park.
The city hasn't yet decided what it will do with the park, but ideas range from construction of walking trails and ball fields to equine facilities and picnic tables. Another idea is to stock the ponds with fish to provide a community fishing spot.
"It's a beautiful piece of land," said Kathy DeBoer, the city's general services commissioner. "It's what all of us who live in Central Kentucky love about Central Kentucky."
The city's 1996 parks master plan recommends the Briar Hill property be developed with a mixture of active and passive park facilities to eliminate overcrowding and overuse at Kenawood, Dixie, Mary Todd and Coolivan, nearby neighborhood parks.
The parks department wants to involve the neighborhood, community members and the Hisle heirs in deciding what to do with the land. At this point, no process or deadline has been set. For now, the city is renting out the land as horse pasture.
O'Roark said the family hopes the city will honor the Hisles with a plaque at the park's entrance.
It would also be nice if the city named the park something along the lines of the Robert E. and Anita E. Hisle Memorial Park, he said. "The family would appreciate they get the appropriate recognition for the gift," he said.
But in terms of soccer fields, equine facilities or playground, the family does not have a specific vision for how the park is used, he said.
"We hope that the land will be used in a way that will give the greatest number of citizens in the community access to it," O'Roark said. "We trust the city to honor the intention of the gift, and I have no doubt that they would do it."

Urban Housing

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Posted on Tue, Mar. 08, 2005
Lexington Herald-Leader
Program to help urban housing
$4.1 MILLION IN LOANS AVAILABLE TO DEVELOPERS
By Beverly Fortune
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
A $4.1 million loan program to spur residential growth in downtown Lexington will be available to developers later this month.
At a news conference yesterday, downtown supporters said they hope the economic impact of the Lexington Downtown Housing Fund can be leveraged into $40 million worth of new housing. Developers can begin applying for loans within 10 days.
The fund is a public-private for-profit partnership between the city of Lexington, nine local banks and the Kentucky League of Cities.
With 200 downtown residential units completed and 678 more in the works, there is growing interest in downtown living, said Harold Tate, president and executive director of the Downtown Development Authority, which will administer the money.
"But many developers have had trouble getting financing. This is to educate bankers about the demand for downtown living," he said.
Tate called the program "gap funding," where a developer who gets an 80 percent loan from a bank can apply to the Housing Fund for another 10 percent. Developers can receive a maximum 10 percent loan, repayable over 10 years. Competitive interest rates will vary.
"On a $5 million project, we would put in $500,000, the developer would put in $500,000 and the banks would put in $4 million," said Steve Grossman, chairman of the Development Authority.
The League of Cities contributed $2 million that will be disbursed by the city to the fund. The banks matched that with $2.1 million.
Participating banks are BB&T, Bank of the Bluegrass & Trust, Bank One, Central Bank, Community Trust Bank, Fifth Third Bank, National City Bank, Republic Bank and-USBank.
Grossman said that if the fund proves popular, banks have indicated their willingness to increase the loan pool to $5 million.
"I suspect we've got $40 million in projects ready to submit right now," he added. As the borrowed money is repaid, "We can loan it out again and again."
Tate said banks have not done a lot of urban projects, "so hopefully this will make them feel a little bit more at ease about downtown housing." By pooling their money, "It's not as big a risk for each one."
The authority and bank presidents have worked six months to set up the housing fund. "A lot of banks have contacted their banks in other cities and found out what's going on in Cleveland, Chicago, Columbus, Nashville," Tate said. "They are beginning to realize this is not just a movement occurring here in Lexington, but is happening everywhere."
A similar loan pool of money was set up in Louisville three years ago, said Garry Throckmorton, senior vice president at Republic Bank & Trust Co. in Louisville. It has sparked more than 2,500 urban housing units.
In Lexington, Robert Tru-jillo, developer of City Court with 54 units under construction on Martin Luther King Boulevard, said the housing fund "will be a tremendous help."
"What it means is we have to come up with less money, and that's always helpful," he said

Posted on Thu, Mar. 24, 2005
Leestown Road bridge to close for replacement
By Brandon Ortiz
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
The Leestown Road bridge is showing its age.
Concrete has been chipping off the pillars of the Depression-era bridge, exposing the steel beneath. Rust covers the steel arch of the bridge, which 16,000 vehicles travel daily.
The steel truss bridge built in the 1930s is nearing the end of its life, state engineers say. On April 4, contractors will begin to put it to rest.
The bridge will be closed for up to 99 days so crews can demolish and rebuild it. The project will not significantly improve traffic flow, but during the $9.4 million project thousands of motorists will have to find other ways to get downtown. The project will mean a new turning lane just beyond the bridge, and wider shoulders, but no additional travel lanes.
State highway officials say they have no choice.
"It is deteriorating bad," said Randy Turner, project manager for Highway Department District 7, which covers Central Kentucky. "If you look at it, 'Is it going to fall down?' It's not that kind of deal," but it still must be replaced.
State highway officials say they've done everything possible to alleviate inconveniences to nearby residents and businesses. They met with neighborhood groups, talked to businesses and even set up a Web site, us421.ky.gov, said David Thacker, District 7 spokes-man.
The project was timed to avoid conflicts with University of Kentucky basketball and the high school Sweet Sixteen, which generate traffic on U.S. 421 to downtown and Rupp Arena.
The state went to the unusual length of requiring the contractor, Faulkner Construction, to pay $25,000 in "damages" for each day it goes past its mid-July deadline, Thacker said. When examining bids, state officials also considered how quickly contractors said they could finish the project.
"We're doing everything we can to get this project over as soon as possible," Thacker said. "You are talking about a major arterial into Lexington, and there will be some inconvenience."
A center turning lane will be added north of the bridge to the Forbes Road intersection. Officials say that's the only addition that will improve traffic capacity.
Crews also will expand the bridge's negligible shoulders to 6 feet.
The wider shoulders will eliminate a blind turn off Price Road south of the bridge, Turner said. A concrete wall currently impedes motorists' line of sight.
"You have to get your nose out in oncoming traffic just to see the cars," Turner said.
'A lot of accidents'
News of the intersection's improvements drew sighs of relief from employees at Palumbo Lumber and Manufacturing Co., adjacent to the intersection.
"We have seen a lot of accidents, more than should be allowed really," said Jack Tucker, who calls himself semi-retired as general manager. He worked there 45 years.
Employees recalled one fatal wreck about a decade ago when a driver, blinded by the sun, could not see over the bridge's incline and ran into a tractor-trailer turning onto the road.
In 1996, a police patrol car crashed into the Palumbo office after smashing into a car making the turn. A hydraulic rescue tool was used to free the officer, who survived.
The turn is so dangerous that Palumbo's truck drivers are asked not to turn left onto the bridge, Tucker said. He conceded that some do anyway.
Tall enough for trains underneath
Tucker's biggest complaint is the bridge's incline, which makes it difficult to see cars on the other side of the bridge.
Highway officials say they can't flatten the bridge, because it must be tall enough for trains on the Norfolk-Southern rail line below. The line will close for part of a day when crews dismantle the truss, the steel arch structure that props up the bridge.
Improvements aside, some neighbors said they are irked at dealing with three months of construction noise and hassles for a project that doesn't alleviate traffic problems.
"They could at least widen it or something," said Tamra Perry, who lives on Clyde Street. "If they are going to put that much work into it, they might as well do something useful while they are at it."
Historic cemeteries that line both sides of West Main Street limit what highway officials can do, Thacker said. Federal highway regulations make it extremely difficult for states to disturb historic properties, he said.
And buying right-of-way access would have been prohibitively expensive, he added. State engineers have worked on the project since 1995.
Transportation officials said that without room to widen U.S. 421 south of the bridge, they will have to rely on alternate routes to get residents of Masterson Station and other subdivisions off Leestown Road to downtown.
There are new subdivisions going up off Leestown but traffic along the stretch of road is not projected to grow dramatically, despite the planned residential growth north of New Circle Road, according to the Lexington Area Metropolitan Planning Organization.
The vehicle count on U.S. 421 just before New Circle, for example, is expected to grow from 21,800 in 2003 to 25,000 in 2020.
Metropolitan Planning Organization director Max Conyers said the planned extension of Citation Boulevard to Leestown Road will funnel more traffic onto Georgetown Road. That construction is scheduled to begin in 2007.
"It will help that traffic distribute more evenly," Conyers said

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v511/krosejr/Lexington%202/Billboard_MainRose.jpg

Downtown Lexington's Newest and Best Mixed Use Community

Quality of life has come to downtown Lexington!

Imagine living in a downtown Lexington community where you can walk downstairs one level to work out, walk down another level to eat, grab a cup of coffee and do your grocery shopping, and then take the elevator back up to your residential loft condo.

The Lofts at Main and Rose will range in size from 600 - 3000 square feet, and sales prices will start in the $140's.

Among the features and amenities included at Main & Rose:
- 150 loft condos
- 2 story fitness center
- Swimming pool, basketball court, locker rooms, etc, etc
- Downtown urban grocery
- First floor retail
- Restaurants with open air seating
- 500 space parking garage with reserved spaces for condo owners
- Valet parking
Expected completion date: 2007

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Dramatic 17 foot ceilings. Large, expansive balconies. Open floorplans. Exposed brick. Secure, covered parking.
These are just a few of the features and amenities awaiting owners of the Nunn Building Lofts.
Unit sizes range from 1600-2400 square feet, and prices range from the $250's to the low $500's.
Construction will begin in May 2005, and will be completed in May 2006.
To learn more about purchaseing a unit in Lexington's premier downtown loft condo development, please contact us via e-mail, or call Phil Holoubek at 859.225.3476.
We'll be happy to send you an information packet, and answer any questions you may have.
We're taking reservations now!

Visit the website for pics and info:
www.newtownextension.com

Editorial
By Ed Holmes And Stephen D. Austin
LEXINGTON, KY -- Lexington is on the verge of beginning one of the largest urban development projects in its history.
The Newtown Pike project, which will create a connector from West Main Street to South Broadway near the University of Kentucky will open up dozens of acres on the southwest side of downtown Lexington for rehabilitation and redevelopment.
Most significant, the project will usher in a plan for the complete transformation of one of the city's poorest, most needy areas: Southend Park.
Unlike failed urban projects of the past, this transformation will not come about at the expense of residents in this area.
The plan for the extended Newtown Pike, which will affect this neighborhood, includes a unique component: a concern for social justice.
Without this part of the plan, there would be no funds to build the new road. This relationship between road building and civic responsibility is unique in Lexington's history, if not Kentucky's.
Our team, which also includes Sherman Carter Barnhart Architects, was chosen to develop the plan that would accommodate the road, protect existing residents and prepare for new development.
To set a defining goal for the project, the team met extensively with local residents, developers and city officials.
The resulting goal was for this development to become a diversified, vibrant and vital community, where people of all races and social strata could live together.
To achieve this goal, the design team set about creating plans for an urban village. Successful urban villages, new and old, are based on timeless principles such as human scale, handsome architecture, interconnected streets and lively pedestrian activity. Parks, squares and public buildings are used to link a development's various elements into a cohesive whole.
The designers of the Southend Park plan have laid the foundations for a great urban village, one that will be a model not only for Lexington, but also for the rest of the state.
In the plan for Southend Park, buildings are close to the street, wide sidewalks line the street grid and there are many mixed uses, such as offices, small shops and restaurants.
A central plaza will serve as the community gathering space. Prominent public buildings will give the neighborhood a strong character. Buildings will screen parking lots. The existing ballfields will be incorporated into the plan along with new community vegetable gardens.
To ensure that the area does not become gentrified at the expense of existing residents and that it does not remain disadvantaged, the project designers have created a delicate balance of residential uses.
Housing units here will be the most varied in the city. Not only will the existing residents be accommodated in new units at or near the same housing costs they are paying now, but also they will have an opportunity to buy new single-family homes if they desire.
Other types of units -- such as apartments, loft condominiums and townhouses -- will be reserved at affordable market rates. This mix will create a diverse yet stable neighborhood.
The success of the Southend Park plan bodes well for the future of Lexington and the Bluegrass region. Downtown developers will strive to match this plan's socially fair and physically beautiful principles.
The University of Kentucky will have a new front door worthy of a world-class institution.
Preservation advocates will gain new confidence that the tide of development is truly turning inward, away from the region's greenfields.
The city will gain not only vital new tax resources but also a model of sustainable economic development.
This is an exciting time for Lexington. We are overcoming our late-20th-century lethargy. The plan for Southend Park proves that concern for people, fairness, and beauty are great principles on which to move a city forward.

All of this stuff looks so awesome and somewhat cosmopolitan for a city of Lexington's size. I love that you take the time to post all of this, good reading.

^^^Thanks! I enjoy doing it. There's a lot going on here...:)

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http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v511/krosejr/Lexington%202/img_downtown02.jpg

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Scheduled for completion in September 2006, this will be the first major, mixed-use development in downtown Lexington in over 100 years.
The 500's on Main will be a complete and vibrant community where people will live work and play. Situated on two acres of downtown Lexington's most desirable real estate, the community will feature soaring residential lofts, contemporary workspaces, and Lexington's finest retail. This development will be located on almost two acres of land on the 500 block of West Main Street across from the newly completed Civic Center. The development will consist of 8 new buildings and 1 renovated building.
Planned for the residential space are 64 loft condominiums. Each loft will contain a versatile and open living space with highest quality interior finishes. This includes hardwood flooring, interior brick, and European kitchens. All residential spaces will have balconies that overlook Main St. or the 10,000 sq. ft. courtyard located in the center of the community.
The most prominent building in the devel-opment will be the seven story residential tower. Each floor will be an extraordinary individual living unit with private elevator access opening directly into the unit.
The 500's on Main will also contain over 30,000 sq. ft. of retail space. Most of this space will be located on Main St. level. The List of possible venders include restaurants, clothiers, and urban cafes/grocers.
Parking for The 500s will be in a garage beneath the courtyard and restricted to loft residents. However, there will be street parking all around the community, several Historic Architecture and Preservation, says about The 500s: "This is a perfect block."
The 500s on Main is being developed by Robin, Butch, and Kerry Schneider of Schneider Designs.

Schneider Designs, Inc.
Building tomorrow — today
351 Beaumont Center Circle
Suite 300
Lexington, Kentucky 40513
Tel 859.224.9700
Fax 859.224.9722

The development in Lex you are posting about is pretty impressive. Whats really impressive is that this stuff is designed to more or less fit-in with the city, which is key as Lex has such a great old cityscape.

By Jim Jordan
HERALD-LEADER BUSINESS WRITER
A Fortune 500 company with operations in eight Kentucky cities won preliminary approval yesterday for up to $5 million in state tax incentives if it opens regional headquarters in Lexington.
Dallas-based Affiliated Computer Services, or ACS, said unidentified sites in Lexington, Oregon and Utah were being considered for the center, which would have 128,000 square feet and 409 employees.
Wages would range from $10.30 to $43.27 an hour, plus benefits, if the center is located in Lexington, the company told the Kentucky Economic Development Financial Authority.
The authority's board approved the ACS application yesterday for benefits under the Kentucky Jobs Development Act.
No other details about the Lexington project were available from the company yesterday.
In February, ACS, which provides corporate outsourcing and information technology services, announced plans to open a 43,000-square-foot call center in Pikeville.
At that time, ACS had 10 other Kentucky locations, including four in Lexington and one each in Beattyville, Liberty, London, Louisville, Monticello and Richmond.
In March, the company bought the human resources consulting business of Pittsburgh-based Mellon Financial Corp. for $445 million.
ACS was ranked 445th on the Fortune 500 list of America's largest companies in 2004. In the fiscal year ended June 30, the company had sales of $4.1 billion and profits of $529.8 million.
The company's stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol ACS. Shares closed yesterday at $53.24, up 27 cents.

AN EXTENDED VIRGINIA OFFERED AS ALTERNATIVE
By Brandon Ortiz
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
On any given weekday, students outpace the slowly moving cars on Rose Street, the south Lexington artery that runs through the heart of the University of Kentucky campus.
For more than 20 years, the university has floated ideas of closing the congested two-lane road to protect students who must dart across it. None have ever gained much traction with neighbors, elected officials or city traffic planners who say Rose is a crucial connection from downtown to South Limestone Avenue, or U.S. 27.
Taking a new approach, UK is making its most serious and concentrated push at permanently changing Rose Street.
This time, improving medical facilities -- rather than pedestrian safety -- is the driving force, officials say. A plan to close Rose from Limestone to Huguelet Drive is linked with a $375 million inpatient care building that officials say will boost the local economy.
And the university has offered to give commuters an alternate route to downtown by extending and widening Virginia Avenue from Limestone to Rose.
Officials will present their plans to the Urban County Council "within the next several weeks," said Bob Wiseman, UK vice president of facilities management. The council would have to approve any changes.
With the council's approval, that part of Rose would close in late summer of 2006. The Virginia Avenue extension could be finished about the same time.

No options, officials say
Regional traffic planners appear poised to sign off on the plan, but it could prove controversial among neighborhood groups who fought previous proposals.
"UK is trying to totally block us out of that area," said Lisa Johnson, a self-described community activist who lives on Transylvania Park. "There is a lot of people against closing Rose."
The medical center has no other options, officials say. A planned 1,000-space parking garage and horseshoe driveway to the hospital's entrance make closing part of Rose Street necessary to avoid congestion, according to a traffic study by Wilbur Smith Associates, an engineering firm hired by UK.
The hospital plans to tear down its current 680-space garage, which is about 15 years old, and build the new patient care facility there.
Murray B. Clark Jr., associate vice president for medical center operations, said UK has nowhere else to put the complex. The bed tower must be near surgery suites so patients can be wheeled easily to their room, he said.
"I've got to create for the hospital and the consumer the most efficient care delivery system possible," Clark said. "And that is what this is set up to do."
That will require building a new garage. Officials plan to place it on the west side of Limestone between Conn Terrace and Transcript Avenue, where a shopping center and apartments now rest.
If Rose stays open, then there would be three stoplights between Conn and Rose, clogging Limestone traffic, according to the traffic study.
That still means that several residents and small businesses will have to move. Wiseman said the university is negotiating with 11 property owners. If negotiations falter, the university has the authority to condemn the land, he said.
P.J. McDonald, who owns P.J.'s Barber Shop, is not pleased about having to move after being located across the street from the medical center for 13 years. The proximity of the hospital and university gave her a steady customer base.
"It took a long time to build a business," McDonald said. "I'm going to have to start all over."

Rerouting traffic
Officials have shied away from saying they want to "close" part of Rose Street. Instead, they have referred to it as a realignment.
The university proposes extending and widening Virginia Avenue to three lanes -- one of which is a center turning lane -- with additional right turning lanes as an alternate route, said John Carr of Wilbur Smith Associates.
A greenhouse on campus will be torn down so Virginia will connect from Limestone to Rose.
"You're really not closing Rose Street ... and letting traffic disperse across throughout the network," said Carr, a former Kentucky Transportation Cabinet engineer. "We're closing the Rose Street intersection and giving them a realignment to use."
That realignment might be enough to get the Lexington Area Metropolitan Planning Organization's blessing. Director Max Conyers thinks the extension will adequately reroute traffic.
"Every concern we have raised they have taken care of in their proposal," Conyers said. "We won't go (to the council) and say, 'Hey, we're scared about this and they're not doing anything about it.'"
The study found that about 60 percent of Rose's southbound traffic in the morning and evening goes to the medical center. Only about 26 percent of northbound traffic was headed downtown.
Past traffic counts have shown that between 11,000 and 20,000 cars a day travel on Rose, said Rob Hammons, a city senior transportation planner.

Residents concerned
Some neighbors fear drivers wouldn't use the new route.
Jim Dickinson, an attorney who lives on Transylvania Park, thinks commuters will opt to take Woodland Avenue, wrap around the university library to University Drive and then take Cooper Drive to get to South Limestone.
But it's doubtful motorists will choose to make so many left and right turns and deal with student traffic from dormitories and the library, Carr said.
Lea Terry, president of the Elizabeth Street Neighborhood Association, says she's leaning against the proposal but is still undecided. She's waiting to see the plans before making up her mind.
"I can tell you my knee jerk reaction is going to be a negative one," she said." ... I think it boils down to traffic and exactly what impact that is going to have on streets and homes, quality of life, quality of sleep (and) quality of pedestrian safety. I want to see what they are going to pitch."

The development in Lex you are posting about is pretty impressive. Whats really impressive is that this stuff is designed to more or less fit-in with the city, which is key as Lex has such a great old cityscape.

I agree Jeff, they are trying very hard to keep the new developement to certain standards so it doesn't take away from the "old charm" of D-town Lex.

Frankfort, Ky. - Governor Ernie Fletcher and Economic Development Cabinet Secretary Gene Strong, along with officials from the University of Kentucky and the City of Lexington are pleased to announce that Belcan Engineering Group has been selected to open a new Engineering Design Center for Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation. Belcan expects to open the new Center in Lexington in early January 2005, with up to 40 Belcan employees and could grow the operation to over 300 engineers by year's end if Sikorsky is successful in winning future U.S. government and international contracts.
"It is an honor to welcome such a highly respected partnership between Belcan and Sikorsky to the Commonwealth of Kentucky," stated Governor Fletcher. "This announcement sends a strong message to the global business community that Kentucky has proven we can compete and succeed as we pursue higher quality employment opportunities for the citizens of Kentucky. We look forward to building upon the relationship we have created with Belcan and Sikorsky to help make this endeavor a successful one for all parties involved including the City of Lexington and the University of Kentucky."
Belcan has been providing engineering services to Sikorsky Aircraft for more than 3 years with an offsite Engineering and Technology Development Center since achieving UTC "Preferred" Supplier Status for Engineering services. Belcan will perform targeted engineering detailed design activities in support of projected growth in Sikorsky's domestic and international development program requirements. Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, based in Stratford, Connecticut, is a world leader in the design, manufacture and service of advanced helicopters for commercial, industrial and military uses.
"This is a great opportunity to continue developing our relationship with Belcan Engineering Group. Belcan's expansion into Lexington, Kentucky is fully aligned with our strategy of utilizing domestic Engineering Design Centers for targeted airframe and subsystem detail design activities. The work performed at the Lexington Design Center will be complementary to the system integration, vehicle definition and dynamic systems design activities ongoing at our home office in Connecticut, and will be a key element in meeting anticipated growth in engineering requirements," said Mark F. Miller, Sikorsky's Vice President of Research and Engineering.
Belcan plans on working closely with the University of Kentucky's College of Engineering to cultivate opportunities for graduates. The College of Engineering has earned a place among the nation's best and strives to attract and retain exceptional students wishing to remain in Kentucky and prepare them to become future leaders and entrepreneurs within the Commonwealth.
"Building partnerships like this is exactly how we all move forward," said University of Kentucky President Lee Todd. "Belcan, the university and the state all benefit from this type of cooperation. It creates opportunities for our students and faculty, Belcan capitalizes on UK's talents and resources and the state's economy grows from the addition of significant jobs."
"We are very excited for Central Kentucky to have been selected for this project," said Robert L. Quick, President and CEO of Commerce Lexington, Inc. "It takes a strong sales team to land any economic development project, but one of this magnitude requires an even stronger one. We believe the collaborative efforts of the Cabinet for Economic Development, the University of Kentucky, Commerce Lexington, Inc. and the city were instrumental in this location decision."
"An internationally recognized company like Belcan Engineering Group is the kind of high tech company our city and the Commonwealth have worked extremely hard to attract," added Lexington Mayor, Teresa Isaac. "Our selection tells the nation and the world that we can meet the needs of high tech industries now and in the future. I am very excited for our city and the state of Kentucky."
Belcan, an ISO 9001 registered company founded in 1958 and headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, offers full service engineering, product design, information technology, specialty equipment engineering, temporary staffing and multimedia services internationally from its 36 offices with over 3,000 employees throughout the world.
Sikorsky helicopters are flown by all five branches of the United States' armed forces, along with military services and commercial operators in more than 40 nations. Sikorsky is a subsidiary of United Technologies Corp. (NYSE:UTX), of Hartford, Conn., which provides a broad range of high-technology products and support services to the aerospace and building systems industries.
The Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority (KEDFA) Board preliminarily approved Belcan for tax benefits under the Kentucky Jobs Development Act (KJDA), an incentive program aimed at increasing the number of service- and technology-related jobs in the state. A community profile for Fayette County may be found at the following link: http://www.thinkkentucky.com/edis/cmnty/cw053/Location.htm.

March 16, 2005, Page D6, Lexington Herald-Leader (KY)
It's worth taking note of recent news reports that are encouraging about downtown revitalization.Belcan, an engineering design firm, announced last month that it will move into two floors of the World Trade Center Tower, instead of in a suburban office park.The design center will initially employ 40 workers who will design Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. helicopters. The company expects the staff to grow to more than 300-500 by year's end.

Areas off interstates 'struggling'

By Roger Alford
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Suburban counties in Kentucky continued to grow rapidly over the past four years, while rural counties in Eastern and Western Kentucky faltered, according to population estimates released yesterday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

"The trends are continuing," said Ron Crouch, head of the Kentucky State Data Center at the University of Louisville. "We're becoming a more urbanized society, and areas along interstates are the ones that are benefiting. Areas off the interstates are the ones that are struggling."

Overall, Kentucky's population grew by 2.4 percent between 2000 and 2004 to 4,145,922, an increase of 96,929.

The largest percentage increases were in counties within commuting distance of Louisville, Lexington and Cincinnati.

Boone County added the most people -- 14,346 -- pushing its population to 101,354, and becoming the fourth Kentucky County past 100,000.

"What's happening in Boone County is amazing, because this is not just population growth," Boone County Judge-Executive Gary Moore said. "What's happening here is the creation of quality, high-paying jobs, and the people who are moving in here are coming to take those jobs."

Moore attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday for the North American headquarters of Ticona, which is moving from New Jersey to Boone County and bringing 150 jobs.

Because of the rapid growth, Moore said, new housing developments are sprouting up almost daily as state highways become more congested and schools deal with overcrowding.

Crouch said the growth in Northern Kentucky is the result of an economy that is growing jobs in the area.

He said population declines in rural counties also are largely the result of economic factors, especially in the heavily agricultural sections of Western Kentucky, where Fulton (4.5 percent) and Crittenden (4.3 percent) suffered the biggest losses.

Among agricultural counties, Christian County had the largest numerical loss, 1,625 people.

"As farms get bigger and get more automated, you need fewer people to work on the farms," Crouch said. "That's resulted in people moving to more suburban counties."

Eastern Kentucky counties losing the largest percentage of population over the four-year period include Harlan, 3.3 percent; Leslie, 2.8; Carter, Letcher and Lewis, 2.2 percent; and Pike, 2.1.

Numerically, Pike County had the largest population loss in the eastern coal fields over the period with a decline of 1,459.

By Art Jester
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
If Lexington is going to protect its green space from urban sprawl, the solution may lie in a new trend that uses an old concept.
One of the biggest influences on city and residential planning today is New Urbanism, as more than 200 people with a stake in the home-building industry were told yesterday in a seminar at Fasig-Tipton Co., 2400 Newtown Pike.
New Urbanism is a return to old-style neighborhoods, with houses of different yet compatible styles sitting side-by-side; narrow streets to slow traffic; lots of public spaces; and stores, restaurants, cafes, churches, offices and many other necessities at a neighborhood center within a five-minute walk from one's front door.
Surveys show that more and more Americans want to get away from subdivision sprawl and return to old-timey neighborhoods that are finding new life in New Urbanism.
Bluegrass Tomorrow, a regional planning group, and the Homebuilders Association of Lexington co-sponsored yesterday's event to help the area's home-building industry learn about New Urbanism's goals and methods.
Steve Austin, president and CEO of Bluegrass Tomorrow, said that when buying houses today, "Americans prefer to live in walkable communities."
In an interview, Austin said the best example of New Urbanism in Lexington is an older neighborhood -- the row of stores, restaurants and other businesses along Romany Road in Chevy Chase.
But ground has been broken on another example of New Urbanism. Patchen Wilkes, on Winchester Road between New Circle Road and Interstate 75, is owned by Warren Rosenthal and is being developed by Jimmy Nash.
Lexington City Planner Chris King said yet another example can be found in the Dominion Homes development at Tates Creek Road and Man o' War Boulevard.
Tim Busse, an architect for Whittaker Homes in St. Louis, gave a presentation on his company's New Town at St. Charles, the largest development in the St. Louis area's history. He said 400 houses were sold in the first four months after plans for New Town at St. Charles were announced, but nothing had been built.
"You're not building houses, you're building a place, a community," Busse said. "People are thirsting for this kind of civic life."
But some city planners, such as Ann Hammond of Nashville, pointed out that zoning and building codes and regulations are geared toward suburban sprawl.
They said flexibility in codes and regulations is essential for New Urbanism to take hold and flourish.

I really like what Lexington has going on.. Many of the same things that are going on around me in Downtown Louisville..

More information about the Downtown Development Plan go to:
http://www.lexingtondda.com/


Posted on Tue, May. 03, 2005
Lexington Herald-Leader

How many times have you sat at a traffic light and wondered how in the world an ugly building, a vacant lot, a maze of one-way streets or some other wildly unattractive and inconvenient thing became part of our urban landscape?

If the answer is greater than zero, you have a chance to help change the landscape, or at least answer your own questions. You can attend one of the remaining meetings to discuss a new master plan for downtown Lexington.

The city is developing its first Downtown Master Plan in almost 40 years. Under the guidance of the Lexington Downtown Development Authority, planners are studying our city's core -- the buildings, the traffic patterns, the uses and the possible uses -- to help guide us to a more vital, lived-in, desirable and cohesive downtown.

The plan in process has been presented in a series of meetings last year and this.

There will be two more meetings for public comment before the plan goes on to the Planning Commission and, ultimately, the Urban County Council.

The next is 6 p.m. May 25 in the third-floor Community Room of the Phoenix Building, 101 East Vine.

Part of the process is to listen to the questions and points raised by citizens at these meetings and incorporate them into the evolving plan.

We understand that words like, "plan," "report" and "process" strike fear in the hearts of most people. Try to put that aside and go. The meetings have been interesting and efficient, the discussion controlled and informative.

And this plan matters. This is our downtown, our chance to play a small part in making a better place to work, live, eat and play -- for ourselves and generations to come.

By Jennifer Hewlett
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
The synergy of science and clinical care, the creation of 1,300 permanent jobs and closing off a "little section of Rose Street" were all part of a presentation yesterday at an Urban County Council work session.

When the presentation by University of Kentucky officials was over, council members voted to put the issue of closing off Rose Street from Huguelet Drive to South Limestone Street on Thursday night's council agenda.

Permanently changing Rose Street is a necessary part of a UK Medical Center $375 million expansion, according to the UK officials.

Council member at-large Dr. David Stevens and District 1 council member George Brown abstained from voting because they have ties to UK. Bill Cegelka, who represents District 7, was absent. The remainder of the council members voted in favor of putting the item on the docket.

Final approval could come May 19.

Meanwhile, UK officials will meet with neighbors who could be affected by the changes to the campus at 7:30 tonight in Room 127, or the Commons Room, of the Charles T. Wethington Jr. Building at UK.

"We felt very committed that we wanted to stay right on campus," UK executive vice president for health affairs Michael Karpf said of the project, which includes a "bed tower" and new 1,000-space parking garage and is the university's biggest construction project ever.

John Carr, vice president of Wilbur Smith Associates, a national engineering firm hired to work on traffic plans necessitated by the changes, said project planners didn't want to worsen traffic on Limestone; wanted to simplify the path to the medical facilities; and placed a high priority on pedestrian movement in the area in coming up with the plan for the section of Rose Street.

UK vice president of facilities management Bob Wiseman said the "little section" of Rose Street wouldn't need to be closed until early Sept. 2006.

Fifth District council member Bill Farmer Jr. said that many people would not consider that "little section" of Rose Street a little thing.

"For many people it's a life-changing thing," he said.

Luther Deaton, representing Commerce Lexington, expressed his support for the project.

"Not only does it make health care much better here ... it creates about 1,300 jobs," he said

I really like what Lexington has going on.. Many of the same things that are going on around me in Downtown Louisville..

Yeah I agree with ya!! A lot is going on in KY's largest cities...it is great!.

By Jennifer Hewlett
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
University of Kentucky officials want to deal with traffic issues surrounding a planned $375 million medical center expansion as quickly as possible, Dr. Michael Karpf told about 10 UK neighbors last night.

The UK executive vice president for health affairs said that if the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council approves on May 19 a UK request to close off a portion of Rose Street as part of the expansion project, work on changes to Virginia Avenue will begin the next day.

The university wants to close Rose Street from Limestone to Huguelet Drive, and to offer drivers an alternate route to downtown by extending and widening Virginia Avenue from Limestone to Rose. UK officials have said the former won't happen until the latter does.

Karpf told the neighbors that $1.6 million would be add-ed to the cost of the expansion project for every month of delay.

UK officials invited the neighbors to last night's meeting, the second of its kind, in part because of concerns that neighbors weren't being consulted about the proposed changes to the campus.

Some neighbors, saying they had already been told by UK officials and at least three city council members that the plan was a "done deal," did not bother to attend the meeting, thinking it would do no good.

"We're tired," said community activist Lisa Johnson of Transylvania Park.

She said that when she went to the first meeting, she hadn't decided whether to be for or against the Rose Street change.

"I went with an open mind that we were going to have adult conversations about this," she said. "When he (Karpf) told us it was a closed deal, that took the wind out of all of us."

She said neighborhoods around UK have become fragile over the years because of the growth of the university. She said UK needs some of its power taken away.

"I feel like Fay Wray with King Kong."

Johnson said that if the section of Rose is closed, traffic will double in her neighborhood.

Todd Hastings, president of the Transylvania Park Neighborhood Association, said the previous meeting left neighbors frustrated.

"It was presented to us that this was 'a done deal and we're moving ahead with it full force and sorry we didn't talk to you three months ago, four months ago and six months ago, when this was all in the planning stages,'" said Hastings.

At last night's meeting, Karpf said the university would keep its neighbors better informed in the future about the expansion, the largest in UK's history, by sending out regular newsletters and holding more meetings.

He told his audience that to have the very best in health care required the very best of facilities.

The only alternative location for the expansion is Coldstream Farm, at Newtown Pike and Interstate 75, but he said that would have "huge cost issues and intellectual issues associated with it."

Neighbors who attended last night's meeting said they were concerned about traffic spilling over into their neighborhoods and about parking problems that might come with the expansion. But Karpf said several parking garages would be built.

And Tim Sorenson, senior project manager for Wilbur Smith Associates, an engineering firm hired by UK to work on plans for street changes necessitated by the expansion, said that if Rose Street were kept open after the expansion, traffic in the area would become even more gridlocked.

http://www.hamburgpark.com/

Welcome to Hamburg Park Townhomes of Lexington, Kentucky. Currently under development, this professionally designed townhome community will consist of 104 units encompassing 10 acres of a park-like setting with lush landscape design and unique architectural finishes. Each townhome will be wired for the work-live-play intelligent homeowner. Situated within the Hamburg master-planned community, Hamburg Park will deliver a quality of life and an unprecedented convenience to shopping, entertainment, restaurants, and every conceivable amenity.

http://www.southhillproperties.com/

South Hill Crossing is one of Lexington's most exciting new downtown developments. Located in Lexington's first historic neighborhood, South Hill, the elegant, gated townhome community is adjacent to the Univeristy of Kentucky and downtown.

The first phase, which is nearing completion, includes 19 townhomes priced from $256,000 to $645,500. Floor plans range in size from 1200 to 3500 sq ft.

Built by Padgett Construction, the homes use architectural details and buidling materials (including brick exteriors) keeping with the style of homes in the historic neighborhood.

The interiors feature 10-foot ceilings, mostly hardwood and tile flooring, custom cabinetry and custom interior trim and finishes.

The development will have gaslight-type streetlights, underground utilites, private courtyards, card-controlled access gates and street oriented porches and balconies.

South Hill Crossing is unfolding as Lexington’s most inviting and exciting new urban residential neighborhood.
Walk through historic South Hill to Lexington’s business and banking center, stroll to the neighboring
University of Kentucky campus, amble downtown for the arts, theatre, movies, and excitement at Rupp Arena,
or just cruise the popular dining establishments and city nightspots.

South Hill Crossing provides the finest living experience to those who choose a South Hill address.

Located in the historic South Hill district of downtown Lexington, Kentucky,
South Hill Crossing sits in the heart of one of the most elegant cities in the region.
Surrounded by some of the finest thoroughbred horse farms in the world, Lexington
offers a city filled with visual splendor, excellent seasonal weather, and top-notch
educational, healthcare and entertainment facilities. Downtown Lexington features a
vibrant array of shopping and nightlife options within minutes from South Hill Crossing.

“Central Kentucky is home to so many wonderful and unique attractions
and downtown Lexington serves as a keystone for the Bluegrass.
South Hill Crossing is a shining example of the exciting and creative
things that are developing as we continue to revitalize the heart of our city.”

- Former Lexington Mayor Pam Miller

“South Hill Crossing is the first mixed-use development to occur in the
downtown area and will provide the energy to enhance downtown and the
University of Kentucky area into a more exciting place to live, work and play.”

- Harold Tate, President/Executive Director, Lexington Downtown Development Authority

“The future of Lexington’s college town corridor will be largely shaped by
third party development. As much as the city and the University of Kentucky
believe in the College Town plan, we need good neighbors to bring the concept
to life. Projects like South Hill are exactly what Lexington needs.”

- University of Kentucky President Lee T. Todd, Jr.

http://www.cool-spaces.com/university_lofts/

Unit Sizes: From 530 To 1258 Square Feet. Available For Rent In Fall 2004.
Price Range: Prices Available Soon*

*(Monthly rent includes all utilities and a T-1 Internet Connection with two email addresses.

University Lofts is a collection of 87 Loft style apartments, which are being created in the former Leggitt & Meyers tobacco-processing plant located at 236 Bolivar Street in Lexington, KY. This facility, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was built in 1899.

Located next to the University of Kentucky, University Lofts offer a location that is second to none whether you are working or attending the University, working downtown or just looking for the most unique apartment in Lexington. University Lofts has it all.

Units will range in size from 530 - 1,258 square feet and have 10-17' ceilings. Each unit will have a full bath and well-appointed kitchen. The lack of interior walls will let the residents use their imagination in creating the spaces they want. There will be two on-site laundries, vending area and a recreation room.

Completion is expected by summer 2004 and rental rates will be posted in early spring. The rent will include monthly water and electric.

http://www.cool-spaces.com/south_hill_station_lofts/

Unit Sizes: 525 To 1708 Square Feet
Price Range: $100,000 To $298,900


The South Hill Station Lofts are a collection of 59 Lofts style condominiums units, which is located in the popular South Hill Station entertainment complex at 222 Bolivar Street in Lexington, KY, right next door to the University of Kentucky. The building has a rich history having been associated with the once thriving burley tobacco industry. The building still bears remnants of that association with the famous "Bull Durham" brand faintly visible on its exterior walls. Each unit is has a range of unique features from exposed brick walls to wood floors. Most units have exterior windows and some have skylights. The tall ceilings add additional ambiance to the spaces and the lack of interior partitions lets each owner create the spaces they want.

Each unit will have a complete kitchen-featuring top of the line appliances including washer/dryer hook-ups. Secured access will be by card key and the building will be monitored 24 hours a day. An on-site parking space will also be included.

Date of completion: Phase III Completion Fall 2005. Contact The McGoodwin Company to reserve you unit today!

http://www.cool-spaces.com/lorillard_lofts/

Unit Sizes: From 638 To 2496 Square Feet
Price Range: $76,560 To $249,600

The Lorillard Lofts project is an ambitious redevelopment of a 216,000 sq. ft. former tobacco processing plant that sits on 10 acres near downtown Lexington, Kentucky at 201 Price Road. The processing plant, which dates to the 1940's, processed millions of pounds of locally grown burley tobacco and had an around the clock workforce of over 250 people at the height of production. With the consolidation of tobacco processing into regional not local plants, this facility was decommissioned in 2001.

The McGoodwin Company has laid out 43-loft style condominium units in the first phase of development. These units will range in size from 638 - 2496 square feet. Units on the first floor will have 15.5-foot high ceilings while the second floor ceilings are 17.5 feet tall. A specially designed drywall partition separates each unit to reduce sound transmission. Each will have a lofted living/sleeping area, 1.5 - 2 full ceramic tile baths, a galley kitchen with industrial style appliances, corian countertops and a large island prep area. Large, over-sized thermal pained windows abound. And don't forget about the most beautiful maple hardwood floors you have ever seen!

A 1,050 foot long and 22' wide interior corridor called "Main Street" will run the length of the building allowing owners interior access to all amenities without going outside. We anticipate expanding our on-site amenities to include a dry cleaning drop off station, bar/deli. To learn more about the coolest place in town to live contact us very soon, they're going fast. By the way, we've arranged for a train to come by several times a day - at no additional charge. Available for occupancy, Fall/Winter 2005.

4 MEMBERS OBJECT TO BONDING OF $27.5 MILLION BUILDING
By Linda B. Blackford
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
The University of Kentucky Board of Trustees approved a $27.5 million basketball practice facility yesterday, but not without some last-minute opposition from several trustees who questioned its funding.

The crux of their opposition was a last-minute addition to the state budget of $7 million in bonds for the project after private lobbying by another UK trustee, even though the facility was not on a list of UK building priorities before the General Assembly.

Four members voted against the measure, which would provide 101,000 square feet of courts, locker rooms and offices for basketball players, coaches and top administrators tacked onto the back of Memorial Coliseum. The bonds will have to be paid back by athletics, but they add to the state's overall debt load.

Faculty trustees Michael Kennedy and Roy Moore had warned other trustees they would oppose the measure on the request of the University Senate Council. The council, a 10-member committee of the University Senate, said agency bonds should have been spent on academic buildings instead.

Staff trustee Russ Williams and trustee Phillip Patton, a Glasgow judge, also said they were concerned the project was not going to be paid for entirely with private donations, as originally presented last year by athletics officials.

The funding plan presented yesterday "was not the funding formula we saw when it was brought to us the first time," Williams said. "I have a problem with $7 million in agency bonds, because I think it could be better used somewhere else on campus."

Patton said he voted for the measure when it was first introduced, but "my opposition is simply to the use of bonds," as opposed to private fund-raising only.

In fact, $15 million in bonds for the facility showed up in the state Senate version of the budget after another trustee, long-time UK sports booster Stephen Branscum, lobbied Gov. Ernie Fletcher. Instead, the budget cut bonds for a new student health facility at UK.

Branscum, a Russell Springs contractor and GOP donor, was appointed to a six-year term on the board by Fletcher last year. He and UK basketball coach Tubby Smith also are involved in a Florida real estate deal with Fletcher. He voted for the facility but did not comment.

After public criticism and lobbying by UK officials, the amount for the practice facility was reduced to $7 million, and bonds were restored for the student health facility, which trustees also approved yesterday without dissent.

Kennedy said he voted no because the athletics department had not considered a suggestion that athletics donors be asked to give to academics as well.

None of the opposing trustees would discuss Branscum's role in the matter.

Associate Athletics Director Rob Mullens said the suggestion was already under way, considering that athletics will give $1 million to academics annually for the next 10 years. A new broadcasting agreement also will send about $1.36 million for Singletary scholarships.

"We are self-sustaining, and we spend 25 percent of our budget back on campus," Mullens said.

Roughly $15 million in private money has already been committed to the basketball facility, but UK is still waiting for a large donation that would include naming rights.

Athletics officials have said the facility is necessary to keep UK as the preeminent basketball program in the country. Construction will begin this summer and is expected to be finished by October 2006.

It will provide separate courts for men's and women's basketball teams, freeing up the current space in Memorial Coliseum for gymnastics and volleyball teams, which share the space. The new facility also will house all administrative offices, including ticketing and fund-raising.

Student health facility: Also approved yesterday with much less discussion was the new student health facility, which appeared, disappeared then reappeared in the state budget to the tune of $24 million in bonds.

Student health director Greg Moore said the current 14,000-square-foot facility housed in the Kentucky Clinic was greatly overcrowded and didn't provide enough accessibility for the handicapped. Right now, student health serves about 70 percent students and 30 percent UK employees. Last year, it received about 53,000 student visits for services ranging from primary care to prevention.

The health fee for all UK students will jump from $98 per semester to $130 next fall and $160 the year after that to pay the debt service on the bonds.

The new facility -- about 62,000 square feet -- would be built as an extension to the Kentucky Clinic.

The board also approved an expansion to UK's emergency room space, which will allow for separate emergency services for children and adults.
UK basketball practice facility

UK's practice facility will contain courts for the men's and women's teams and administrative offices for the athletics department at the rear of Memorial Coliseum.

ONE LIKENS FLOWERS TO 'MAKEUP ON A CORPSE'
By Andy Mead
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER

Hamburg Place, a development once recognized as Kentucky's worst example of urban sprawl, received an award yesterday from Lexington's Environmental Commission, prompt-ing four commission members to resign in protest.

The award -- for "improvements in landscaping design" -- honored the placement of trees, bushes and faux rock fences that usually are seen through a windshield while driving from one store to another.

Oscar Geralds, a Lexington lawyer who had been on the commission for about 15 years, was the first to say the stretch of car-centric stores and restaurants in east Lexington didn't deserve the award. Three others joined him, and a fifth member said she was considering quitting.

"In my opinion, they are one of the worst environmental offenders, the ultimate urban sprawl," Geralds said. "Putting flowers on that is like putting makeup on a corpse."

But Jim Rebmann, a city environmental planner who nominated Hamburg, said the developer spent $3.5 million putting in landscaping, and $100,000 a year maintaining it.

"It's for the landscaping, not for the development, not for the layout," Rebmann said.

And Patrick Madden, who represents his family in developing parts of what was once a 1,900-acre horse farm, said Hamburg was planned in close coordination with city officials.

"If you don't think things should be developed, I under-stand that," he said. "But to say this is not a well-planned development isn't right."

Hamburg is wildly popular with shoppers who fill its parking lots and internal streets to spend money in an increasing number of widely spaced stores.

However, its planning -- and layout -- have frequently attracted controversy.

Five years ago, the national Sierra Club singled it out for a dishonorable mention in sprawl. It was targeted because of its huge parking lots and anti-pedestrian feel, the club said.

Geralds is a longtime member of the Cumberland chapter of the Sierra Club.

He didn't attend yesterday's awards luncheon, where a representative of Mayor Teresa Isaac presented plaques to Hamburg and four other winners.

Commission members Amy Sohner, Angela Dossett and Brenda Franey either came by after the luncheon to resign or sent word to the commission that they were resigning.

"I don't view myself as anti-development at all, but I don't think that particular project is something we would want to see emulated," Franey said later.

The commission has 20-odd members in all, chairman Marty Marchaterre said. Members are appointed by the mayor and approved by the Urban County Council.

The awards were the result of unanimous votes by a six-person subcommittee.

HERALD-LEADER STAFF REPORT

University of Kentucky officials have selected the architectural and engineering firms that will design a patient care facility at the UK Medical Center.

Ellerbe Becket, a Minnesota-based architectural firm, will have primary responsibility to design the facility, which will serve more than 25,000 patients a year.

Two Cincinnati firms, GBBN Architects Inc. and A.M. Kinney Inc., were also selected and will partner with Ellerbe Becket and the engineering firms of Affiliated Engineers Inc. and Staggs and Fischer in completing the largest construction project in UK's history. GBBN also has offices in Lexington.

Together these firms have constructed major medical buildings for health care institutions including Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, Northwestern Hospital in Chicago, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, The National Institutes of Health Clinical Research Center in Maryland and Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York.

The cost of the patient care facility will be funded through existing hospital revenues and a $250 million bond issue financed by UK HealthCare. Gov. Ernie Fletcher and the General Assembly approved the first phase of the bond issue -- $100 million -- in March.

The patient care facility is scheduled for completion in late 2009. It will sit on the site of the current hospital parking garage on South Limestone Street. A new parking garage, which hospital officials hope to begin this fall, is targeted for completion in 2006.

Those who lost pushing for referendum
By Andy Mead
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER

Thirty minutes was scheduled for the meeting, but it took only 10 yesterday for the Urban County Council to drive the final stake into the city's condemnation lawsuit against Kentucky American Water.

In a 9-6 vote, the council overrode a veto by Mayor Teresa Isaac of a council resolution that ended condemnation. The council also approved a settlement of the eminent domain suit filed in July 2003.

In return for dropping the suit, the water company will give the city the deed to Jacobson Park and Lake-side Golf Course in 2011, agree to spend $100,000 on other incentives, and drop two countersuits against the city.

None of that means, however, that the issue of who ultimately will own the local water system is likely to go away.

Mayor Teresa Isaac and other condemnation supporters expressed confidence that it will resurface on the November ballot and that voters will say they want the city to own the utility.

Vice Mayor Mike Scanlon and other condemnation opponents said a referendum, even if it's held in the face of certain legal challenges, is doomed to fail.

The focus of the ownership debate that has gripped the city for three years now turns to questions about the referendum.

• Will Let Us Vote Lexington, a citizens group that is circulating petitions, gather the 18,315 signatures of Lexington voters needed to put the issue on the ballot?

• If it does, are such referendums still legal in Kentucky, since the state legislature repealed the law allowing them?

• If a public vote is held, will it be in November, when it will be the only issue on the ballot, or in November 2006, on the same day that Lexington voters choose a new mayor?

The answers to those questions vary by 180 degrees depending on which side of the condemnation issue one is on.

Although the condemnation suit and countersuits were settled yesterday, these spinoff issues are likely to generate legal actions of their own this summer or fall.

Scanlon confirmed after yesterday's meeting that he had signed a petition calling for a referendum, but said he doesn't think he will be pulling any levers.

"I really don't think it will make it to the ballot," Scanlon said. "But if it does, I think it will be clear the people don't want this."

Isaac said she was "fairly confident" that the issue will be on the ballot, and that it will pass. Petition backers told the council last week that they were nearing the 18,300-signature mark. "I feel the majority want local ownership," she said.

(Isaac also said she was considering vetoing the three council resolutions that codify the settlement, although that veto would almost certainly be overridden.)

Warren Rogers, president of an anti-condemnation group called Coalition Against a Government Takeover, saidyesterday was a good day because "our three-year struggle against condemnation is over." The city started talking about acquiring Kentucky American in 2002, after the utility's parent company was bought by German utility conglomerate RWE.

Kentucky American President Nick Rowe, who was attending a business meeting in Philadelphia, said yesterday was "a good day for our employees, for our customers and for the community."

Rowe said he couldn't speculate on a possible referendum: "I just know this community has said over and over that they want this to end."

But Foster Ockerman Jr., an attorney for the pro-condemnation Bluegrass FLOW (For Local Ownership of Water), said the quest for a municipal water system will continue.

"This phase is over; the next phase is in good shape," he said.

Condemnation has taken countless hours of the council's time, but efforts by pro-condemnation council members to extend the discussion yesterday were short-circuited by Scanlon, who called for a successful vote to end the debate.

Councilman Richard Moloney, who favors condemnation, managed to get in a few questions.

He wanted to know how much of the more than $1.1 million the city has spent on condemnation would be lost if the city dropped the suit and it was later restarted.

Former city law commissioner Mary Ann Delaney, who still represents Lexington on the condemnation case, said a new court case would have to be refiled, but "much of the research wouldn't have to be duplicated."

Moloney also asked whether letters from Kentucky American officials spelling out parts of the settlement were legally binding.

Councilman Bill Cegelka, who opposes condemnation and headed the committee that oversaw drafting of the settlement documents, produced a "certificate of authentication" from Kentucky American's board of directors. The board met Monday.

The council also received letters -- but didn't discuss them during its brief meeting -- that dealt with whether the settlement would make a future condemnation effort more expensive.

The city leases Jacobson Park and Lakeside Golf Course from the water company under a lease that expires in 2018. In the settlement, the city gets the deed to the park in six years, but would have to pay "fair market value" for it if the city condemns the company.

Sheryl Snyder, a Louisville lawyer who represented the city in the case, said the shortened lease would make the property worth more if the city condemned the company.

But Guy Hughes and Kermin Fleming, Lexington lawyers who represented the settlement committee, said they saw "no substantive difference in valuation."

A motion to override Mayor Teresa Isaac's Jan. 27 veto of a resolution ending the condemnation court case against Kentucky American Water.

Yes: George Brown, Bill Cegelka, Bill Farmer Jr., Ed Lane, Jay-McChord, George Myers, Mike Scanlon, Kevin Stinnett and Jacques Wigginton.

No: Dick DeCamp, Chuck Ellinger II, Linda Gorton, Sandy Shafer, Richard Moloney and David Stevens.

Motion passes, 9-6.

Wow, I am surprised to see a Lexington development area, that is pretty cool. I just moved here not too long ago, but I have been interested in Lexington for quite a while, I used to go to this site Lexington Skyscrapers or something, but it isnt up anymore. Doesn anyone from Lexington know of a good picture site or development site. It would be great to see renderings and a culmination of all the projects, it seems to be growing like a weed here.

About Hamburg place, I really dont think that it is that serious. Yeah its sprawl, but at least it is MODERATELY contained, it doesnt bother me, it is nice to have different options on where to shop, in this day and age I could imagine how it could have been worse. Hopefully someday they will make use of the huge swaths of parking and build a little more pedestrian friendly.

Wow, I am surprised to see a Lexington development area, that is pretty cool. I just moved here not too long ago, but I have been interested in Lexington for quite a while, I used to go to this site Lexington Skyscrapers or something, but it isnt up anymore. Doesn anyone from Lexington know of a good picture site or development site. It would be great to see renderings and a culmination of all the projects, it seems to be growing like a weed here.

Welcome to the forum!! :)
here is a thread on Lexington:

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=194661

There is a lot going on in Lexington!

About Hamburg place, I really dont think that it is that serious. Yeah its sprawl, but at least it is MODERATELY contained, it doesnt bother me, it is nice to have different options on where to shop, in this day and age I could imagine how it could have been worse. Hopefully someday they will make use of the huge swaths of parking and build a little more pedestrian friendly.

I agree with you....and if you think about it, there are some places in Hamburg that you can just park and walk.

Comprehensive change
By Graham Pohl
CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST
As Lexington begins reassessing the Comprehensive Plan, we should first count our blessings. The city's moderate climate, divine landscape, central location and viable urban core have tremendous potential as the foundations for a great urban center.

However, if Lexington keeps growing as it has, we will become indistinguishable from every other sub-mediocre, overblown cowtown in the nation. But if we do it right, Lexington could become one of the nation's most desirable places to live.

The culprits in our juggernaut of destructive development are:

• An outdated zoning ordinance founded on anti-urban ideas about land use, parking, street widths and traffic patterns.

• A building-control bureaucracy that is overloaded, underfunded and, by necessity, centered on enforcement rather than stewardship.

• Developers who come to their professions without an understanding of (and sometimes without a care for) how their work can benefit their community, even as it benefits their wallets.

We Lexingtonians have failed to insist on development patterns that promote strong communities. We are building housing, not communities, and the repercussions will be immeasurably destructive: inefficient, expensive infrastructure; traffic gridlock; demise of agricultural economy; and cultural atrophy.

If you want to see the way we're headed, drive down any of our major arterial roads. All of them are sullied by hideously inconsistent auto-centric development, ugly from one end to the other and virtually impassable on foot or by bicycle.

You can also see the way we're headed by visiting almost any housing tract being built here. Row upon row of insipid boxes are sprouting from soils made barren by greed. When cost per square foot takes precedence over any consideration of lifestyle or sustainability, we are given streets and houses with mind-numbing anonymity.

These developments stretch our community's infrastructure to an unnecessary extreme, segregate us economically and, because of the lifestyles they necessitate, foster a "me first" attitude that borders on nihilism.

Some developers argue that they're only providing what the market demands, but this is like saying schoolchildren should be served deep-fried foods because that is what they want for lunch. Ignorance of potential alternatives doesn't mean that buyers prefer the products most easily shoved down their throats.

Other developers are trying hard to build real communities rather than deadening suburban ghettos. But they are stymied by an antiquated and regressive zoning ordinance, a planning bureaucracy unable to pursue a vision of healthy development and entrenched enforcement officials who will resist innovation to the death.

Developers also are hamstrung by their unwillingness to admit that they need to be regulated. Their experiences with regulating authorities have been so burdensome and unproductive that they have every reason to be skeptical.

But if we fail to recognize the opportunities offered by reconstructing our planning and zoning apparatus, and if we act strictly as obstacles to the process, we will condemn our city to eternal mediocrity and miss the chance to make Lexington a national success story.

That success story would be comprised of memorable places where people enjoy walking throughout their neighborhoods, where commercial nodes are within walking distance for many and where there is a mixture of housing types, with rental units in the same neighborhoods as high-end single family homes.

The streets would be designed for walking, not just driving, and the car would be a convenience, not the center of design decisions. These would be places where we could live, work and play -- from cradle to grave.

Whether you call this vision of development smart growth, neo-traditional town planning or new urbanism, its common thread is the encouragement of patterns of development founded on respect for urban living and expanding on lessons learned from outstanding early 20th-century developments.

Lexington has planners, administrators and developers who want to see the principles of new urbanism incorporated into new projects, but they are frustrated by the status quo.

Here's an ideal path for Lexington:

• Properly fund the planning authority and make it semiautonomous to insulate it from the whims of politicians, bureaucrats and special interests.

• Simplify the plan review process so that there is a clear sequence of events with a time line; provide a developers' advocate within the bureaucracy.

• Require reviewing agencies to adopt attitudes of stewardship rather than enforcement; make it impossible for any one agency to throw a wrench into the works in the middle of a major investment.

• Adopt the principles of new urbanism and revise our zoning ordinance to encourage fine urban space, to provide form-based design guidelines and to serve the pedestrian before the automobile.

• Put flexibility in design, planning and zoning guidelines so that parts of a developer's project can vary from the stated ideal.

• Require discussions with affected neighborhoods before zone change requests.

• Ensure that community planning takes precedence over traffic planning.

• Allow for variances from parking requirements and allow inclusion of on-street parking to meet requirements.

• Identify urban nodes to be developed as new town centers within the urban services area and then zone accordingly.

• Plan and execute a serious comprehensive trail system.

And, while I'm dreaming, let's dig up Vine Street and reap the spiritual, aesthetic, and financial rewards of rejuvenating Town Branch Creek. Then ditch the one-way streets and watch commerce bloom like dogwoods in spring.

CBL & Associates Properties has started a 140,000-square-foot expansion to the 1.1 million-square-foot Fayette Mall in Lexington, Ky. The expansion will include an 80,000-square-foot Dick's Sporting Goods and seven new stores. Dick's is scheduled to open by October 2005. CBL & Associates is also remodeling the existing center.

Hey thats awesome, I wish they would do soemthing about that Sears, you know the way you have to go through it to get to the rest of the center. Anwyays when this is done it'll be pretty snazzy.

CITY'S $20 MILLION REQUEST DENIED ON TECHNICALITY
By Sarah Vos
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
For the third time, the Lexington Housing Authority has failed to get a $20 million federal grant to redevelop Bluegrass-Aspendale, a public housing project northeast of downtown.
Lexington's application was denied because it didn't meet requirements set by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.
"This is a heartbreaker for us," said Austin Simms, director of Lexington's Housing Authority.
Earlier this week, HUD announced that seven communities had won $127 million in Hope VI grants. They were Allentown, Pa.; El Paso, Texas; Green-ville, S.C.; Philadelphia; Springfield, Ohio; Tucson, Ariz.; and Tuscaloosa, Ala.
The grants, which are dedicated to improving the nation's public housing, are competitive. Each application is scored according to standards set by the federal agency.
However, Lexington's application wasn't even scored. HUD officials weren't satisfied with how an outside consulting group assessed the project's estimated costs.
According to Simms, the same certification had been submitted on two previous applications and had not raised concerns.
For help in writing the application, the Housing Authority had paid $100,000 to the Schiff Group, a consulting firm in the Washington, D.C., area. Joe Schiff, the group's president, said that this year HUD was stricter about interpreting its requirements.
According to Donna White, a HUD spokeswoman, 18 of the 33 applications for Hope VI grants were denied on technicalities.
In 2001, Lexington's application made it to the scoring process, but it didn't score high enough for a grant. That time, Lexington paid agency Quadel Consulting Corp., another Washington-based firm, $237,000 to prepare the application.
This week's rejection doesn't mean the authority has given up on razing the 389 apartments left in Bluegrass-Aspendale, the state's oldest public-housing project, and replacing them with single-family homes, townhouses and duplexes.
Another round of Hope VI grants is due at the end of June, and Lexington will reapply, Simms said. He did not know whether the authority would need additional help from consultants. He said the project will proceed even without a grant, just more slowly.

FIELD WILL BE 'GATEWAY' CLEARED FOR FLIGHTS TO REAGAN NATIONAL
By Jennifer Hewlett
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
After being closed to general aviation flights because of concerns about terrorism, Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., is opening to flights from a select group of airports, including Lexington's.
Blue Grass Airport is one of 12 "gateway airports" nationwide that will be security hubs for general aviation aircraft seeking to fly into Reagan National. The announcement came yesterday from the office of U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., who is chairman of the House of Representatives' Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee.
General aviation aircraft -- business jets, charter aircraft and small private planes -- have not been allowed to fly into the Washington airport since 9/11 because of concern that those flights pose a greater security risk than scheduled commercial service.
"This is a ringing endorsement for Lexington Blue Grass Airport," Rogers said in a news release. "The Department of Homeland Security clearly believes Blue Grass Airport has the right people and resources in place to provide this unique, but critical security service."
It will take about three months for the security hub system to be up and running, said airport spokesman Tom Tyra.
The Transportation Security Administration will be allowing up to 48 general aviation flights a day into the Washington airport. There are many requirements that must be met, including: advance registration and qualification of operators and crews; submission of passenger and crew manifests 24 hours in advance of flights; enhanced background checks for all passengers and fingerprint-based criminal history records checks for flight crews; and a law enforcement officer who is authorized to use force on board each flight.
"You're not typically going to be going in with your four-seat plane and flying in for the weekend," Tyra said.
"Initially you're looking at probably a couple of flights a day at each of the airports," he added.
Tyra said Blue Grass Airport's security hub status will mean "an extra task for the airport to perform," but will be a "real plus for our efforts to become a leader in aviation security in the country."
He said airport officials have done a number of security-related things on the national level that might have helped lead to the airport's selection as a security hub.
For example, he said, in 2002, Blue Grass Airport was one of five airports and the smallest airport in the country to install an in-line baggage screening system, in which baggage is screened out of passengers' sight and not in a terminal lobby.
Tyra said Mike Gobb, executive director of Blue Grass Airport, has served on a number of commissions and boards concerning aviation security.
Blue Grass Airport's security hub designation could be an enticement for businesses to locate in this area because their personnel could fly non-stop from Lexington to Reagan National in the companies' own aircraft, Tyra said.
It "really places Central Kentucky, Southern Kentucky and Eastern Kentucky at an advantage," he said.

By Steve Ivey
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
Fans of Papa John's in Lexington will pay a little less for delivered pizza than their counterparts across the nation.
The pizza chain, based in Louisville, announced that its corporate-owned stores would impose a $1 delivery fee.
But several Lexington store managers weren't pleased with the decision, said Robert Reeves, general manager of the Papa John's at 265 Euclid Avenue.
"I'm sure there were several managers across the country who weren't very happy either," Reeves said. "But in Lexington we're often on the front end of a lot of market tests, so they decided to let us go ahead without the delivery charge."
Papa John's operates seven stores in Lexington.
Chris Sternberg, a Papa John's spokesman, said 440 corporate-owned stores nationwide began charging the fee Monday. About 60 percent of franchised Papa John's stores -- about 1,200 of 2,000 nationwide -- charge for delivery, he said.
The delivery fee helps cover higher costs for gasoline and labor, Sternberg said.
A few other stores nationwide did not impose the delivery charge, he said. "They elected not to put the fee in place for competitive reasons."
In Lexington, Pizza Hut charges $1 for delivery, and Donato's charges $1.50. Domino's does not charge for delivery in Lexington but does in other areas, including Louisville.
Johnny Hunt, manager of the Papa John's at 4250 Saron Drive, said he found most customers already expected to pay a fee for delivery.
"It's a matter of others doing it," he said. "Once the others started it, people got used to it."
Reeves said he thinks continuing free delivery will help Papa John's business in Lexington.
"It's my personal belief that anyone operating in the home meal industry that charges a delivery fee is at a disadvantage," he said.

South Lexington landmark sold to family partnership
By Jim Jordan
HERALD-LEADER BUSINESS WRITER
As a teenager growing up on Lowry Lane, Ron Turner used to sneak into the Lansdowne Club to swim with friends who were members.
Now the Lexington businessman can walk through the front door like he owns the place -- because he does.
Turner, a real estate developer and founder of Amteck of Kentucky, bought the south Lexington landmark Wednesday in partnership with his son, Troy, the owner of Commonwealth Copy Products.
The new owners plan to spend "several million dollars" in "an extreme makeover" of the nearly half-century-old facility at 3200 Lansdowne Drive, Ron Turner said.
"It will be a 100 percent makeover like on TV" that will expand the present facility so it can comfortably accommodate 750 to 1,000 members, he said. The current membership is about 300.
Membership fees -- now $750 a year for a family -- will be raised, but the amount of the increase hasn't been determined.
Another change will be the name of the club. It will be called The Signature Club, after the Signature Beach condominiums Ron Turner is developing in Destin, Fla. He has similar condo projects in Pensacola and Panama City, Fla., and Biloxi, Miss.
But Turner might be best known locally as the owner of the house at 1008 Chinoe Road that is decorated high and low for the Christmas season with thousands of bright lights that often cause motorists to stop and stare.
The Lansdowne Club, built in 1958 by Lansdowne subdivision developers J.W. Davis Jr. and C.B. McEachin, has been used by the swim teams of various Lexington schools and was the original home of The Bash, a charity fund-raiser that attracted local officials and celebrities.
The Turners said they want to continue those types of community events at the new facility, which will have space that can be rented by non-members for receptions and other celebrations.
The clubhouse will be expanded by 3,000 square feet at the sides and back of the present two-story building to give it about 9,500 square feet.
There will be a canopy for motorists to stop under for valet parking and inside, a 20-foot-tall entrance hall. The floors will be covered in granite and custom carpet, with new restrooms throughout the building.
The first floor could have a public restaurant, as it did in the past, but that has not been determined, Ron Turner said.
The Turners said other changes will include:
• Refurbishing the swimming pool and adding such amenities as a "zero depth" entrance, water slides and sprink-lers.
• Expanding the bathhouse to include a fitness center and a spa pool.
• Adding a netted golf driv-ing range, batting cages, a walking path and picnic areas.
• Adding lighting and resurfacing tennis, basketball and volleyball courts.
• Building a second parking lot off Lansdowne Drive.
"Troy and I are going to visit some clubs over the next 30 days to get ideas so we can have one of the nicest clubs in Lexington," Ron Turner said.
The Turners bought the Lansdowne Club and its 8.8 acres primarily from Bill and Linda Varney, who led a drive in 1999 to buy the property so the club -- plagued by declining membership and aging facilities -- wouldn't be closed.
The Linda K. Varney Living Trust contributed $1,150,000 and 350 charter members of the club contributed $1,000 each to raise the $1.5 million sale price.
The Turners declined to disclose the latest sale price, and the deed was not filed yesterday with the Fayette County Clerk.
"We are absolutely thrilled that Ron Turner has bought it. That means it will stay a club," said Barbara Johnson, who has been with Davis and McEach-in's Lansdowne Co. for 38 years.
Davis and McEachin began developing Lansdowne in 1954, shortly after the two World War II veterans met at a Jaycees meeting and decided to build houses to meet the post-war demand.
The pair would develop some of Lexington's first modern subdivisions on what was largely farm land: Lansdowne, Merrick Place, Shadeland East, Park Place and Hunting Hills.
They also built the Lansdowne Shopping Center on Tates Creek Road, Bell Place in Nicholasville, Thistleton Subdivision in Frankfort and River Hills Subdivision in Chattanooga, Tenn., plus Holiday Inns in Kentucky, Indiana and Florida.
Lansdowne was the first subdivision in Lexington to have its own swim club, Johnson said. "I guess the '60s would have been its heyday,"
Big bands, led by the likes of Woody Herman, played there, and the children of member families made the club their summer home, she said.
A fire seriously damaged the clubhouse about 1979, but the pool opened every year about Memorial Day weekend and generally closed after Labor Day.
Kids from families like Ron Turner's that didn't have a membership were a constant concern.
"It was a standing thing -- how do you keep the kids from sneaking in?" Johnson said. "The biggest thing was swimming at night. They would sneak in after the pool closed and swim."
Neighbors would hear the kids' late-night parties and call the club the next day, she said.
Nevertheless, "the club's contribution to the life of Lansdowne has been incredible," Johnson added. "We are absolutely thrilled that it's going to continue."

***I will take some pics this weekend of this landmark...and post so check back. :)


Approve funds and get on with saving old theater
The Lyric Theatre, once a vital part of Lexington's African-American community, has been in limbo for more than 40 years -- the last eight while city government has fought in court to take control of the property.
The Urban County Council must act now to end the uncertainty and restore life to the historic corner of East Third Street and Elm Tree Lane where the Lyric sits.
Since the court battle began, a revival has been under way in the surrounding neighborhood. A combination of public and private investment has added housing, a health clinic and businesses and upgraded streets and sidewalks along what is now called the Third Street Corridor. Sayre School has invested $20 million in its campus, and the Living Arts and Sciences Center has developed its facility.
The Downtown Development Corp. is close to finishing work on an exciting plan for redeveloping downtown, including the neighborhood around the Lyric.
But the former theater sits idle. The city has been waging a legal battle since 1997 to buy the building, winning decisions in Fayette Circuit Court and the state Court of Appeals.
To obtain the site, or at least move the legal process forward, the city must show it has the $125,080 experts have told the court the property is worth.
Mayor Teresa Isaac earmarked $250,000 to move ahead with buying the Lyric and planning for its renovation in her budget for the coming fiscal year, now under consideration by the council. The council will have many hard decisions to make as it considers Isaac's budget proposal, but this one should be easy.
The Lyric, and its neighborhood, have waited long enough.

Engineering firm to get $500,000 state grant
By John Stamper
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
State officials approved spending $500,000 yesterday to sweeten a multimillion-dollar deal with Belcan Engineering that promises to bring at least 250 new jobs to downtown Lexington.
The engineering firm opened a design center in February with about 30 employees and said it has plans to hire 324 workers and invest $13.9 million in coming years. In exchange, the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development previously offered the company a $6.96 million credit against the future state income taxes of the business and its employees and $500,000 in cash to train its new workers.
Yesterday, the state added another $500,000 grant, which will be used to help pay for Belcan's $2.9 million investment in 45,000 square feet of office space in downtown Lexington's World Trade Center.
The company was offered the grant at the same time it was offered the previously announced tax credit and job-training money, but the application and negotiation process for the grant took longer to complete, said Mandy Lambert, spokeswoman for the Cabinet for Economic Development.
This time, Belcan promised to hire 250 full-time employees within two years and maintain that number of jobs for at least three additional years. Each employee will be paid a minimum hourly wage of $24.85. The jobs promised yesterday by Belcan are the same jobs promised for the previous incentives.
If the company fails to create or maintain the jobs, the state has the option of requiring the company to repay up to $2,000 for each job not created.
Belcan, based in Cincinnati, is owned by University of Kentucky graduate Ralph Anderson. The firm has 26 offices with more than 3,000 employees worldwide. The company's Lexington office does engineering design work for Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. and is actively seeking additional clients.
Other economic development incentives approved yesterday by the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority include:
• Ceradyne Inc. was granted preliminary approval for a $1.28 million tax credit if the company goes through with plans to hire 128 additional employees and invest $11.8 million in its Lexington facility, where 118 employees manufacture lightweight ceramic armor for the military. The new employees would be paid an average hourly wage of $12.88, plus benefits.
• UGN Inc. was granted preliminary approval for a $5.6 million tax credit if the company goes through with plans to hire 159 employees and invest $16 million in Somerset. The company plans to buy an existing 314,000-square-foot building on 20 acres in Somerset to manufacture acoustical and insulation products. Employees would be paid an average hourly wage of $12.19 plus benefits.

Downtown Lexington Corp. makes fun its business
By Dariush Shafa
HERAlD-LEADER BUSINESS REPORTER
Music, movies, food and fun are the current game plan for making Lexington a tourist hot spot.
Rose Lucas, executive director of the Downtown Lexington Corp., thinks these are some of the key ingredients for a festive and fun-filled downtown that brings people in from all over the city, all over the state and even from across the nation.

Question: How does the Downtown Lexington Corp. draw tourists?

Answer: We present the best picture of Lexington through pictures, through meetings, through events and through marketing our downtown business and housing opportunities.

Q: How does tourism affect Lexington's economy?

A: It particularly affects the two (downtown) shopping centers, Lexington Center and the Victorian Square Shops. (Also) our specialty shops scattered through downtown, such as Third Street Stuff, Crystal on Vine, Wines on Vine, the Greentree Close and Isle of You, have become destination shopping places for tourists from out of the county and out of town and out of Kentucky.

Q: How does Lexington's downtown area compare to other similar cities in the region?

A: People who come here to visit who are in my position elsewhere think we are-absolutely superb. We offer a lot of different activities for many different age groups and interest groups.

Q: What are the Lexington Downtown Ambassadors?

A: Seven young people ... . They're street entertainers. They also distribute information for our organization and for our organization members, and they work at our events. It's the kind of team you want to have. They're ready to do anything.

Q: What's your favorite thing to cook for guests?

A: A recipe I've created-myself that is a chicken breast wrapped in bacon and grilled. My family calls it camping chicken because we created it when we were camping years ago.

HERALD-LEADER STAFF REPORT
To avoid repaving Main Street during Lexington’s downtown Fourth of July Festival, state officials agreed today to change the work schedule and replace pavement on Newtown Pike first.
Lexington Public Works Commissioner Jay Whitehead said in a Lexington release that Main Street repaving, from Midland Avenue to Newtown Pike, will not begin until after the July Fourth weekend.
The state transportation cabinet initially announced yesterday that the $1.4 million road resurfacing project would begin with Main Street on Monday, prompting a quickly arranged meeting with city officials today.
Tearing up Main Street would disrupt the festival, several people said yesterday. The road is traditionally the first leg of the parade, and other events are held there as well.
According to plans, work on the project is to be done between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. Monday through Friday and any time on weekends. Some lanes will be closed, and parking will be prohibited in some areas, but traffic will not be rerouted.
The contractor, Central Kentucky Asphalt of Lexington, has until Aug. 30 to complete the resurfacing, according its agreement with the state.
In addition to Main Street and Newtown Pike, the state also plans to resurface Tates Creek Road from Armstrong Mill Road to New Circle Road and Harrodsburg Road from Man o’ War Boulevard to Cave Hill Lane.
A project to widen Harrodsburg Road should be finished within the next two or three weeks, and a bridge replacement on Leestown Road is scheduled to be completed by July 8, but it might be finished earlier.

Proposal calls for a new Home Depot
By Jim Jordan
HERALD-LEADER BUSINESS WRITER
The Home Depot on Richmond Road will be torn down and a new store built a few feet away as an anchor for Lexington Mall, under a plan awaiting action by city planners.
The proposal apparently would resolve a nine-year legal dispute between the mall's owner, a Maryland limited partnership known as Saul Subsidiary 1, and Atlanta-based Home Depot, a 1,800-store chain that says it is "the world's largest home improvement retailer."
At a hearing yesterday, the Urban County Planning Commission postponed action until July 14 so questions about the design of the new Home Depot can be resolved.
Lexington attorneys for Saul and Home Depot declined to comment on the plan yesterday, as did Home Depot spokesman Yancey Casey in Atlanta.
"Even though a plan for the new store has been filed with the planning commission, until it is actually heard in a public forum, we are unable to speculate publicly and comment publicly," Casey said.
Once the planning commission approves a development plan, the company will discuss construction details and scheduling.
Home Depot currently has a 101,990-square-foot store that backs up to New Circle Road near the southeast end of the mall. It is not attached to the mall, which is vacant except for Dillard's department store.
Saul has repeatedly declined to disclose its long-term plans for the mall.
Under the plan being reviewed by city planners, the existing Home Depot and 56,660 square feet of vacant space on the southeast end of the mall would be demolished. The vacant space once housed a Dillard's home furnishings store.
A new 102,100-square-foot Home Depot would be built as an anchor on that end of the mall. The plan also calls for a 3,000-square-foot restaurant to be added where the main entrance to the mall is now, but the restaurant's operator was not identified.
The plan was filed with the planning commission after the Kentucky Supreme Court refused in April to review a 2004 Court of Appeals decision in favor of Saul.
The decision cleared the way for the enforcement of a lower court injunction that required Home Depot to tear down its Lexington Mall store. The lower court had found that Home Depot violated a 1969 land-use agreement because it didn't connect its store to the mall.
"It's nice to see this long and bitter fight come to an end," Bill Lear, one of Saul's Lexington attorneys, said in April. "Hopefully this will pave the way for an improved Lexington Mall as we move forward."
The court battle started in January 1997, soon after Home Depot paid $4.4 million for 14.9 acres -- one of two tracts that make up the 46-acre Lexington Mall site.
The company received planning commission approval for a free-standing store and began construction even though it was warned by Saul that any store built on the smaller tract had to be attached to the mall under the 1969 agreement.
Home Depot's only victory came early in Fayette Circuit Court, but that ruling was struck down by the Court of Appeals. The case bounced back and forth among three courts until April.
Home Depot's legal problems were largely "self-inflicted," the Court of Appeals had concluded. The company had "made a deliberate business decision to proceed" with construction even though it had been warned by Saul that the plan would violate the 1969 agreement.

LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER
City should turn thumbs down on Gameday project
The proposed Gameday Center at Broadway and West High Street downtown would be a monument, at best, to contradictions.
Planned for a historic district, it would be a huge, architecturally undistinguished modern building overshadowing its 19th-century neighbors.
Proposed at a time when residential resettlement is taking off downtown, its business model is for transient, if high-end, housing.
And, although the developers had agreed to scale it back to seven stories, the application now sitting in city offices is for an 11-story building. In fact, the new plans are for a building that occupies even more space on the lot, rising like a monolith without any stepbacks to lessen the impact of its bulk.
Downtown Lexington doesn't need this bundle of contradictions. The South Hill Historic District, which includes the site of the proposed project, needs it even less. The Urban County Board of Architectural Review, which reviews all proposals for new buildings or modifications to buildings in historic districts, must turn down this plan.
The board should also reject a related proposal, currently on hold, to remove this parcel of land from the historic district. Carving it out would set a terrible precedent, signaling that developers' dreams can be worth more than the reality of our historic neighborhoods.
The concept of a Gameday condominium project is a lot like a beach timeshare. A fan buys the unit, uses it for game days or weekends and, in all likelihood, rents it to short-term occupants the rest of the time.
The developers, Gameday Centers, insist that some people will buy units to actually live in, but the majority of the 126 units proposed are so small that it seems unlikely they would serve for anything other than occasional use.
There might be a time and a place for this type of development, but not now and not in downtown Lexington.
Downtown holds the promise of again being a vital city center for the first time in at least 20 years. A nationwide shift to suburban development combined with a local craze for mega-building in the '80s created a canyon-like downtown of one-way streets lined by huge buildings with barely a human in sight.
During the last couple of years, downtown has again become a place where more people consider living, not just a place to work and to drive through. New urban pioneers and visionary developers have begun to invest in high-quality living space in Lexington's center.
The city has been investing, too, through the Downtown Development Authority, which is working on many fronts, including developing a master plan to link downtown to the surrounding neighborhoods and make it a more vibrant place.
There might have been a time when Lexington's core was so depressed that any investment would be welcome. Thankfully, that time has passed and the corner of High and Broadway can do much, much better than hotel-like housing for basketball fanatics who are just passing through.

By Jennifer Hewlett
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
Call it the street switch that may have saved Lexington's Independence Day celebration.
Officials announced yesterday that a timetable for resurfacing large sections of Main Street and Newtown Pike has been altered so the work won't interfere with Fourth of July activities in downtown Lexington.
Work on the nearly $1.4 million state project will begin on Monday, as initially planned. But it will start on Newtown Pike instead of Main Street as originally planned. The milling and resurfacing of Main Street won't begin until July 5, said David Thacker, public information officer for the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet District 7 office.
Main Street is traditionally the first leg of the Fourth of July parade. Events are held throughout downtown in the days before the Fourth.
Lexington Public Works Commissioner Jay Whitehead said Mayor Teresa Isaac told him the resurfacing project's impact on holiday activities was a concern.
"Of course the mayor didn't want to do anything that would disrupt July Fourth festivities," he said. "She made me aware of it and that possibility."
Whitehead and Amos Hubbard, chief engineer for state transportation District 7, discussed the matter by telephone yesterday.
"I called the chief engineer, Amos, and I said, 'Did you read the paper today?'" Whitehead said, referring to a Herald-Leader article about the resurfacing plans. "I said 'Well, is there any way we could put this off until (after) the Fourth?' He said, 'Absolutely, no problem.'"
Thacker said the contractor doing the work, Central Kentucky Asphalt of Lexington, agreed to the change in plans. But he said the company, which has an August 30 deadline to complete the resurfacing, could get a deadline extension if the work can't be completed on time. Monetary penalties are usually involved when such a project is not completed by deadline, Thacker said.
"I was a little concerned because the Fourth of July does have an impact on our downtown ... I'm happy to hear that they are now going to wait and do it (Main Street) after the holiday," said Harold Tate, executive director of the Lexington Downtown Development Authority.
The state will be repaving Main Street from Midland Avenue to Newtown Pike and Newtown Pike from Main Street past I-75 to Stanton Way.
Several sections of Main Street where impressions have been made in the asphalt to make it look like brick will be milled and covered over. The faux brick is near the end of its life expectancy and will not be replaced, Whitehead said. Designs in asphalt, such as the brick design on those areas of Main, don't wear well in high volume traffic areas, Thacker said.
Not only will drivers probably have a smoother ride on the resurfaced sections of Main Street and Newtown Pike, but bicyclists also will get lanes of their own.
On Main Street, new bike lanes will extend from the vicinity of Midland Avenue to Newtown Pike. On Newtown Pike, they will extend from Main to just inside New Circle Road, Thacker said.
Whitehead said the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government will pay for marking the bike paths as well as crosswalks. Original plans called for the crosswalk marking expense to be borne by the state. The local government asked that the plans be changed to include bike paths and agreed to cover the expense of crosswalk and bike path marking. Whitehead did not have cost figures handy, but said he didn't think the price would be exorbitant.
Tate said that the Downtown Development Authority and others have been trying to make downtown Lexington more pedestrian- and bicycle- friendly. He said he was amazed at the number of people who ride bikes on local streets and roads where such lanes already exist.
"The more we add to the bike system, I think, the more people will use it," he said.
The resurfacing work will be done between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. Monday through Friday and will be allowed 24 hours a day on weekends. The state is asking motorists not to park vehicles in areas where work is being done after 5 p.m. on weekdays. Vehicles that are in the way will be towed at the owners' expense, according to the state Transportation Cabinet.

LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER
By Sylvia L. Lovely - Executive Director and CEO of the Kentucky League of Cities

A recent Herald-Leader editorial cited some dismal statistics for Kentucky that indicate our state is near the bottom in a number of key areas. The editorial also pointed out the critical need to focus on the big, important issues if we are to avoid falling hopelessly behind.
Given how poorly Kentucky is faring, we should not point fingers at people who are genuinely trying to learn from other leaders and communities that are adapting better than we are.
The exchange of ideas that these elected officials are engaging in with leaders around the nation is the very sort of thing that Kentucky communities must encourage to begin to catch up with more progressive states and cities.
Just as continuing education is vital in every profession, it must be acknowledged that people in public service must be exposed to new ideas and engage in problem solving by sharing perspectives, approaches and solutions with a wide variety of leaders.
In an age in which shared ideas and information are the fundamental building blocks of economic vitality and enhanced quality of life, it is absolutely critical that our elected officials interact with other leaders and communities to deal successfully with the new international arena.
In a world that is subject to rapid change and technological breakthroughs, the need to share ideas is no longer a nicety, but rather a necessity.
Unless we in Kentucky step up our efforts to educate our work force, create high-quality-of-life-cities that attract talented people and new business, and keep pace with technology and information systems, we are in grave danger of never being able to catch up.
Frankly, I am saddened and discouraged that while the news media seem outraged over travel expenditures, they seem less than vigorous in their expression of anger over the lack of progress we are making in education and our depressing statistics in a number of areas such as health, economic vitality, per capita income and quality of life.
By all means, we need to hold officials accountable in every way. A democracy must be transparent to survive and thrive. But elected officials also must have engaged citizens who are likewise accountable for a better tomorrow in our communities.
We should make it clear that we want communities that are more livable and better equipped to survive as the inevitable global marketplace grows in strength and education quality increases in other nations and our jobs gravitate overseas.
What matters is what the local officials' trips are about and what is being learned and applied. And the public should desire their public servants to become more knowledgeable.
Kentucky's cities benefit when local officials serve on issue-focused committees and venues for the National League of Cities and the U.S. Conference of Mayors. These are the same issues that are important to the citizens they serve in their hometowns.
Those two organizations are the primary educational venue and lobbying arms for the 18,000 cities and towns throughout the nation.
Although we are all for the public being aware of travel expenditures, we think it equally important that the public be made more aware of what the issues are and what we are doing to help.
The Kentucky League of Cities will continue to require officials to report on what they have learned and will persist in its efforts to alert the media regarding what is being brought back by these leaders to benefit their communities.
As Lexington is the league's corporate home, it has held numerous events here. These conferences have included experts outlining legal pitfalls and challenges, legislative needs of cities and the general outline of the positions cities are taking.
There are legitimate and necessary opportunities to learn, and we believe it is vitally important to keep a pipeline of ideas going in a community as great as Lexington and other communities in Kentucky.
It is time to truly focus on the big issues. And, as big issues go, the need to gather vital information about specific effects this new world is having on our lives is huge. So is the importance of the media sharing with the public the knowledge being gathered and the issues being raised so we can develop concrete programs with measurable results.

Newtown repaving begins today
HERALD-LEADER STAFF REPORT
Resurfacing work begins today on a section of Newtown Pike.
The repaving project, which is scheduled to be completed by late August, will refurbish Newtown Pike from Main Street past Interstate 75 to Stanton Way. The project also will repave Main Street from Midland Avenue to Newtown Pike.
Work is scheduled for between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. Mondays through Fridays, and 24 hours a day on weekends. The number of lanes will be reduced while work is being done, but traffic will not be rerouted.
The resurfacing on Main Street will not begin until July 5. The start date was delayed to prevent interference with Lexington's Fourth of July activities.
The work on Main Street includes paving over the faux brick asphalt at some intersections. Bicycle lanes will be added on Main Street from Midland Avenue to Newtown Pike, and on Newtown Pike from Main Street to just inside New Circle Road, said David Thacker, spokesman for state transportation District 7.
Vehicles should not be parked in construction areas after 5 p.m. on weekdays or any time on weekends. Vehicles in the way will be towed.

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This is an exterior of the new Lexington Design Center which is in Lexington's "flatiron" building on the corner of Winchester Rd. and Walton Ave.

A hub for the home
A three-story building on Winchester Road may soon anchor a neighborhood of businesses -- most locally owned -- that serve homeowners and builders
By Beverly Fortune
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
Gerard Higgs hopes the Lexington Design Center will become one-stop shopping for homeowners and contractors building or renovating a house.
The 25,000-square-foot, 1920s-era building at Winchester Road and Walton Avenue is being renovated into 18 retail spaces.
Stones & Granite of Lexington, a wholesale and retail business in which Higgs is a partner, will move from its current location on New Circle Road to occupy the ground floor.
"Sixty percent of the spaces are either under lease or we have letters of intent or are in negotiations," said Jim Franklin, with Lane Consultants, the leasing agent. Rent is $15 a month per square foot.
Certificates of occupancy from the fire marshal and building inspector are expected in the next week to 10 days, Franklin said. "After that, the first batch of tenants will probably start finishing off their spaces to move in."
He expects the building to be ready for occupancy in 30 to 45 days.
Higgs said he was not "panicked to get it filled up because with a better mix of businesses, it will do better. We are looking for a higher-end retailer so it hits the upper-middle-class spectrum."
He hopes the Design Center will also function as a "hub" for businesses in that neighborhood that serve the home building industry.
Next door to the Design Center on Walton Avenue is Ferguson Bath & Kitchen Gallery. Across Winchester Road is Congleton Lumber Co.
Within a few blocks are companies that sell brick, windows, doors, lighting supplies, tile and stone, antique wood flooring, kitchen and bathroom cabinets, plumbing, roofing, countertops and awnings.
"We're very excited to have him here," John Congleton, president of Congleton Lumber Co., said of Higgs and the Design Center. "There could be some good crossover business for us and it helps people looking for upper-end type items, makes it more convenient for them."
"In reality, many of the home services that people would be interested in are in this little area," said interior designer Carol Gullett, who owns BB Home & Garden at 246 Walton Avenue. Her company offers interior design services as well as furniture, drapes, flooring, and interior and garden accessories.
"The complementary nature of what we individually do has a lot to offer Lexington," she said. Gullett said she would like to see business owners "coordinate" more often to "play off each other's strengths."
Christen Congleton, showroom manager at Ferguson Bath & Kitchen Gallery, said there's a design center in Dallas where "you make one stop and take care of a lot of your building needs."
"I'm excited" about the Design Center, she said. "I think it should generate business and be good for us and them."
A similar center is planned in Louisville, Congleton added.
Ferguson's has "toyed with the idea of doing something similar," Congleton said, but not seriously enough to find a location. "We've just thought one-stop shopping would be convenient for the customer."
Higgs, a graduate of Florida International University school of architecture, practiced in Nassau for 12 years before moving his family to Lexington. He is a partner with Affinity Design Group.
"Intrigued by the uniqueness of the architecture,"-Higgs said, he bought the three-story building in September 2004 for $665,000.
The distinctive building that is dubbed a "flatiron" because of its triangular shape was built about 1927, said Harold Barker, city archivist. Over the years it housed a whole-wheat plant, coffin company, the Nehi Bottling company and Allender & Brown Moving and Storage Co.
The condition when Higgs bought it was "nasty, disgusting. ... It's sad to see a building like this not be respected because it had great stature at one time," he said.
Harold Tate, executive director of the Downtown Development Authority, said the Design Center "is a neat building to have resurrected. It should give a shot in the arm to that end of Winchester Road."
While Winchester Road is "technically on the periphery of downtown, we're all excited about what's happening along that strip, clear out to the interstate," he said.

Building for change
Fresh start for the site of former salvage yard
By Beverly Fortune
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
A Community Ventures small-business incubator opening at 277 Midland Avenue is designed to spark a revitalization of East Third Street.
"That's our whole reason for buying that site and cleaning it up," said Kevin Smith, president and CEO of Community Ventures Corp., a non-profit community development agency.
"We look for areas where we can have a positive impact," he said.
The agency bought the former Air Controls building at the intersection of Midland, East Third Street and Winchester Road, and the adjoining property, which was for many years the site of Clem's Wrecking and salvage yard.
The purchase price was $200,000 for Clem's and $400,000 for the Air Controls property.
Funding came from $2.1 million in state and federal grants, plus $120,000 borrowed from local banks.
The major cost was cleaning up the Clem's site, which contained pollutants from lead to dry-cleaning fluid. "That was the reason we really went after that property," Smith said. "We knew if we cleaned up that property, revitalization would take off."
The building will have space for five small start-up or young businesses. Tenants will pay $7 to $9 per square foot a month for three years while they develop.
Smith said the "below-market rents" include utilities, use of copiers and other business machines, high-speed Internet access, meeting rooms and local phone service.
Community Ventures has four full-time business trainers at its office on South Broadway. "If they need help setting up their books, coming up with a marketing plan or anything like that, our business trainers will go down there," he said.
Classes in home ownership offered to nearby residents "will hopefully get more home owners into that area and less renters," Smith said.
Part of the building will also be used for educational services for children struggling academically in public schools.
A covered market building will be available for vendors like those who come to the Lexington Roots & Heritage Festival and sell their wares in an open market format. Residents who want to sell vegetables and flowers from backyard gardens will also have access to the space.
Community Ventures, founded in 1982, aims to help women, minority and low- to moderate-income entrepreneurs by providing training and capital for businesses.
In addition, Community Ventures assists high-end businesses that need $7 million to $10 million if they create jobs for people that the agency serves, Smith said. The agency also helps low-income home buyers in 31 counties.

SHARP WORDS UPSET BOTH SIDES
By Andy Mead
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
The thick layers of sediment in a cave beneath land slated for development in southwest Lexington could hold valuable secrets about the distant past.
"To some people it's just dirt, but it can tell us what the climate was like thousands of years ago, to give us an insight on the last Ice Age," said Philip H. Crowley, a biologist who is associate director of the University of Kentucky's Tracy Farmer Center for the Environment.
A year ago, scientists thought they were on the verge of being allowed to study the little-known Crystal Cave, which lies under one of the last areas to be developed in Beaumont Centre near Man o' War Boulevard.
But an agreement to negotiate access turned out to be an illusion, and its aftermath has unearthed raw feelings, harsh words and accusations between the subdivision developer and some who want to study the cave.
The developer, Tim Haymaker, wants to put a manhole cover over the cave entrance and bury it. Haymaker says he has already made concessions, such as rerouting a road that would have gone over the cave, but will do no more.
In an interview, he called two of the would-be researchers liars and said they trespassed on the property.
They fired back that the cave could provide valuable research opportunities -- such as rare beetle species and fossils thousands of years old -- and criticized Haymaker for reneging on a promise of access.
Jim Rebmann, a city environmental planner who supports access to the cave, summed up the lack of communication between the two sides this way:
"On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the worst, we're at 1."
'It's unfair'
When Haymaker sought approval to begin developing the area near Crystal Cave last year, his engineer told the Urban County Planning Commission that his boss would have no problem allowing water quality monitoring and other research in the cave.
"If it's the pleasure of this commission and this government, we'll do it," Al Gross said in May 2004.
But Haymaker now says that Gross was "caught off guard" when he made the promise.
Researchers parking on residential streets and walking across lawns to a cave entrance is unacceptable, Haymaker said.
"There are people who are going to live in this neighborhood who don't want it, and it's unfair to them and it's unlawful to force me to do it," he said.
Crowley, the biologist, is one of several scientists who recently wrote to the planning commission laying out a plan for limited cave access.
They said they want to work with Haymaker on a plan that would allow homes to be built, protect the delicate cave and "become a national model for environmentally friendly development."
In the name of science
Crystal Cave apparently got its name from the purple fluorite crystals that are among several mineral veins running through its limestone walls.
The cave has impressive formations but also a lot of mud. A stream runs through it.
Nearly a mile was mapped before the entrance was closed about 1970. It was considered to be Fayette County's second-longest cave, behind Russell Cave. Rebmann said more recent explorations might have moved it up to No. 1.
A UK entomologist, Harrison Garman, found two rare beetle species there several decades ago.
One, called Garman's cave beetle, or Pseudanophthalmus horni, has been found in only six caves in Fayette County and one in Scott County.
Fossils thought to be from animals that roamed Kentucky during the Pleistocene epoch (1.8 million to 11,000 years ago), including the tooth of a long-extinct horse, also have been found.
The extent of UK's current interest in the cave has become a focus of the dispute over access.
Randy Paylor, a geologist who works for UK's Kentucky Geological Survey, appeared before the planning commission last year and said the university was opposed to the development.
His boss, Jim Cobb, the state geologist and director of the survey, said last week that Paylor should have made it clear he was speaking only as an individual who is interested in caves.
The recent letter from scientists to the planning commission contained the signatures of several people from UK.
In addition to Crowley and Cobb, the group included Lindell Ormsbee, director of UK's water Resources Research Institute; and George Crothers, director of UK's W.S. Webb Museum of Anthropology.
It also was signed by John LaMar Cole, director of the Ohio Valley Region of the National Speleological Society; and Donald Dott, director of the Kentucky State Nature Preserves Commission.
The letter suggested that a locked gate could be placed across the cave entrance and managed by a national cavers' group, which would provide liability insurance. Research would be coordinated by UK faculty members. Haymaker's attorney, Job "Darby" Turner, countered with a letter from Frank Butler, UK's executive vice president for finance and administration.
Butler wrote that the university has no plans for a research project in the cave and "has not designated anyone to represent its interest in this property."
Butler declined to talk to a reporter about the letter.
UK spokesman Jay Blanton said Butler was only stating the school's official position, adding that Crowley and the others "were representing themselves as scientists, which they are certainly entitled to do."
Blanton would not comment on a letter from Turner to the planning commission that said UK "does not believe the cave to be of significant scientific value."
Turner declined to cite a source for that statement.
Conflict of interests
A sticking point in the access question: Animosity between Haymaker and two cave experts who testified before the planning commission last year.
One is Cole, one of the signers of the recent letter to the planning commission. The other is Paylor. Paylor has said he and Cole were granted permission to visit Crystal Cave two years ago as Haymaker's experts were studying it.
Haymaker says that's not true, that they trespassed. His version is backed up by two of his employees who Paylor and Cole say allowed them into the cave.
"I will not negotiate with people who are liars," Haymaker said last week.
Cole's assessment of Haymaker: "He knows absolutely nothing about caves. The man is too ignorant to be embarrassed."
After an article about Crystal Cave appeared in the Herald-Leader early last year, accompanied by photos Paylor took inside the cave, Haymaker suggested they had been taken in some other cave. The newspaper had been tricked, he said.
Haymaker said last week that further exploration of the cave persuaded him that the photos were legitimate.
In the middle of the disagreements between Haymaker and Paylor and Cole are the other scientists who signed the letter -- and the planning commission.
The issue was due back before the commission last week for a final stop that would clear the way for lots to be sold and building permits sought, but was postponed until July 14 because of questions about access.
Dallam Harper, the commission chairman, said he was hesitant to discuss a matter that would come before the body.
The commission clearly wants to protect the cave, he said.
"But whether we have the authority or the ability or the interest to dictate ... access ... we'll just have to arbitrate and do the best we can."

Proposal to replace aging mental health hospital
By Barbara Isaacs
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
A proposal for a state-of-the-art replacement for the aged Eastern State Hospital will be unveiled Tuesday by the Bluegrass Regional Mental Health-Mental Retardation Board, a non-profit group that operates the Lexington mental hospital.
The board, which operates the hospital under state contract, has been collaborating for months with state and area mental health advocates about the plans.
If the board gets the go-ahead from the state, the new hospital could be built and operational within three years.
The facility will be built on at least 30 acres within 15 minutes of the current hospital on Newtown Pike, though no site has been selected, said Joseph Toy, president and CEO of the Bluegrass board. Toy thinks the facility would cost an estimated $85 million. Only preliminary architectural plans have been completed.
The planners envision a hospital that's "open, very airy, lots of sunlight -- not at all institutional," Toy said. It would be almost exactly opposite of the current facility, which he called "very old, antiquated, depressing and scary."
Eastern State is the nation's second-oldest psychiatric hospital, and its design is from a bygone era. It opened in 1816. At its peak population in the late 1950s, some 2,000 people were permanent residents of its locked wards.
The new hospital is expected to be more homelike, with a design that allows for freedom of movement for most of its patients, who don't benefit from locked wards. It also would offer integrated services and electronic medical record-keeping.
The facility would be able to serve up to 400 inpatients at a time, about 100 more than the current capacity at Eastern State. New, specialized programs for veterans and people with a combination of substance abuse and mental illness also are planned.
The Bluegrass board operates Eastern State Hospital and community mental health centers in 17 counties of Central and Eastern Kentucky. That's the largest community mental health center in the nation, serving nearly 30,000 people each year. The board has operated Eastern State for 10 years.
The existing Eastern State Hospital campus is owned by the state of Kentucky; the Bluegrass board gets $31.7 million in state funds annually to operate it.
The money for the new building would be raised through bonds.
Once the old hospital is empty, it's likely the state would sell the property.
Dr. James Holsinger, secretary of the state's Health and Family Services Cabinet, plans to seek legislation that would create a mental health/mental retardation trust fund so that when the property is sold, the proceeds would be used exclusively for mental health and mental retardation.
Holsinger said he's checking with the state attorney general's office to find out whether the board's proposal can be approved outright or whether it must solicit other proposals.
Last year, Holsinger's office hosted a public forum to get input about consolidating Louisville's Central State and Lexington's Eastern State hospitals to one facility, but that concept was not well received.
Holsinger said the Bluegrass board's proposal is an exciting one.
"I think Joe Toy and the Bluegrass folks have been extremely forward-thinking," Holsinger said. "They're designing a system of care, not just a hospital."

WOULD REPLACE EASTERN STATE
By Barbara Isaacs
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
It's an evolution worthy of Extreme Makeover -- changing Lexington's Eastern State Hospital from a spooky 1800s asylum into a gleaming state-of-the-art healing institution for thousands of Kentuckians with mental illness.
Plans unveiled yesterday by the Bluegrass Regional Mental Health-Mental Retardation Board, which operates Eastern State, outlined the goal of a model mental hospital with expanded capacity and programming.
"What we have is no longer acceptable," Lexington's Kelly Gunning told more than 100 lawmakers, state officials and mental health advocates. "This is 2005 and we deserve more ... We have the responsibility to make this a reality."
Gunning, mother of a schizophrenic son and executive director of Lexington's chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, has been among those planning the new hospital and its offerings.
The proposed hospital could be built within the next three years. State officials are checking to see whether the plans may be approved without soliciting other proposals. The Bluegrass board has operated Eastern State under state contract for 10 years.
Joseph Toy, president and CEO of the Bluegrass board, said he hopes construction can begin within a year. He said that one essential step is legislation to allow the Bluegrass board to enter into a longer-term contract with the state; that couldn't happen until the next legislative session in January.
Officials have said the facility will be built on at least 30 acres within 15 minutes of the current hospital on Newtown Pike.
The proposed facility could treat about 100 more patients than the current hospital. Its estimated cost is $85 million.
It also features:
• Integrated electronic medical records, so that information about people treated at Comprehensive Care units across 17 counties can be accessed at Eastern State even for an admission at 3 a.m..
• Twenty beds specifically for inpatient treatment of veterans.
• Four personal care "cottages," each housing up to 16 people who are preparing to return to community living. Currently, the hospital offers 40 such slots, but in a much less homelike setting.
• 20 psychiatric nursing facility beds, for elderly patients who need nursing home care.

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Concourse B, on the right, shown at the Bluegrass Airport will be extended for additional Delta Airline jets. Photo was taken in Lexington, Ky. on Wednesday, June 15, 2005.

New gates, shops, loading bridges to cost $15.5 million
By Jennifer Hewlett
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
Six more gates for commercial jets, four new loading bridges to protect airline passengers from inclement weather and two new concession shops will be included in a multimillion-dollar addition to Blue Grass Airport that was given the go-ahead yesterday.
The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Airport Board voted unanimously to award a $13 million contract to Messer Construction Co., based in Cincinnati, to handle most of the work on the addition to the airport's Concourse B, now used mainly by Delta Air Lines.
Work on the project, divided into two phases, should begin within the next two weeks and is expected to be completed by spring 2007, airport officials said.
The total cost of the project is expected to be $15.5 million, $3.5 million more than initially planned. Rising construction costs are the reason, said Mike Gobb, airport executive director.
Gobb said the addition and improvements, part of a larger master plan, are necessary because the number of flights at Blue Grass has increased. Delta, Northwest, US Airways and American have all added new destinations and flights during the first half of the year.
"We want to make sure we're accommodating the airlines," Gobb said of the expansion. "We want to make sure we're accommodating the airline customer, which is our customer."
In 2004, the airport served nearly 1.2 million passengers, a record for Blue Grass, though the numbers are down about 10 percent through May this year.
Currently airlines have to play a game of "musical planes" every day because there are only 10 parking positions near the airport terminal for the 14 commercial planes that are parked overnight every night.
Two of Blue Grass Airport's 10 gates are practically obsolete and now used mainly as plane parking spaces. There are loading bridges at six of the eight gates being used by passengers.
The changes will bring the number of gates to 16, with 14 to be used by passengers on a regular basis. The number of loading bridges will increase to 10.
Details haven't been worked out yet, but the new concession space on Concourse B could include a food and beverage shop and a retail store. The new vending areas will provide "psychological comfort" to passengers afraid of missing their flights if they head to other parts of the airport to make purchases, Gobb said.
"It allows us to keep concession product close to the customer," he said.
The Concourse B expansion also will include an enclosed smoking area.
Messer Construction will receive $11 million from the proceeds of a $34.3 million city-backed bond issue from late 2003 to complete the first phase. That work, which includes primarily the outer shell of the addition, is expected to take 14 months.
The remaining $4.5 million, of which at least $2 million is to go to Messer, will be used mainly for furnishings and interior work in the new part of Concourse B and refurbishing the existing part of that concourse. The second phase is expected to take an additional six months to complete.
The addition is the first major expansion of the airport terminal since 1990, when Concourse B opened.
In August, remodeling also will begin on the airport's Concourse C.
It will include enlarging restrooms and adding new seating and carpeting. That work will cost an additional $650,000 and is expected to be completed by December or January, said airport spokesman Tom Tyra.
As of now, it's not clear which airlines will use the new gates.
The new construction means that airlines will have to play musical planes a while longer. Delta will be affected most by the new addition work, Tyra said.
"The passengers should see very, very little impact at all. From our end it will take quite a bit of logistics," he said.

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The winning mural design from the Lexington Arts and Cultural Council Thomas & King Public Mural Project was unveiled on Friday June 17, 2005 with designer Britt Spencer, a Lexington native, as the special guest. Approx. fifty people attended the ceremony on East Short Street in downtown.

Local artist wins chance to brighten up downtown with mural
By Terez Paylor
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
Lexington native Britt Spencer has always aspired to be a well-known illustrator. Now people who drive by his mural on 250 East Short Street will get a chance to see some of his work.
The 18-by-43-foot mural, which was unveiled yesterday in front of about 35 people, was the winning design in a contest sponsored by Thomas & King and the Lexington Arts and Cultural Council.
Spencer was told he won the contest in late April.
"I was absolutely elated when I found out that I had won," Spencer said.
Mike Scanlon, CEO of Thomas & King, wanted to do something about the dilapidated brick building located directly behind the company's downtown office. They decided a mural would help liven up the building and the surrounding area.
"Art is so important to the community, and those of us who are corporate citizens have a responsibility to support the arts and showcase the talent of local artists like Britt Spencer," said Adam Edelen, spokesman for Thomas & King.
Spencer, 21, works as a free-lance illustrator and is a recent graduate of Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia. Several of his friends and family were at yesterday's unveiling, including Georgia Henkel, his sixth-grade art history teacher while he was at the School for the Creative and Performing Arts.
"I love the mural. We need more of them down here. ... It lets people know you can change the environment with art," Henkel said.
Lexington's skyline, horse racing and bluegrass are all incorporated into the mural in varying degrees. However, at the forefront of the picture, in the center, is a man who Spencer says is a reflection of himself.
"I think he has a lot of charm and personality," Spencer said wryly.
Travis Robinson, the community arts director at LACC, said Spencer's mural stood out because of its character.
"It was fun and it represented Lexington," Robinson said.
Jim Clark, CEO of LACC, hopes the mural prods other businesses to embrace art in their communities.
"We hope that this will stand as a constant reminder to those in the business community that by working with the arts council and by working with the many talented local artists, all of downtown Lexington can become a canvas for talented people like Britt to do their work."
Spencer's hopes however, are a little less ambitious.
"I just hope people enjoy it," he said.

By Jim Jordan
HERALD-LEADER BUSINESS WRITER
Chase bank is adding 100 jobs at its Lexington loan processing center, boosting total employment to 550 by Dec. 31.
"Lexington was chosen for this growth in its loan center because of the quality of its work force," Chase spokeswoman Nancy Norris said yesterday. "Kentucky has good logistics and a relatively low cost of living compared to other places."
Chase's home equity loan business is growing, and the bank is moving processing work now done at other sites to the Lexington center.
The new jobs will pay $9.50 to $13 an hour. They will include document imaging specialists, customer service representatives, loan processors and administrative assistants.
"We might end up hiring more than 100 people," Norris said. "It's 100 positions, but we could hire two part-timers for one full-time position."
Chase plans to hold a job fair at Lexington Center on June 28 to sign up job applicants.
The Lexington bank and loan processing center were part of Bank One, the largest bank in Central Kentucky, until July 1 when Bank One Corp. merged with J.P. Morgan Chase. The name of the bank was changed to Chase in April.
After the merger was announced, there was speculation that the loan center -- one of three operated nationally by Bank One -- might be closed to cut costs in the downsizing that often follows large mergers.
Chase had no similar processing centers in this region and decided to keep the Lexington facility in operation.
Employment has fluctuated, however. In January 2004, Bank One said it had 876 employees in the Lexington area, including 635 at the loan processing center.
Yesterday, Norris said Chase now has 700 employees in the area and will have 550 at the center when the new hiring is completed.
The center's employment was reduced by attrition as loan volume declined and new technology allowed faster processing, she said. "Fortunately, we never had any layoffs."
Bank One and Chase have had 3,000 employees in Kentucky in both 2004 and 2005. "We could be at 3,000 when these 100 new positions are filled," Norris added.

GAMEDAY PROPOSAL TOO TALL, SAY PRESERVATIONISTS, SOME NEIGHBORS
By Michelle Ku And Cassondra Kirby
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITERS
Plans for a condominium complex that University of Kentucky fans could call home on game days have bounced three floors higher, despite concerns that the building would overshadow homes in a historic downtown neighborhood.
Plans submitted to the city call for a 10-story structure -- three stories taller than a proposal introduced in February -- of luxury condos at the southeast corner of Broadway and High Street, across from Rupp Arena.
Gary Spillers, CEO of Gameday Center Southeastern, based in Atlanta, says the 126-unit Kentucky Gameday Center would bring additional retail to downtown and luxury living space for those who live for the game.
Historic preservationists and some residents of the Historic South Hill neighborhood say they don't want the structure, arguing that the center doesn't follow historic guidelines and would be out of place in a neighborhood where the majority of the buildings are less than three stories tall.
The Gameday Center project will be discussed by the Board of Architectural Review at 5 p.m. today.
The city's historic preservation staff has recommended disapproval of the project because "it doesn't meet any of the design criteria" for a structure in a historic district, said Bettie Kerr, director of the city's historic preservation office.
"The height, mass, scale and setback of the proposed structure are in direct conflict with the context and character of the South Hill Historic District," the staff report states. The 10-story building would "visually overwhelm and dominate the existing individual structures in the South Hill district," it says.
All new buildings, and modifications to existing buildings within the city's historic districts, must receive the blessing of the five-member Board of Architectural Review. Spillers said he wants to work with the board.
"We're still flexible," Spillers said. "What we're bringing to the table ... is a building we're looking for input on. We're not stuck on 10 floors."
Spillers added that any compromise must be economically feasible; that's why the plan was changed from seven stories to 10.
But the switch to a 10-story building has left a bad taste in the mouths of groups who have worked for a compromise, said Dan Rowland, a Historic South Hill board member.
"We were getting somewhere," Rowland said. "We were making progress and then for them to go back to the 10 stories on the expanded footprint was kind of spit in our eye."
The initial proposal for the Gameday Center called for a 15-story building that fronted Broadway. In February, the height was reduced to a seven-story structure that would cover more of the lot.
The proposed 10-story building would have about 7,600 square feet of first-floor retail space, with 180 parking spaces spread throughout the first through third floors, plus seven stories of residential space.
The 1.3-acre area is now home to a vacant lot, a historic home and a one-story office building.
Every version of the proposal has included plans to preserve the historic home at 316 West High Street for use as a club-type facility. Now used as office space, it was built in 1801. The one-story office building would be demolished.
According to city guidelines, any structures built in a historic neighborhood must be on a scale similar to that of their neighbors. The largest historic structure in the South Hill district is the four-story Dudley School building at the corner of Mill and Maxwell streets.
But Jack Ballard, president of the South Hill neighborhood association and owner of the proposed development site, argues that high-rise buildings along the north side of High Street and the west side of Broadway should be considered when deciding an appropriate height for the condo complex.
"It's a unique corner," Ballard said. "It's up there adjacent to the Hyatt and Kincaid Tower. It really is not in the neighborhood."

By Gary B. Spillers
Unfortunately, The Herald-Leader's editorial objecting to the proposed Kentucky Gameday Center misnamed and mischaracterized the project and its impact on downtown revitalization.
First, it says the Kentucky Gameday Center business model is for "transient, if high-end housing."
When someone buys a home -- even a second home -- it is hardly transient. Instead, the buyer is seeking a permanent stake in the community, and the purchase signals a rather enduring commitment. Further, homeownership adds to a community's stability, the formation of equity, an expansion in the tax base and more business creation.
Second, experience in other college communities shows that each Gameday Center is dramatically less transient than a hotel or a college dorm, projects I assume the editorial board would see as favorably contributing to revitalization of the community and downtown.
Third, when the editorial compared the project to a beach timeshare, the writer obviously misunderstood the concept. A timeshare has many owners who use a facility briefly each year.
Each Kentucky Gameday Center unit will have one owner, just like any condominium. Some owners will choose to use their unit daily, weekly or infrequently. While other owners may occasionally rent their units, the likely occupants will be friends, business associates and others who either need access to the university or want to enjoy the wide offerings of downtown Lexington.
Either way, they will patronize the city's shops, restaurants and businesses. They will add life and activity to downtown streets. They may even buy a few newspapers. How can all this be bad?
More important, in addition to supporting the city, this project is also designed to support the University of Kentucky by more closely tying alumni, students, supporters and, yes, even sports fans to the university campus. Owners also will be drawn to the cultural and continuing education offerings offered by UK and the city.
By constantly connecting more people with the institution, both UK and the city will benefit.
Also, physicians are a key market for Kentucky Gameday Center. Our research shows a significant percentage of doctors practicing in local hospitals live 50-plus miles outside of Lexington. This facility is ideal for a physician who is in town to treat patients but desires something more permanent and personal than a hotel room.
The editorial's concern about the Gameday Center's effect on the historic district is also misplaced. The Kentucky Gameday Center's architecture merges traditional and colonial styles, so it blends well with the surrounding area.
Our project also preserves and restores the 316 West High Street house, a historic gem built in 1808, for use as a meeting and fitness facility.
We always work closely with historic preservation groups in every community. At the University of Georgia, for example, we worked closely with the Athens Historical Society to ensure our project fit into the community.
Finally, the editorial decries the project's 11-story height but neglects to mention the 30-story building standing directly across the street. However, no final drawings or plans are completed because we remain open to working with the city and others to ensure that this project is a positive addition to downtown Lexington.
Gary B. Spillers is president and CEO of Gameday Center Southeastern in Atlanta.

Im irritated that there would be so much backlash from a relatively short building that was tastefully designed at its original height. It is a downtown area, if you dont like shadows or new development move to Woodford County. I get rediculously tired of people bitching in the name of progress when it is for the overall good of everyone. I have no sympathy for someone who lives in the downtown area of a larger city and complains about new growth.

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The moon rose over the old hemp barn, just after sunset, on the Cobra Farm at the intersection of Iron Works and Newtown Pike in Lexington, Ky., Monday, June 20, 2005.

Bluegrass put on Watch List
By Linda B. Blackford
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
For years, historic preservationists and conservationists have argued that Central Kentucky's stone walls, tobacco barns and grassy farmland were being swallowed by subdivisions and shopping malls.
Yesterday, they got some international support when the World Monuments Fund declared more than 1 million acres of the Bluegrass one of the 100 most endangered cultural sites in the world.
The designation puts 17 Bluegrass counties alongside such famous monuments as the Taj Mahal in India, the temples of Angkor in Cambodia, and the Great Wall of China -- all previous designees by the fund.
The Bluegrass was one of eight choices in the United States, including the building at 2 Columbus Circle in Manhattan and Lebanon Shaker Village in New York.
It is the only cultural landscape designated in the country for 2006 and one of only two in the United States since the Watch List was first announced in 1996 -- the other being Lancaster County, Pa., listed in 1998 and 2000.
"This really validates what we've been saying -- this is a vitally important landscape and there's nowhere like it in the world," said David Morgan, executive director of the Kentucky Heritage Council.
The council, along with the UK College of Design, the Bluegrass Conservancy and the Bluegrass Trust for Historic Preservation, nominated the region.
The designation carries no immediate funding and no rules, regulations or restrictions. But it will make the groups' efforts eligible for grants and funding from the WMF and other national organizations, said David Mohney, dean of the UK College of Design.
As part of the nomination, the groups proposed a five-year study to map and document the area, both for man-made and natural resources.
"Understanding what we have, we can then do more work to preserve it," Mohney said.
The WMF, a private, non-profit organization devoted to conservation of irreplaceable historic monuments, art and architectural sites worldwide, announced the new list during a news conference at its office in New York yesterday.
"The inner Bluegrass Region of Kentucky is one of the world's most distinctive cultural and agricultural landscapes," according to the announcement. "Over the past decade, however, the Bluegrass Region has been threatened by rapid development, primarily suburbanization .... The result is substantial loss of rural farmland, compromising sense of place, undermining traditional industries such as horse breeding, and endangering historic structures."
Preventing urban sprawl
While some counties, like Fayette, have implemented fairly rigid limits on development, conservationists have long pushed for some kind of regional growth planning among the Bluegrass counties.
Steve Austin, director of Bluegrass Tomorrow, a civic group that has long pushed for regional planning, said the new endangered status may help. "This may create a sense of urgency that a lot of folks and communities don't feel because it puts the Bluegrass into a global context," he said. "That said, I certainly don't believe growth and preservation are polar opposites. I think we can do both."
And that message will be a big part of the group's work, organizers said.
"That's the root of a lot of confusion -- that preservation means fixed in time," said Tracee De Hahn, director of the Bluegrass Trust. "We're hoping to gain a more comprehensive understanding of how we move forward."
Even a major developer like Patrick Madden, who turned his family's Fayette County farm into the Hamburg shopping and residential development, supports regional planning. He pointed to Lexington's urban service area, which allows development within its boundaries, while requiring 40-acre lots outside of it.
I think Lexington has the best mechanism in place to prevent urban sprawl," he said. "It would be an excellent idea to have a plan for all these counties so that you don't have one county going off in one area and another going off in another."
However, that kind of comprehensive planning will probably continue to get mixed reactions from groups around the area.
"I think there's some natural skepticism; people would want to look at such a plan and see what's expected," said Tony Wilder, judge-executive of Boyle County, which is included in the designation. "I think we've done a pretty good job with historic preservation, but as for farmland, we're probably losing that battle."
Farmland preservation supporters, however, also see yesterday's news as positive for the local Purchase of Development Rights (PDR) program, which buys development rights from landowners, putting easements on land that keep it in agricultural use.
"This should be a help for PDR," said Margaret Graves, chair of Lexington's Rural Land Management Board, which manages the PDR program. "It will increase awareness of the very special resource that PDR seeks to protect -- our farms."
In the past four years and three rounds of funding, the PDR has purchased conservation easements for 14,215 acres, using $33 million in local, state and federal funds. The fourth round should be concluded later this year.
Urgency of need
Sites named to the WMF Watch List, released every two years, are culled from nominations submitted by governments and organizations active in the field of cultural preservation.
Historic structures, groups of buildings, historic districts, archaeological sites, public art and cultural landscapes are all eligible for nomination. Selections are made by an independent panel of international experts based on three key criteria: significance, urgency of the need for preservation, and viability of resources that can help ensure protection.
Since 1965, the WMF has worked with local communities and partners to stem the loss of more than 430 sites in 83 countries.
But whether such international attention can capture local notice as well remains the big question, says UK's David Mohney.
"We hope this study and this work will make people better understand the landscape as it's been for the past 200 years and better preserve it for the next 200 years," he said.

Blue Grass Airport officials' hard work pays off
It's a good problem to have and to solve.
Blue Grass Airport has gotten so many new flights that jets were playing musical gates just to load and unload their passengers, a record 1.2 million last year.
Now, the Airport Board has approved a $15.5 million project to add six gates to the airport's capacity, the first major expansion since 1990. Blue Grass will have 16 gates when the work is complete in 2007.
This decade has not been easy for airlines or airports. The air travel industry was faltering even before 9/11. The impact on the industry of the attacks and the air travel shutdown that followed was huge. Blue Grass, like other airports, suffered as airlines cut back.
Blue Grass Airport officials have worked hard to attract new airlines and new flights and should be congratulated on their success.
A thriving airport with service to many places is essential to the quality of life and the economic future of our region.

Board sticks to 7-story maximum for condos
By Cassondra Kirby
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
A board that oversees new buildings in historic areas said it will quash a controversial downtown condominium project unless developers agree to reduce its height.
Plans submitted to the city called for a 10-story structure -- three stories taller than a February proposal -- of luxury condos at the southeast corner of Broadway and High Street, across from Rupp Arena.
Gary Spillers, CEO of Gameday Center Southeastern, based in Atlanta, said the 126-unit Kentucky Gameday Center would bring additional retail to downtown and luxury living space for University of Kentucky basketball fans.
At the Board of Architectural Review's meeting last night, historic preservationists and some residents of the Historic South Hill neighborhood said they don't want the structure. They said the project doesn't follow guidelines for the historic district and would be out of place in a neighborhood where the majority of the buildings are less than three stories tall.
"This project is not infill, it's overkill," Win Meeker, a spokeswoman for the Historic Preservation Commission, told the board yesterday.
The board rejected the proposal by a 3-0 vote. The project developers can appeal that decision to the Urban County planning commission or submit a new plan to the architectural review board. Gameday officials said they did not know whether they would bring another proposal to the board or appeal.
Members of the board said they would like to see the center built in Lexington, but it should be smaller to fit in with the other homes in the neighborhood or it should be built on a different lot.
"I would love to see Gameday here in Lexington and I would not mind seeing them on this site, if they would do that without compromising the integrity of this historic district," said BOAR member Clyde Carpenter.
The largest historic structure in the South Hill district is the four-story Dudley School Building at the corner of Mill and Maxwell streets.
Gameday officials argued that high-rise buildings along the north side of High Street and the west side of Broadway should be considered when deciding an appropriate height for the condo complex.
All new buildings, and modifications to existing buildings within Lexington's historic districts, must receive the blessing of the five-member architectural review board.
This is not the first time the developer has been asked to reduce the size of Gameday Center. The initial proposal for the building, submitted in September, called for 15 stories of luxury pads targeted at University of Kentucky basketball fans. Developers agreed to reduce the building to seven stories in February after residents said the building would be out of place.
Members of the BOAR said they were "disappointed" with the 10-story proposal before them last night.
"It was a bit surprising for me ... to discover that many of the issues I thought we had dealt with were back on the table again," Carpenter said.
Spillers said he would work with the board and he proposed dropping the structure one floor to nine stories. He said a seven-story complex wouldn't be profitable.
But BOAR members said seven stories is tall enough and suggested the group look at other alternatives, such as underground parking.
The 1.3-acre lot where the center would be built now includes a vacant lot, a historic home and a one-story office building. The proposal would preserve the historic home at 316 West High Street for use as a club-type facility. The home was built in 1801 and is now used as office space. The one-story office building on the lot would be demolished.

Im irritated that there would be so much backlash from a relatively short building that was tastefully designed at its original height. It is a downtown area, if you dont like shadows or new development move to Woodford County. I get rediculously tired of people bitching in the name of progress when it is for the overall good of everyone. I have no sympathy for someone who lives in the downtown area of a larger city and complains about new growth.

I agree with you, the whole issue needs to be looked at. The back end of the site is historic but the the other sides are not. It is at the corner of the historic and non-historic.

Horse Park 'certain' to get resort hotel
'All of a sudden we get to be a destination'
By Jim Jordan
HERALD-LEADER BUSINESS WRITER
A planned 250-room resort hotel at the Kentucky Horse Park moved a step closer to construction when a second request for proposals was sent to potential bidders last week.
The first request earlier this year produced a probable winner, said Horse Park Executive Director John Nicholson. But a change in state law by the General Assembly prompted a second bidding to ensure fairness.
"One thing is certain, there is going to be a hotel," Nicholson said yesterday. "This is just to get a better bid and ensure fairness."
At 250 rooms, the hotel would be smaller than the Hyatt Regency Lexington (365 rooms) or the Marriott Griffin Gate (408 rooms and suites), but large enough to serve as the headquarters for horse shows and other events at the park.
The largest of those events -- in fact, "the single largest sporting event in the history of Kentucky," Nicholson said -- could be headed to the park in 2010 if Lexington is picked to host the World Equestrian Games.
The decision is expected when the World Equestrian Federation meets in December.
If the games come to the Horse Park, major changes will be needed to accommodate the expected hundreds of horses and riders, 300,000 spectators and 1,000 news media representatives, Nicholson said.
The plan calls for building a 6,000-seat indoor arena for riding events. That could lead to a request to the 2006 General Assembly for about $33 million in construction funds.
Temporary outdoor arenas with up to 25,000 seats could be created for use during the games and then removed, he said.
A 100-mile route through local farms would have to be created for an endurance racing event, and the park's campground would be converted temporarily to housing for grooms and other workers.
A "monumental effort" would be required to host the games, Nicholson said. But the payback for the Bluegrass would include an estimated $90 million economic boost and two weeks of international news coverage during the games that could cement Lexington's claim to the title of horse capital.
The games will be broadcast live to about 40 countries, primarily in Europe and the Middle East.
Bids for the hotel are due back July 15, said Finance Cabinet spokeswoman Jill Midkiff, although extensions of up to 60 days might be granted if requested by bidders.
The successful bidder would build and operate the hotel, and the state would share in the hotel's revenues.
Construction near the park's main entrance probably will begin in 2006, Nicholson said after a meeting of the Bluegrass Hospitality Association.
"All of a sudden we get to be a destination," he said. "You can take your vacation at the Horse Park instead of the Horse Park just being part of it."
• • The arena would have seating for 6,000, plus a club level, suites and warm-up area.
• The General Assembly might be asked to provide $33 million for the arena.
• Temporary outdoor arenas could provide up to 25,000 more seats.

***I just had to post this, to show/share a piece of history of our country that is almost gone. Madison County (Richmond) home to Eastern Kentucky Universtiy (EKU) is 30 mins south of Lexington on I-75.

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A group visited the Bend School one room school house, on Wednesday June 22, 2005 in College Hill, Ky.

By Jim Warren
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
WACO - Virgie Young, 91, sat at the front of the Bend School yesterday and gave a little history lesson, just the way she did when she was teaching in the tiny one-room school nearly 60 years ago.
Except this time the class was made up, not of children, but adults -- about 30 one-room school enthusiasts from Iowa, New York and several other states.
They sat enthralled while she told what it was like to teach children in eight grades, all in one room heated by a pot-bellied stove and without running water. They roared when she recalled the little girl who recited the 23rd Psalm in class and slightly confused the words, proclaiming that the Lord made her "lie down in the tall green grass beside the green waters."
Young's audience yesterday was made up of all kinds of folks -- retired teachers, historians, college professors, scholars -- with one thing in common: an absolute fascination and respect for the one-room schools that educated generations of Americans.
"It was just like deja vu the moment I walked in here," said Pat McMillion of Huntsville, Ala.
McMillion and her companions arrived at the little Madison County school here after driving up from Union College in Barbourville, where since Monday they have been attending the 5th annual Country Schoolhouse Conference. The event is dedicated to collecting, preserving and interpreting the history of one-room and country schools, said Steven Lynch, an associate professor of education at Union and coordinator of the conference. The conference, being held in Kentucky for the first time, ends today.
Kentucky's last operating one-room school closed in Perry County in 1989, and countless one-room schools have been demolished nationwide, unneeded and unwanted. But they are disappearing. The Hubble Schoolhouse in Lincoln County was razed by fire on June 11, and the case has been turned over to state arson investigators. The Lincoln County Schools had been interested in acquiring the building, which dates from the 1800s.
To many, the one-room school might be only a relic of the dim and distant past, to be forgotten like the horse-and-buggy.
But don't tell that to any of the people who squeezed into the tiny children's desks at the Bend School yesterday. For them, one-room schools are still very much alive, an indelible part of Kentucky and American history that they simply refuse to let die.
Take, for example, Mary Outlaw, a professor and director of student teaching at Berry College in Rome, Ga., who helps prepare students to teach in today's ultra-modern, computer-equipped schools. One-room schools still might have something to teach them, she said.
"To do a better job I needed to know more about the history of education," Outlaw said. "And that led me right into country and one-room schools."
Or consider Richard and Catharin Lewis of League City, Texas, who love one-room schools so much they went out and got their own. After rescuing the old building, they turned it into the West Bay Common School, a children's museum where today's kids can get a taste of what life and education were like for yesterday's kids.
"We get between 5,000 and 7,000 visitors every year," Catharin Lewis said.
Gloria Hawkins works with special needs children in Kansas City, Kan., but in her heart she loves one-room schools. An amateur photographer, she has set the goal of photographing a one-room school in every state. Yesterday, Kentucky became the 17th state on her list.
Then there is Nancy Hughes of Pittsboro, Ind., who dresses up in period costume as "Miss Ellie," a teacher at the 1883 Pittsboro One Room School. It's a living history project, where youngsters spend the day just as they would have if they had attended the school 100 years ago. They even take the same classes that kids would have taken back then.
Before coming to the Bend School, the group stopped at Eastern Kentucky University to inspect the old Granny Richardson Springs School, which has been on display at EKU since it was moved there from Estill County in 1976. The one-room school was built about 1899 and remained in use until 1964. Now it is being restored, and university officials hope to move it to a spot on the main campus where more people can see it.
Similar things already are happening at the Bend School, which opened in 1895 but has been closed since 1947. Madison County's Beverly Dezarn, who attended the school in the late 1940s, acquired the old building a few years ago and moved it about a mile to his property at Waco. It has been restored as closely as possible to its original look.
Now, the Madison County Schools sends youngsters to the school on field trips so they can get a taste of reading, writing and arithmetic they way they used to be taught.
"We wanted people to be able to see it as a part of our history and American heritage, which in a large part stems from the one-room school," Dezarn said.

June 28, 2005
THOMAS D. CLARK 1903-2005
By Andy Mead
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
Thomas Clark, a historian who lived long and came to be valued as a state treasure in Kentucky, died early today. He was 101. He would have been 102 on July 14. He died at 3:45 A.M. after a brief illness, said his stepson, Robert Brock.
Dr. Clark was a native of Mississippi, but came to Kentucky as a young man and stayed for more than 75 years.
He taught history at the University of Kentucky for 37 years, building a history department that developed a national reputation, especially in Southern history.
Dr. Clark also was an expert on frontier history, and his name became practically synonymous with Kentucky history.
He was known to generations of Kentuckians, remaining active through a decades-long retirement.
In 1990, he was named the state's historian laureate for life. He also was sort of an official state grandfather, but not the kind who only said what you wanted to hear.
He was a perennial optimist, but would tell anyone who listened that Kentucky needed to improve its schools, overhaul its creaky constitution, preserve its history and become a better steward of its natural resources.
He was a member of the UK athletics board decades ago when Adolph Rupp, the revered basketball coach, showed displeasure with his salary by refusing to pick up his paychecks for four months. Dr. Clark made a very unpopular suggestion: Fire him.
For a man whose training was in history, Dr. Clark always lived in the present and thought about the future.
"Some historians undertake to simply open the grave and live in the past," he once said. "I always felt that history was a living thing. "It tells you so much about what you did and didn't do, where you failed and where you succeeded."
In his teaching career, Dr. Clark influenced generations of students, some profoundly.
The late Edward T. "Ned" Breathitt, who later become governor, once said that Dr. Clark's classes awakened his interest in politics. "He was the only professor that people would fill up his 8 o'clock class,"
Breathitt said. "He expected you to work, but he had such a fantastic personality in the classroom. He was both a teacher and an actor." Dr. Clark estimated that he taught more than 25,000 UK students over the years.
He also occasionally taught at other universities -- about 20 over his long career including Harvard, Stanford, Oxford and the University of Athens.
State historian James Klotter estimates that Dr. Clark authored, co-authored or edited three dozen books, including A History of Kentucky, a watershed text that served the state for more than half a century.
He wrote scores of scholarly articles and many of the entries in The Kentucky Encyclopedia and The Encyclopedia of Louisville.
He also was the subject of a book published the year he turned 100: Thomas D. Clark of Kentucky: An Uncommon Life in the Commonwealth.
His last work apparently will be his memoirs, more than 400 pages tentatively scheduled for publication in the spring. As recently as early June, he was editing the work from his sick bed.
Dr. Clark was known as the father of the state archives, and was responsible for securing many of its most-valued possessions. In 1936, he was roused from bed at 3 a.m. and rushed to Frankfort where -- still wearing pajamas under his clothes -- he stopped a truck from hauling away a load of state records that had been sold to a scrap paper dealer.
Those records now form the heart of the archives' 19th century holdings.
He did so much for the University Press of Kentucky that the foundation formed to raise its endowment bears his name.
Dr. Clark was the driving force behind both the Kentucky History Museum, which opened in Frankfort in 1999; and the Lexington History Museum, which opened in 2003 in the old Fayette County Courthouse.
In July 2005, the Kentucky History Museum will be renamed the Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History.
Although he was a popular professor, Dr. Clark's public image soared in the decades following his retirement. He seemed to have reached a special place in the public life of Kentucky.
Admirers said it was because he carefully chose his causes, and because he had not only studied the state's history, but lived so much of it.
Dr. Clark was called on to appear at everything from the opening of a nature center on the Kentucky River to a Fourth of July parade.
He seldom turned down an invitation to speak to a garden club, leadership group, local historical society or rural electric cooperative board. He often drove over 100 miles to give a speech, get a handshake and drive home.
He liked doing it.
"I like getting acquainted with people of this state and areas of this state," he said. "I like picking up on what they're thinking about." He also appreciated what he called "the comedy of it all." The people at service club gatherings were clock-watchers. Academic groups expected you to sound scholarly.
"When you go to speak to a group and the woman in charge gets up and introduces you as professor emy-i-ritis, you don't know if you are struck with a fatal disease or what," he said.
He was especially interested in protecting forests.
Dr. Clark owned several thousand wooded acres in South Carolina and in Eastern Kentucky.
And he loved visiting them.
"I like to get out in this timber," he said during a trip to Estill County shortly before his 95th birthday.
"I like to see what is happening, what storm damage is there? Whose footprints are on the land? To walk up this road and look at this stand of young poplars, it's a balm to my soul."
Thomas Dionysius Clark was born on July 14, 1903, in Louisville, Miss. Both sides of his family, he noted, had taken part in the great migration of the 1830s, moving from South Carolina into the Choctaw Indian country of Mississippi.
Many of the adults he knew growing up were Civil War veterans or former slaves.
"The Civil War was as real to me as if I had fought it," he said.
Louisville was a sleepy town at the headwaters of the Pearl River. "We were very rural people, locked behind muddy roads, living on subsistence farming," Dr. Clark said. "We were poor by any standard you could use, but none of us was any poorer than his neighbor."
Dr. Clark's mother was a teacher, his father a cotton farmer.
Young T.D., as he was known as a boy, quit school after the seventh grade.
He worked on a farm, then at a saw mill, then as a deck hand on a river dredge boat.
But, being a teacher's son, he returned to school and graduated from the Choctaw County Agricultural High School in Weir, Miss.
He was accepted to the school because he was big and strong and played on the football team for four years. When he arrived at the school, he had never seen or even heard of a football.
Dr. Clark received an A.B. degree from the University of Mississippi in 1928, and came to the University of Kentucky.
It was not love at first sight. He earned a master's degree and left, thinking "If I ever come back here again, it will be too soon." He headed to Duke University, where he received a doctorate. While there, he met Martha Elizabeth Turner. They were married in 1933 and had two children.
She died in 1995. In 1996, at age 93, he married Loretta Gilliam Brock, 75.
Dr. Clark taught at Memphis State and the University of Tennessee while working on the doctorate .
In 1931, UK president Frank McVey offered him a job. He would teach history half-time and spend the other half building up the school's library.
Clark was history department chairman for 23 of his 37 years at UK. Some professors seemed to resent his leadership style, and when John W. Oswald became UK president, Dr. Clark was booted from the chairman's office.
He went to Indiana University for a while, but returned to Kentucky.
In the 2003 book about Dr. Clark, his friend and associate James Klotter, now state historian, had this to say: "Kentucky would be a much poorer place historically without Tom Clark's books, but it would be an even poorer place, in all respects, without Tom Clark the man."
Reach Andy Mead at (859) 231-3319, at 1-800-950-6397, Ext. 3319, or amead@herald-leader.com.
SERVICES SET FOR THOMAS D. CLARK Funeral services for Dr. Thomas D. Clark will be at 1 p.m. Friday at First United Methodist Church, 200 West High Street, Lexington, followed by a private burial in Lexington Cemetery. Visitation is at the church from 10 a.m. until the service. W.R. Milward Mortuary-Broadway is in charge of arrangements. Memorials may be made to the Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History, 100 West Broadway, Frankfort, Ky. 40601; or the Lexington History Museum, 215 West Main Street, Lexington, Ky. 40507
Dr. Clark is survived by his wife, Loretta Gilliam Clark; a son, Thomas Bennett Clark of Lexington; a daughter, Elizabeth Clark Stone of Bowling Green; a brother, Ernest Clark of Dallas; two sisters, Wilma Sanders and Ethel Atkinson, both of Louisville, Miss.; three grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

Posted on Sun, Jul. 03, 2005
Latin music meets Irish dance at courthouse plaza
By Jim Jordan
HERALD-LEADER BUSINESS WRITER
Adults were dancing in the fountain at the courthouse plaza yesterday afternoon, but it wasn't just temperatures in the mid-80s that lured them into the cool water.
The mambo and salsa sounds of Big Maracas could be heard throughout the plaza as the nine-member band performed during Lexington's first Diverse Heritage Festival.
The festival attracted food and ethnic merchandise vendors and hundreds of local residents to what organizers hope will become an annual kickoff to Lexington's Fourth of July festivities.
Two other bands -- Rock Stars of Soul and the Trendells -- were scheduled to follow Big Maracas and provide live music until the festival ended at 11 p.m.
There also were demonstrations of Irish and Native American dancing, and displays of paintings and decorative items from various cultures.
Three Irish dancers from the McTeggart School at Arts Place were literally a last-minute addition to the program, explained Brooke Collins, 20, who danced with her sister, Lauren, 16, and Allison Asay, 18.
"We were just coming downtown to dance on a street corner like street musicians, but they asked us to dance here so we are here now," she said.
The dancers said they want people to know that Irish dancing, like that made famous by the Riverdance troupe, is being taught and performed in Lexington.
"We like to see people come up and be interested in it and ask us questions," Asay said. "It's fun to see that."
Native American dancing was demonstrated by 11-year-old Keanu Rodriguez, a Navajo who moved to Lexington about a month ago from Arizona. His mother, Karen Rodriguez said one of the dances her son demonstrated yesterday was intended to be done by the young to honor their elders for their longevity and wisdom.
Keanu was taught to dance by his uncle following the Navajo tradition of passing knowledge from generation to generation. She said her five other children are also being taught to dance by elders in their family.
"This is good education for kids instead of the drugs, alcohol and other stuff that some kids do," she said. "They learn about their own culture so when they grow up, they can pass it on to their kids."
The festival was sponsored by the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government, the Downtown Lexington Corp. and WLEX-TV (Channel 18).

Nice thread, krosejr. Keep up the nice work :).

The development in lex is pretty empressive. Awesome.

Nice thread, krosejr. Keep up the nice work :).

Thanks :)
I'll do my best.

The development in lex is pretty empressive. Awesome.


Yeah, not too bad. :)

NOW THAT IT'S FINISHED, DETOURS ARE DONE, TOO
By Terez Paylor
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
Nearby residents and members of the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet celebrated the opening of the new Leestown Road bridge yesterday, more than a week ahead of schedule.
The steel-girder bridge, which cost about $9.4 million to build, is 740 feet long and 44 feet wide. Workers began building the bridge on April 4, and because of the warm weather, they were able to finish the project 11 days ahead of schedule. Motorists had had to find alternative routes during construction.
As many as 16,000 drivers use the bridge daily.
The original bridge was an eyesore, with graffiti and trash, neighbors said.
"The old bridge was 71 years old, and it just reached the end of its useful life span," said David Thatcher, a spokesman for the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. "It wasn't an imminent danger, but if it wasn't replaced, it would be soon."
Residents are hopeful the structure will be a positive addition to the area, said Wendy Smith, who lives in the neighborhood next to the bridge and is vice president of the Melrose/ Oakpark Neighborhood Association.
"It's new and beautiful, and it'll bring a new attitude to keep the bridge and our neighborhood clean," she said. "This is going to make our neighborhood much more attractive."
Aside from the dust and traffic detours, construction caused few problems for residents, Smith said.
Although the bridge is completed, the area will remain a work zone until Aug. 1 while workers finish the Price Road approach and a ramp under the bridge.
Another major construction project will disrupt the Leestown Road/West Main Street corridor this summer. Main Street from Midland Avenue to Newtown Pike will be repaved beginning July 27. Work is scheduled between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. Mondays through Fridays, and all day on weekends. The number of lanes will be reduced while work is being done, but traffic will not be rerouted.
The project also includes repaving Newtown Pike from Main Street past Interstate 75 to Stanton Way.

By Beverly Fortune
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
The sounds of the Fourth of July probably will include splashing water from the courthouse plaza shooting fountain, which has been dry as a bone for two months.
The fountain, one of two in the plaza, was turned off during the spring, when the header cracked. The header is "the part that sends water out to the different nozzles," municipal engineer Charlie Milward said.
Before the crack could be repaired, he said, water damaged the variable-frequency drive, which helps control shooting jets of water.
Repairs to the fountain are being made by general contractor Judy Construction Co. of Cynthiana.
On Friday, Morgan Judy e-mailed Milward: "Good news. The original unit has been repaired and will be shipped to our office today."
Milward said he was optimistic that the fountain "will be up and running by the Fourth."
Less-cheerful news came from parts supplier Roman Fountains, notifying the city that the variable-frequency drive was not covered by warranty. "If they're going to ask us for money," Milward said, "I'm going to resist that."
The latest on other downtown fountains:
• A leak was repaired in the fountain at Phoenix Park, where the waiters' race takes place on the Fourth. Park visitors will find new tables and more comfortable chairs, said Jerry Hancock, enterprise superintendent in the parks department. New landscaping will be installed in the fall.
• Underwater lights in the Thoroughbred Park fountain were replaced this spring. Hancock said the "water's running and crystal clear."
• Two large fountains at the old Fayette Courthouse were painted, and another in Gratz Park cleaned.
• Refurbishing of the fountain at Triangle Park, owned by Lexington Center Corp., has been completed.

**I thought this was pretty cute so I had to post! LOL

If you're a Linda, a Lynda or a Lynnda, conference is for you
By Linda Niemi
HERALD-LEADER NEWS RESEARCHER
Throughout history, Lindas have been famous (think actress Linda Lavin) and infamous (porn star Linda Lovelace).
When a friend and editor mentioned that I should go to the L.I.N.D.A. convention and write about my experience, I decided I would fit right in, having been named Linda a long time ago by my parents (who picked the equally unassuming names of Joe and John for their other offspring).
Though reluctant, I decided to go. But before agreeing to this assignment, I did some background checking on the name, as any good librarian would do.
According to the L.I.N.D.A. Web site, the club L.I.N.D.A. was founded in 1987 by two very good friends, both (surprisingly) named Linda. They thought it would be fun to get a group of women named Linda together for a "Linda Convention."
The first Linda Convention was held in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and was attended by 160 Lindas from across the country.
The rest is history.
Only one year since 1987 has lacked a convention. Iowa, Illinois, Ohio, Missouri and Wisconsin all have hosted conventions, and the group has gone international with members from Great Britain, Australia and Norway.
I also found that Linda was in the Top 3 in a listing of favorite names for the decade of my birth (I won't say which decade) and was the No. 1 chosen name for girls the year I was born. Also, as I suspected, Linda was popular for the baby boom period roughly spanning 1946 to 1964, although by 1964 the name had dropped to 8th place in popularity.
A key to why this name became common during the boom period after World War II lies in the popularity of a few songs--- in 1944, one by Ann Ronell; in 1947, Jack Lawrence's Linda on Buddy Clark's best-selling record; in 1973, Linda on My Mind sung by Conway Twitty.
I had always suspected that Linda was a boomer name, as it seemed that everyone I met named Linda was hovering somewhere close to my own age. An exception was a Linda at work who is considerably younger than I am.
On closer examination, I found she was named after her mother's best friend from high school.
So what would it be like to be in a huge room full of women whose names are all Linda (or at least the popular derivative Lynda or the less popular Lynnda)?
I am used to being in a crowded room when someone shouts "Linda" and four or five people respond at the same time. In my own office, if you ask for Linda, two people respond. Companywide, six people share the name.
All those women named Linda -- what else will we have to talk about except how we got our names?
Sometimes, I'm grateful that my name isn't as complicated or difficult to pronounce as is my Spanish mother's name: Clementina Guadeloupe Rivera Desprez Nelle.

By Tom Martin
BUSINESS LEXINGTON
A change in direction has arrived for some 200 Lexington commuters. And with it comes a welcome boost for some and expansion plans for others.
Alltel, the local telephone, wireless, long distance, Internet and paging service company, has packed up its offices just off Nicholasville Road and moved across town.
After Fayette Mall purchased its building adjacent to the mall on Rojay Drive, city officials were concerned that Alltel might give serious consideration to moving out of Fayette County. Instead, the phone company has moved into new offices in the renovated former K-Mart on New Circle Road near Broadway. Alltel will occupy two-thirds of the building, sharing the remaining space with Goodwill Industries.
In an interview at the new site as saws whined and hammers banged, Barry Bishop, Alltel Vice President for Wire Line Operations-Kentucky, said the $3 million-dollar renovation and furnishing of the new offices came as the mall was eager to expand and as Alltel’s lease on the Rojay Drive property was due to expire. “It was really more property than we had to have,” Bishop said of the vacated space, “and we were interested in finding something that better suits our needs. The mall was very cooperative in giving us time to do that.”
Asked if employees were excited about the move, Bishop noted that many have reported to the Rojay Drive location for “ a long, long time. We’ve been in that building, depending on who you talk to, about 50 years. So a lot of them, right now, are looking as if they’ve got 50 years of stuff they’ve got to figure out how to move. Some are apprehensive, some are anxious, but I think the excitement is starting to build.”
The move provides a welcome boost to Lexington’s north side, says city economic development chief Julian Beard. “This is ideal for several reasons. One is that we’ve been trying to find somebody that would find the K-Mart building on New Circle Road appealing. The other is that this now opens space for the further expansion of Fayette Mall.”
Fayette Mall will soon break ground on its expansion into the former Alltel space. General Manager Myron Worley says the project is to include a sixteen-screen Cinemark theater projected to open in the late summer of 2006. It will also feature an open-air restaurant district. Up to five eateries are being courted with an emphasis on sidewalk seating and space for outdoor entertainment.
Beard views the mall expansion as a “huge plus” for Lexington. “You go in there on any given day, and you’ll see that most of the license plates are from other parts of central Kentucky. So this will bring even more retail dollars into the economy.”
Meanwhile, the arrival of 200 Alltel employees is welcome news to north side businesses anticipating a new lunch crowd and more commuters in search of neighborhood shops and service stations. “Alltel’s move reinforces our confidence that the north side continues to see exciting new growth,” said Alan Stein, president of the Lexington Legends. “We hope they’ll join us after work here at Applebee’s Park…We’re just a baseball toss away!”
Jun 17, 2005

By Jay McChord
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Ever wanted to be involved in a project that was a catalyst for something REALLY BIG? Ever long to tie your name or your company’s name to something that would be studied, talked about, modeled and then replicated throughout the state? Ever desire to help create something that would improve the lives and well-being of people for multiple generations to come? If the answer is yes to any or all of these questions, then let me introduce you to a project called “Building the Healthway.”
First a few facts:
FACT: Lexington is a city in transition looking for a competitive advantage and leadership role in the 21st century economy.
FACT: Lexington’s median age is 33 (with or without UK factored into the equation).
FACT: Lexington is a suburban city that relies primarily on car travel to move its residents and visitors.
FACT: Lexington is not a “walkable” community. As compared to other cities, we are woefully behind in bike and pedestrian means of getting around. Lexington has a patchwork-quilt system of bike paths that are not coordinated, connected or contiguous to anything.
FACT: Other cities have realized for decades that a strong system of trails for bikes and pedestrians are considered basic infrastructure. These cities also understand trails bring such benefits as greater public health, reduced traffic, better air quality, appreciating home values, tourism dollars and increased revenues for businesses located on or near them.
Bearing those facts in mind, and as a lifelong resident of Lexington and a City Council member serving the 9th District, I am proud to introduce this project.
“Building the Healthway” supports a five- to eight-mile continuous bike and walking trail system that will run from the Jessamine County line north past Waveland State Shrine, parallel to the railroad tracks through Shillito Park, passing through the Wellington development and encompassing the new Wellington Park. Ultimately, it can be linked to other trails through UK and downtown.
From a business perspective, the implications for building such a tract are huge. Consider that this initial system will tie thousands of residents/customers to not only Fayette Mall but WalMart, Lowes, Lexington Green, Keithshire Shopping Center, Tiverton Center and all the Reynolds Road businesses as well.
Consider also how employers can offer this trail as a benefit to their employees for exercise after work or on a lunch break. Such a benefit can be a competitive advantage and can be offered at no cost by any business finding itself in close proximity to such a trail system.
Cities all over the country recognize that a well-planned, easily accessible and inclusive trail system means not only good health but good business!
This project is designed to take seriously Gov. Fletcher’s Health Initiative and to serve as a model for not only the rest of Lexington but the entire state as well. “Building the Healthway” is also designed to be a catalyst for economic development by providing a tangible example of the positive economic effects for businesses located on or near such a trail.
With the strong support of Senator Alice Forgy Kerr, the Lexington Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, the Lexington Area Sports Authority, the Board of Health, Bluegrass Tomorrow, LFUCG’s Parks and Recreation, the Bluegrass Community Foundation, the UK H.E.E.L. Program, Kentucky American Water Company, Gold’s Gym and Pedal the Planet, we are seeing a growing number of individuals, organizations and companies who are looking to make this project a reality.
If you want to learn more, be placed on the mailing list or be involved in moving this project forward, please go to www.jaymcchord.com and click on Healthway for more information.
Jay McChord is founder and CEO of WorkplaceBuzz, LLC and is a national speaker, author and consultant. He also serves as a city council member for the 9th District.
Jun 17, 2005

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v511/krosejr/news_dom.jpg

By Tom Martin
BUSINESS LEXINGTON
There’s something people find irresistible about a waterfall. For some, it’s the gentle and steady “white noise” of water under the influence of gravity. For others, it’s a hypnotic visual delight. Some folks can’t explain it. They just write off the attraction as a “human thing.”
In an era when experiences are the economic offerings in highest demand, generating the highest value returns, supporters of a renaissance in downtown Lexington sense potential in the experiences offered by an urban waterfall. Perhaps a harbinger of the district’s coming revival, the 23-year-old landmark fountain anchoring Lexington’s Triangle Park has received a new lease on life. And without the expenditure of a single tax dollar.
The waterfall, designed by landscape architect Robert Zion, whose Paley Park offers a calming retreat from the bustle and noise of midtown Manhattan, just underwent its first extensive renovation since springing to life in 1982.
The $240,000 cost of repairs and refurbishment of lighting and waterjet systems was underwritten in full by The Triangle Foundation, the organization that funded the design and construction of Triangle Park, as well as Thoroughbred Park at Main and Midland and the skateboard feature in Woodland Park. “It’s a ‘people park,’ a restful place,” said foundation founder and developer Alex G. Campbell, Jr., referring to the leafy respite where street noise is buffered by a canopy of pear trees and a mesmerizing cascade of water. “The lighting system had become obsolete, and some other repairs were needed. We hope this work will last another 25 years.”
“Every visitor carries away with him an image of our community,” said Bill Owen, President and CEO of the Lexington Center, which overlooks the fountain and park. Discussing how a fountain can play an important role in downtown economic development, Owen noted the way the artful use of water and light leaves lasting impressions. “For the person attending a convention at Lexington Center, that image always includes Triangle Park. It is an image of beauty, tranquility, safety and hopefully, a place to which that person wants to return,” he said.
Urban planners say “water features” such as fountains, waterfalls, canals, streams and lakes add life and vitality to an area. “Think about successful water features in most downtown areas,” said Lexington developer Phil Holoubek. “They are typically surrounded by people; kids playing in the summer months; downtown workers eating their lunches any time the weather is nice...”
Holoubek, believes the presence of water features in the urban landscape indicate thoughtful economic development. “They enhance an area's quality of life, making it easier to recruit companies, workers and residents to a city center. They often cause service-based businesses such as restaurants and retail to spring up around them. They’re seen as an amenity for downtown residents, and they can add to increased property values, which of course add to property tax revenues,” he said.
Added Owen, “the commercial success of downtown and especially Lexington Center is aided immeasurably by Triangle Park and its fountains.”
The fountain restoration was completed by Congleton-Hacker Construction and included upgrading of the lighting system from the original, which had an annoying feature reminiscent of Christmas tree lights. “The important thing is, unlike the old system, if one (bulb) goes out, they don’t lose four of them all at once,” said Larry Hacker. “And it makes it a lot easier for them to change the bulbs that have burned out.”
Downtown Lexington Corporation Executive Director Rose Lucas said she is delighted with the renovation, “especially the lighting. They did a nice job of realigning the lights on shorter circuits, so we don’t have those dark gaps,” she said.
On a summer evening, it’s not unusual to find dozens of people strolling in the park; from families with giggling children to Alex Campbell himself. Bluegrass Tomorrow’s Steve Austin says the economic development aspect is important, but there is another reason to value public spaces like Triangle Park. “They are symbols of democracy that everyone is invited to enjoy equally.”

By Eli Mertens
BUSINESS LEXINGTON
Within the first few days of moving to Lexington, I knew I made the right move. Having grown up in Miami, Fla., I thought the world started and ended in the Sunshine State. Was I ever wrong!
On my first day in Lexington, I decided to just drive around and see my new home city. With a map in hand, I set off to explore my new surroundings. I stopped at a traffic light on Richmond Road with the windows rolled down and began plotting my course. The guy next to me at the stoplight saw the map in my hand, rolled down his window and asked if I needed help with directions. My mouth fell open. I could not believe how helpful this guy wanted to be. In Miami, you never even look at other drivers, much less ask them if they need help for the fear of someone cursing you out in a foreign language or possibly threatening to harm you with a deadly weapon. I smiled back at him and let him know I wasn’t lost, because I didn’t particularly know where I was going. I thanked him for the gesture and told him I had just arrived from Miami. He welcomed me to Lexington and said that this is a great place to live. Four years have passed since we moved. Our family has never been happier, and I agree that Lexington is a great place to live. I’d like to share some of my favorite reasons why I think this is a great city.
Reason #1:
People in Kentucky are very friendly. My wife and I continue to be pleasantly surprised by the kind people we meet. We can be anywhere and strike up a conversation with people we don’t even know.
Reason #2:
I love the change of seasons here, and yes, winter is my favorite, with fall a close second. Florida has only two seasons — hot and hotter. We have it great here; we get four distinct seasons, but they are mild. (No, I didn’t forget the Ice Storm of a couple of years ago.) I love nothing better then to wake up on a snowy morning and walk the dog with a hot cup of coffee.
Reason #3:
The University of Kentucky has genuinely loyal and enthusiastic fans. I love UK basketball (I was told it was a state requirement). What amazes me even more is that the UK football team receives such incredible support too. The University of Miami, which is usually in the running for a national championship every year, doesn’t get nearly the support at home games that UK does.
Reason #4:
The Lexington Farmers Market is such a treat. There’s nothing like walking through the market on an early cool spring morning, enjoying the fresh produce and the ambience of our downtown.
Reason #5:
Drive time is beyond ridiculous in Miami. On my third day of work here in Lexington, I called home to let my wife know I was still at the office and would be home late. I arrived at home at 7:30 p.m., and my wife looked at me and smiled. She said, “What are you doing home so early?” It wasn’t long ago that 7:30 p.m. would have been early, because it would take an hour and a half to drive 10 miles in rush-hour traffic. I still laugh when I hear the radio traffic updates over the airwaves here in the Bluegrass.
There are certainly many more reasons to love our new home, and they include Kentucky bourbon, Bluegrass music, Ashley Judd and many more that space does not allow to list.
It is great to call the Bluegrass home.
Eli Mertens is publisher for TravelHost of the Bluegrass.
Jul 1, 2005

One stop from the world
By Tom Martin
Business Lexington
It seems the airline industry is a lot like nature; neither ever found a vacuum it could resist filling. And according to American Eagle Airlines CEO Peter Bowler, that is how Lexington landed the services of the world's largest regional air carrier.
The American Eagle logo arrived at Blue Grass Airport on May 1, along with the airline's distinctive red, white and blue 50-seat regional jets and access to American's hubs at Dallas/Fort Worth and Chicago's O'Hare International Airports. "One stop from the world," as American Eagle ads tout.
"We're delighted to be coming into Lexington," said Bowler. "The answer to �Why now?' is a combination of factors. The more important one is the fact that Delta Airlines retrenched from their Dallas hub several months ago. We saw a great opportunity to step in and take over that route, which they vacated. Having made that decision, then it made sense to link Lexington to our other big middle-of-the-country hub in Chicago at O'Hare."
American Eagle is offering three daily 2-hour (each way) round trip flights to and from Dallas/Fort Worth and two daily 1-hour round trips on the Chicago route. The hubs provide connections between hundreds of destinations and flights throughout the American Eagle/American Airlines route network, including American's new nonstop service between Chicago and Nagoya, Japan.
Catering to business travelers
According to Blue Grass Airport's Tom Tyra, most Lexington passengers � 65 percent -- travel for business. "Lexington is an attractive business community," said Bowler. "A number of our important accounts have traffic into and out of the Lexington area."
American's connecting hubs at Dallas and Chicago, Lexington's number one and number three destinations respectively, offer area travelers access to over 250 cities in 40 countries on 3,800 daily flights.
Turboboost to business
"American Eagle/American Airline service to Blue Grass Airport is an excellent addition and perfect compliment joining our other key airline partners," said Commerce Lexington President Bob Quick. "Commerce Lexington Inc. recognizes the importance of quality air service in our economic development efforts to retain existing business and to attract new companies."
CEO Bowler views regional air service as key to economic growth in mid-sized cities such as Lexington. "Having access to one or more major hubs is attractive to businesses looking for a convenient location to establish a headquarters or regional office combined with the quality of life that a Lexington offers."
No puddle jumpers
American Eagle will deploy 15 new aircraft in 2005. Despite competition among dozens of cities for the scarce new aircraft, two of the planes have been allocated to Lexington. The city is one of the few new U.S. markets American has entered in this time of industry downsizing.
Instead of the turbo-prop aircraft familiar to Blue Grass travelers, American Eagle is flying Brazilian manufactured Embraer EJR-145 and 140 jets on its Lexington routes. "The regional jets are preferred by the customer because they offer a smoother ride; they can get above weather; they can fly a longer distance; they cruise at a faster speed; and they are very young, fresh airplanes," said Bowler. Passengers will board by stairs for the first few months of service. American Eagle spokesperson Tami McLallen said the airline is in the process of securing a jetbridge at Blue Grass Airport and plans to have it available prior to the winter weather season.
According to the American Eagle chief, the recent spike in jet fuel prices has had a "pretty severe impact" on regional carriers. "After employee salaries, fuel is our biggest cost and it's been growing at a frightening pace," said Bowler. Even so, he did not foresee any immediate additional impact on fares.
Lookin' lively
American Eagle will share the Blue Grass tarmac with a host of other airlines. Also providing service from Lexington are Delta, Continental Express, US Airways Express, Northwest Airlink and United Express.
May 6, 2005

By Tom Martin
Business Lexington
For years, companies nationwide have eagerly awaited the reopening of Washington’s Reagan National Airport to private aircraft. Now they can once again reach Capitol Hill — by way of Lexington, Kentucky.
“There are only 12 airports in the nation doing this and we are the only one in this part of the nation,” the words of Tom Tyra, director of marketing for Lexington Blue Grass Airport, express what it means to central Kentucky that Blue Grass Airport has been designated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as a “security gateway” for private aircraft destined for Washington’s Reagan National Airport (DCA). “The economic development side of this is that if you want to fly into DCA on a private aircraft, you must first make a stop in Lexington to get security clearance by Homeland Security,” said Tyra. “That means more daily flights and companies from around the region will need to come to Lexington to operate their charter flights. For many companies the ability to jet in and jet out may place Lexington higher on the list for a new site location.”
They have words for this: Bingo; ca-ching; holy cow…
Due to its close proximity to the federal district, Reagan National is the airport-of-choice for those flying into Washington. Private planes that had been arriving at a rate of 660 per day prior to September 11, 2001, were barred from flying into DCA immediately following the terrorist attacks.
“The idea is to re-open this airport (to private aircraft), but it being so close to targets, it’s quite a bit of trust that the government’s placing in the folks at the (Lexington) airport,” said 5th District Congressman Hal Rogers, chairman of the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee. In this initial phase, flights into DCA will be limited to 48 per day, Rogers said. “We all are a little bit disappointed that there are so many restrictions placed on planes before they can land here. But when you realize that this has to be vetted through so many security agencies — not the least of which is Secret Service — to protect the White House and the Capitol and Pentagon and all of the targets that are seconds away from an approach at Reagan, when you consider all of that, these restrictions are not illogical,” said Rogers.
A glance at the list of gateway airports can inspire double-takes: Seattle-Tacoma, Wash.; Boston Logan; Houston Hobby; White Plains; LaGuardia, N.Y.; Chicago Midway; Minneapolis/St.Paul, Minn.; West Palm Beach, Fla.; San Francisco, Calif.; Teterboro Airport, N.J.; Philadelphia, Penn.; Lexington Blue Grass.
“We have to think about what got us here,” said Commerce Lexington president Bob Quick, offering a nod to airport Executive Director Michael Gobb. “It was people at the airport who could’ve said ‘we don’t have an opportunity here because we’re competing against giants in our industry — the big airports.’ Instead, Lexington has become a model for how we screen baggage and move people through and offers a level of convenience that isn’t found at the major airports,” said Quick. “And they built on that by keeping it in front of Congress and by keeping it in front of the world — letting people know we have a very convenient airport to go through. And now they’ve parlayed that from commercial aviation — passenger service —to the general aviation market.”
In 2002, Congress mandated all 429 commercial service airports in the nation to enact programs that screen 100 percent of baggage checked at the ticket counters. With limited space, and the prospect of having to install an in-lobby system of multiple large explosive detection machines placed adjacent to its ticket counters, Blue Grass Airport decided to design its own system. The result, an “in-line” system, turned out to be so efficient that, according to airport officials, passengers checking-in at Blue Grass do nothing different than they did prior to 2001. But their bags are undergoing significant screening with the most modern equipment available. At the time the system was installed in December of 2002, LEX was one of five airports in the nation and the smallest airport to offer an in-line system. Only eight airports now offer in-line systems. Congress and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) have been very interested in the technology and it has become a model for what the government would like all airports to adopt in the future.
LEX officials believe the convenience and ease offered by the airport in general and the security system in particular combine with strategic geographic location to make Blue Grass airport one of the most desirable among the dozen TSA approved “gateway” airports.
"This (Washington) is a very important market for a lot of businesses,” said Dan Hubbard, spokesman for the National Business Aviation Association. “Being able to fly right into that market is a very important issue for them." He added that the plan channels through Lexington many who might not otherwise experience the Blue Grass. “Undoubtedly there will be company executives coming into this market, but also other kinds of business people (such as sales and management executives)."
Airport Director Gobb views the new “gateway” designation as a key to attracting new business and employers to Central Kentucky. “When you look at the reputation the region is developing in the areas of security, convenience, amenities to welcome new businesses, the way we support those companies … each one of these pieces goes together as a very viable proposal for any company looking at expanding their business or relocating their business.”
Business Lexington Staff Writer Susan Baniak contributed to this article.
Jun 3, 2005

By Tom Martin and Linda Hinchcliffe
Business Lexington
Lexington's leaders are not shy about keeping up with the Joneses. For sixty consecutive years, large groups of them have taken a few days away from their "day jobs" to trek to some other city in search of ideas that might apply back home. This is how Lexington came to have such things as "Thursday Nite Live," The Hope Center, The Downtown Redevelopment Authority, Minority Business Development and town/gown relations - to name only a few.
Commerce Lexington's 2005 Annual Leadership Visit took 192 representatives and leaders from Kentucky's Bluegrass Region on a three-day exploration of Providence, R.I. Business Lexington's Linda Hinchcliffe went along. When Linda returned, we were waiting, notebooks in hand: BizLex: Linda, how would you describe the mood among the crowd making this trip?
Hinchcliffe: Everyone was excited to be there and very curious about what they would see and hear. I'd have to say the most important single attitude that was shared by everybody was openness to whatever suggestions might be offered.
BizLex: What stands out in your mind as the single most important accomplishment Providence had to offer as an example of what might be applied in Lexington?
Hinchcliffe: Their determination to open up the downtown; make it a people-friendly place; make it vital again, and their absolutely creative ways of approaching that. They had a willingness to make that a long-term goal, not just a quick fix, which takes a lot of patience all around.
BizLex: You mentioned their creativity. Any examples?
Hinchcliffe: They actually were moving a major highway, because as it exists, it bisects the city, causing traffic flow problems and dividing the city in more ways than one.
They also uncovered a river that in the past had been a polluted, smelly unpleasant presence. They opened it up, cleaned it up and actually transformed it into an attraction!
BizLex: What is downtown Providence like?
Hinchcliffe: Downtown Providence , right now, is a city in transition. They have not completed their plans, but they certainly have made it more pedestrian-friendly. They have taken advantage of what the universities and schools have to offer. For example, the expertise of the culinary school at Johnson & Wales University is reflected in the offerings of restaurants in a restored federal district of the city.
BizLex: In what ways are Providence and Lexington similar?
Hinchcliffe: The Bluegrass region holds roughly the same population as the entire state of Rhode Island. Each is rich in educational institutions; each is determined to maintain its historic identity by actively preserving architectural gems; each has issues with health care and public education; each is dealing with a huge influx of Hispanic population and all of the associated cultural challenges. Both cities are interested in pursuing public/private partnerships to accomplish civic projects that might otherwise be out of reach. The one similarity that really caught my attention: they share our concern about "brain drain."
BizLex: Did any particular presentation strike you as especially relevant to our circumstances here in Lexington? Hinchcliffe: The "Young and the Restless" presentation. That was about the loss of young talent and how to get them vested in the community early on so that if and when they do leave, they eventually feel the draw to return or, better still, choose not to leave in the first place.
BizLex: Did the Lexington delegation discuss any potential turning points on the horizon?
Hinchcliffe: Yes, they did. We're waiting to hear if Lexington will be selected to host the 2010 World Equestrian Games. The economic implications are huge. If Lexington is chosen, leaders seemed unanimous that the handling should be approached with great care. Hosting the games could qualify us for vast improvements that would establish the region globally as "the" venue for such high-profile events.
Regardless of the program discussed, the Providence leaders stressed the need for the implementation of a scorecard system, vital in tracking the effectiveness of whatever program was being executed.�Measurements that tracked the progression of each project were fundamental in determining what methods worked most effectively.
Time was also set aside to introduce a program new to Lexington and its surroundings, which is based on a successful program already working within the Louisville area. Bluegrass Works.net is designed to meet the needs of local business in the areas of workforce development and the recruitment of top talent. Rob Rumpke, chairman of the Bluegrass Workforce Investment Board, and Lyle Hanna, managing director of Palmer & Cay, unveiled the initiative.
The program is poised to coordinate employer needs with workforce development and also to develop a unified web presence, including a job portal, service providers and information regarding local employers. A tentative launch date was proposed for early September. Excited about this new program, Rumpke and Hanna said they are looking forward to building stronger business involvement in structuring the workforce.
May 20, 2005

By Tom Martin
Business Lexington
The re-routing of Rose Street to accommodate the construction of a new UK Hospital complex has won the approval of the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council. The council voted unanimously, with two members abstaining, to allow the University to begin construction of a new 1,000-car parking structure. The move also clears the way to begin architectural and engineering work for the new medical center.
“We are delighted by the council's leadership on this critically important project for Lexington and the commonwealth,” said Dr. Michael Karpf, Executive Vice President for Health Affairs at UK. “This action sets an important framework as UK and Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government work together to improve the Bluegrass region in the future.”
Many jobs, big bucks
According to projections provided by UK, short-term spending during construction will create 1,600 jobs and generate a cumulative construction impact of more than $562 million. University documents say the completed project is expected to create 1,300 professional and service jobs and generate an average annual economic impact of over $92 million.
What council vote sets in motion
Fifth District LFUCG Councilman Bill Farmer said the final vote to re-route Rose Street won’t come until August of 2006. “We want to make sure that all of the things that they say they’re going to do will be done by that time so that the closure itself won’t cause a huge problem,” he said.
The traffic proposal approved by council includes the following:
# Creation of a new connector street (Virginia Avenue Extension) from the Virginia Avenue/Limestone Street intersection to Rose Street;
# Re-routing of Rose Street traffic via Virginia Avenue Extension;
# Closure of Rose Street from Huguelet Drive to Limestone Street;
# Elimination of the traffic signal at the Washington Avenue-Rose Street intersection;
# Creation of a circular drive (off Limestone Street) to provide a new hospital “front door”;
# Installation of new traffic signals on Limestone Street at Conn Terrace and Transcript Avenue;
# Improved coordinated signal operations to enhance pedestrian safety;
# Restricted access entry point for emergency vehicles (off Limestone Street);
# Changes to one-way traffic patterns on Conn Terrace and Transcript Avenue; and
# Air rights encroachment permit over Limestone Street for a pedway from the new garage to the hospital.
Minimal impact on “through” traffic
Studies conducted by the traffic engineering firm of Wilbur Smith and Associates have determined that the peak traffic flow now using Rose Street is comprised mostly of vehicles destined for or departing from the Medical Center and campus as opposed to “through-bound” community traffic. The study concluded that “the needs of this traffic can be effectively handled by implementing the proposal at hand without negatively impacting overall community movements.”
Farmer said the temporary inconvenience of the re-routing construction will lead to a permanent improvement for the entire city. “This is creating 1,300 high-paying jobs, quality jobs, renewable jobs, jobs that won’t evaporate, jobs that will multiply along with the demand for medical services as our aging population continues to increase.”
Karpf said the university’s goal “is for Kentuckians to be able to wake up in the morning in any part of our commonwealth and know that no matter how serious their health concerns are, they can come to UK HealthCare for the best in complex, specialty treatment.”
University officials say the initial site preparation is expected to begin late in 2005. The overall project is intended to be completed in 2009 and is anticipated to cost $375 million. That pricetag would make it the largest construction project ever to take place at UK and one of the largest undertaken in this region.
Jun 3, 2005

It will be used to support patrols
By Michelle Ku
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
Lexington's finest will soon be protecting the city from the skies -- in a surplus military helicopter.
The U.S. government is donating an OH-58C, a four-seat jet helicopter, to the police department for use in patrol support and special operation assignments.
The helicopter, the police department's first, will be stored at Blue Grass Airport.
The Urban County Council gave its initial acceptance of the helicopter donation yesterday. Final approval is scheduled to come Tuesday.
Lexington has needed a helicopter for some time, said Councilman Ed Lane, who has talked about purchasing a police helicopter for several months. "We have about 280 square miles to cover, and to not have a helicopter is really sort of amazing."
Police Chief Anthany Beatty applied to receive a surplus helicopter from the federal government about three years ago, said Assistant Chief Bill Thompson. The department was notified a helicopter was available last month.
The division of police has three certified helicopter pilots who can operate the bird, valued at $190,000. A new helicopter could cost $500,000.
Thompson said he didn't know the age of the helicopter. Although the machine is free, it's unclear exactly how much it will cost to operate, maintain and insure. A council committee will research those costs.
Police can use the helicopter in a number of situations, including tracking a moving suspect, surveying a crime scene and providing alternate routes for traffic following a large scene disaster or traffic accident, Thompson said.
The helicopter has thermal imaging technology which will give police the capability to search for a suspect on the ground at night, Lane said.
It will also help reduce the number of police chases in Lexington, increasing citizen safety, Lane said.
"If somebody holds up a bank or if someone has broken the law and are speeding away, rather than using the patrol car to chase them, you take the helicopter and follow them in the air," Lane said. "When it stops, you can tell the patrol car where to go."
The helicopter the city will receive is currently in Alabama and will be delivered within the next three weeks, Thompson said.
Once it's in Lexington, it will not be ready for flight immediately. The helicopter will first have to be equipped with police radios.
The helicopter is one of several new high-tech tools the police department has acquired recently. Since Beatty became chief in 2001, the police department has purchased Taser stun guns, mobile data units for police cruisers, and Segways, motorized scooters.
"We're probably one of the largest agencies that does not have an air support unit of any type," Thompson said.

Law enforcement agencies in Kentucky that have helicopters include the Kentucky State Police and the Scott County Sheriff's Office.

KSP has a fleet of aircraft including three helicopters, two of which were military surplus, said Capt. Lisa Rudzinski, a Kentucky State Police spokeswoman
KSP's fleet is used for a number of activities, including transporting Gov. Ernie Fletcher, eradicating marijuana and taking aerial photographs of crime scenes, Rudzinski said.
"We as a department feel air support is necessary for the job," Rudzinski said. "We're very pleased with our air support, and obviously we'd like more."

The Urban County Council yesterday gave final approval to a shorthand number -- 311 -- for citizens to call to lodge non-emergency complaints or questions concerning local government. The 311 number will complement LexCall, 425-2255, the city's centralized information center for residents to call with problems, requests or questions regarding services. Sometimes callers trying to reach LexCall can't remember the number and dial 911 instead. The goal of the 311 service is to reduce the number of non-emergency calls going to 911. The 311 service still needs to be approved by the Public Service Commission.

LAST DAY SLATED FOR SEPTEMBER; REDEVELOPMENT OF MALL SITE POSSIBLE
By Jim Jordan
HERALD-LEADER BUSINESS WRITER
Dillard's is closing its Lexington Mall store in September, clearing the way for the possible redevelopment of the 30-acre site at Richmond and New Circle roads.
"We are planning our last day of business around the end of September," said Mark Gastman, Dillard's vice president of stores. "We will phase out the merchandise we have currently and liquidate it."
The store has about 200 employees who were told at a staff meeting early yesterday that they can stay with the company by joining one of Dillard's two remaining Lexington stores at Turfland Mall and Fayette Mall, Gastman said in an interview.
"Every employee will have the opportunity to be transferred to another store in Lexington," he said. "We think that's very important."
Dillard's executives cited slumping sales and what Gastman called the "frustrating situation with the mall" as reasons for the closing.
Dillard's spokeswoman Julie Bull said the Lexington Mall store is no longer achieving its mission of being a "fashion destination."
"Fashion is our business," she said. "Our store there has not met our expectations. We do not believe the results would improve by remaining open in the current format."
The company has been closing underperforming stores for several years to boost its overall performance, Bull said. "Consistent with our philosophy to close underperforming locations, we made the decision to close" at Lexington Mall.
Dillard's says it can serve the market through its stores at Fayette and Turfland malls.
"We are particularly pleased with the progress Fayette Mall has made in improving that center," Bull said. "We are very pleased with Lexington and happy to be there."
Until the 1990s, the Dillard's two-story department store at Lexington Mall anchored a thriving retail center filled with a variety of smaller stores. The mall opened in 1974.
Retailers began leaving the mall in recent years and were not replaced. The mall's owner -- an investor group affiliated with Saul Centers Inc., which operates the mall -- declined to disclose its plans for the property.
The company's Web site says redevelopment is planned, but it gives no details.
Dillard's is now the only retailer left in the mall's main building, which totals 295,723 square feet.
In the interview yesterday, Gastman did not rule out the possibility that Dillard's will open another store to replace the Lexington Mall store.
"We feel very good about the Lexington market as a whole," he said. "It's a growth market for us.
"We're always looking for opportunities, but we are looking for opportunities in other places (besides Lexington Mall)."
Dillard's, based in Little Rock, Ark., became Lexington's largest retailer in 1998 when it acquired Mercantile Stores Co., owner of three McAlpin's department stores in Lexington.
As of June 3, Dillard's had 53,000 employees and 329 stores in 29 states. Sales for the 22 weeks ended July 2 were down about 1 percent at $2.95 billion.
The company's stock (DDS: NYSE) closed yesterday at $23.88 a share, up 58 cents from Thursday's close.
Deal with Home Depot Existing building will remain.

CITY WANTS $675,000 TO BUILD STREET TO PROPOSED LIBERTY ROAD SCHOOL
By Raviya H. Ismail
HERALD-LEADER EDUCATION WRITER
At the end of a cul-de-sac on Star Shoot Parkway sits 15 acres meant for a new elementary school.
But the land -- surrounded by new subdivisions and commercial development on a portion of the former Hamburg Place farm -- remains vacant, and residents in the southeast section of Lexington wait for a school that officials say is on the horizon.
In 2001, the Madden family, owners of Hamburg Place, gave a total of 50 acres to the city, including land for the school. But four years later, the city and school board still haven't ironed out a deal to make the Liberty Road Elementary School a reality.
What stands in the way is money -- specifically, $675,000 the city wants to build a road to the school, connecting Star Shoot Parkway to Liberty Road.
School officials say they don't think the school district should have to pay that much to put a school on donated land. They want the city to sell the land to the district for $1, but that would require changing a four-year-old contract.
City officials say they don't know whether the city can afford to foot the bill for the road. They hope to get back with the school district in August on ways to resolve the issue.
Meanwhile, school officials have had to draft and redraft school boundaries in attempts to accommodate children in that area of town, one of the fastest growing in Lexington. Many parents in the area say they're frustrated with the uncertainty.
"There's an issue of trust in the neighborhoods," said Vonda Blancett, an Autumn Ridge resident. "That's why a lot of (parents) are staying out of it and keeping their children in private schools or magnet programs."
'Strong sentiment'
The Maddens donated the property to the Urban County Government, but the family wanted a 15-acre chunk to go toward a school. In an agreement all three parties -- the Maddens, the school board and the city -- consented to in 2001, money for the road would be paid to the city, which in turn would build the road.
Patrick Madden said the family didn't donate the land directly to the school board because they were told they had to go through the city.
"That's the way the (former) mayor (Pam Miller) wanted to structure the transaction at the time," said Madden. "I complied as long as I knew the school board had the right to acquire the land on favorable terms from the city."
But Fayette Superintendent Stu Silberman said that today "there is a very strong sentiment on the board that we shouldn't be paying for property that was donated to us."
"We are in the process right now of working with the mayor to see if there's some way for them to sell that property for a dollar rather than the original agreement," said Silberman. "It's not a new hold-up ... this goes back to 2000 and the district just wasn't ready to build Liberty at that time."
Silberman came on board as superintendent last summer, and was not present during the original deal. If the contract changes, all three parties must also agree with the new terms. As outlined in the deed, the school board and city have until March 2006 to complete negotiations. After that, the land will go back to the city and can only be used as a public park.
Milton Dohoney, chief administrative officer for the city, said the issue was raised six weeks ago, and Silberman and Mayor Teresa Isaac have met to discuss the topic.
"We have not yet reached a position as to whether we will agree to that or not," said Dohoney. "One of the challenges we would face is if the (city council) agrees to give the school system 15 acres for a dollar, then it's unclear where we would come up with $675,000 to build a road."
Dohoney added that many on the council who were not on board at the time of the deal were unaware of the agreement between the school board and city. "Leading up to now, the school system has never approached the city and said, we want to execute this deal," he said.
Several redistricting plans
While the city and school district work out the land transfer, the school system has been through several versions of a redistricting plan to handle students in southeast Lexington.
A recent redistricting proposal divides many of the Andover area subdivisions off Todds Road and nearby streets into those that attend the Athens-Chilesburg Elementary School that is scheduled to open fall 2006 at the corner of Jouett Creek and Hayes Boulevard, and those that will eventually attend the Liberty Road school, slated to open in fall 2008. Maximum capacity at both Athens-Chilesburg and Liberty Road schools will be 650 students.
The Liberty Road school is on the list of capital projects for the school district. Until it's built, most students slated to go there will continue to travel to Yates Elementary School on East New Circle Road.
"The principal outcome of this plan is a great deal of uncertainty," said Ernie Stamper, a six-year resident of the Andover Forest neighborhood. "People can sense the plan isn't durable, it's going to be changed again ... so there is only minimal comfort that they told us we are going to definitely be in Liberty Road. Because if you can't count on prior plans, how can you count on a current plan?"
The Todds Road neighborhoods -- which include the Andover Forest, Mapleleaf, Forest Hills, Andover Hills, Walnut Ridge, Brighton Woods, Brighton East, Banbury Hunt and Autumn Ridge subdivisions -- all wanted to go to the new Athens-Chilesburg school. The proposal assigns only Andover Hills, Walnut Ridge and Brighton Woods to the new school.
Mapleleaf would attend Breckinridge Elementary on Saint Mathilda Drive and the remaining neighborhoods would stay at Yates. They would then go to the Liberty Road school when it opens.
But school board officials cannot agree on a final redistricting plan.
For example, initially the Stuart Hall neighborhood and two nearby subdivisions, which are off Hays Boulevard near the Athens-Chilesburg school, were included in the draft proposal of those that would attend that school. At a June 27 meeting the board decided to take those neighborhoods out of the attendance zone, only allowing for children already attending the Athens school to be "grandfathered" in.
Last week the board changed course and considered allowing all children in those neighborhoods to attend the new Athens-Chilesburg school. School officials may vote on that change at the next school board meeting on July 25.
"What I would hope for is that the process will continue enough that we will finally see some detailed numbers and justifications about why there was a need to change and how they are going to combat the continued growth in this area in a very logical way and (base it) upon real numbers," said Stamper.
'Logical plan'
School officials defend the boundary changes.
"It's a logical plan based on limited resources," said Bob Joice, attendance analyst for the school district. "We can't afford to build schools out there and we can't afford to build more than one right now. Neighborhood schools are an unrealistically expensive idea in Lexington."
Madden said "neighborhood schools is what everybody wants; you want to go a school close to where you live." Madden said his family donated the land with the unwritten understanding that those living in Hamburg developments would attend the Liberty Road school when it opens.
But according to the redistricting proposal, the undeveloped Hamburg areas are "grayed out," which means they are assigned to Yates but could be reassigned in the near future.
The undeveloped portion of Hamburg could go to Liberty Road, but only if there is still room, school officials said.
Joice said children from the Andover Forest, Forest Hill, Autumn Ridge, Brighton East, Banbury Hunt and Mapleleaf neighborhoods are projected at 92 students at Yates and Breckinridge schools for the 2005-2006 year and 160 when the Liberty Road school opens in 2008.
"Although there's been a lot of growth of housing, the enrollment is not so obviously growing," said Joice. "Unless trends change, the 35 elementary schools we have, in terms of numbers, is sufficient."
The redistricting proposal is contingent upon acquiring the Liberty Road land soon and upon plans for the school to open in three years. Silberman said school officials would have to acquire property elsewhere if a deal with the city doesn't work out.
"It would really be a great partnership to be able to move this whole thing forward," Silberman said. "... If that doesn't work out, we've got to look at some of the other options that are out there."

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v511/krosejr/147799431606.jpg
Crews installed a rooftop garden on a fifth-floor patio at the Central Bank Building, 300 West Vine Street.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v511/krosejr/147799455920.jpg
A crane hoisted a tree as crews built the rooftop garden at the Central Bank Building. Two lanes of West Vine Street were closed during the installation, most of which was finished Sunday, July 17.


BANK BUILDING'S ROOFTOP GARDEN IS A REAL GREEN INVESTMENT
HERALD-LEADER STAFF REPORT
With nary a network camera crew in sight, a downtown Lexington office building underwent its own extreme makeover yesterday morning.
Henkel Denmark landscape architects began converting a barren fifth-floor patio on the Central Bank building at 300 West Vine Street into a rooftop garden.
A crane hoisted at least a half-dozen trees, two reproductions of Frank Lloyd Wright fountains and tropical hardwood benches to the fifth floor from the ground below.
Two lanes of West Vine Street were closed to accommodate the installation.
Also added was a marble counter for people to lean on while looking out over the city.
Bill Henkel, of Henkel Denmark, said brass planters from Denmark are on the way.
The majority of the work was completed yesterday, Henkel said, adding that the project will be completed once the planters arrive.

Home Depot plan calls for new road, more parking
By Jim Jordan
HERALD-LEADER BUSINESS WRITER
The vacant Dillard's Home Store at Lexington Mall will be torn down if the Urban County Planning Commission approves a new development plan for the property.
The plan, filed by The Home Depot, also calls for the mall's entrance on Richmond Road near New Circle Road to be rebuilt as the beginning of a 30-foot-wide driveway that would run past the east end of the mall to connect with Woodhill Drive behind the main building.
A 30-foot-wide side road would connect the driveway with Perkins Family Restaurant and The Home Depot store.
The planning commission is expected to consider the proposal in August.
The plan involves only the 15 acres owned by The Home Depot. The remaining 31 acres are owned by Saul Holdings L.P., which has said it will redevelop the mall but has not submitted a plan for approval by city planners.
Home Depot spokesman Yancey Casey said details were still being worked out yesterday and it was not clear when the demolition might begin.
Saul representatives could not be reached for comment yesterday.
The new plan shows that the 56,660-square-foot Dillard's Home Store site would be used for parking after the building is torn down.
The plan reflects an out-of-court agreement between Home Depot and Saul, which manages the nearly vacant mall building. The last tenant, Dillard's department store, is scheduled to close in September.
The agreement resolves a nine-year legal dispute over a 1969 land-use plan that required all major buildings on the mall property to be connected. Home Depot ignored the plan, built a free-standing store in 1997, and was sued by Saul. A Kentucky Supreme Court ruling ended the battle earlier this year.
To avoid being forced to tear down its store, Home Depot agreed to cooperate with Saul in redeveloping the mall by allowing the entire 46-acre site to be considered as one parcel to meet parking and greenspace requirements.
The new plan allocates development rights to each party. Home Depot may have as much as 128,658 square feet of building space, the plan says. It has a 101,998-square-foot store, plus 30,400 square feet in two adjacent garden centers.
Saul, which currently has 317,161 square feet in the main building, may have as much as 91,500 more square feet because the current mall has more than enough parking, the plan says.

I was hoping that Lexington would take a more urban route with the Lexington Mall site....with alot of sites.

I was hoping that Lexington would take a more urban route with the Lexington Mall site....with alot of sites.

I hear ya man...I was hoping for the same thing.

COMMENTARY
By Cheryl Truman
HERALD-LEADER COLUMNIST
Tacky McMansion dwellers versus snooty downtown denizens: Why do you live where you do?
Even more important, why do you feel so strongly that those who live elsewhere are doing a bad thing?
I want to start a reader dialogue about this.
In the course of writing columns these past few years, I've noticed that if I want to court violent reader reaction, I simply have to write a column that mentions both downtown and the suburbs. Then, if I want to get letters claiming that I've raised my family on chain restaurant potato skins and tasteless tomatoes, I simply write that:

• "Sir Barton Way is Lexington's new Main Street." This drives the downtown defenders crazy, because they believe that intelligent residential life is firmly enclosed within New Circle Road. To their minds, suburbanites must be stupid, or in love with tacky chain restaurants and tasteless vegetables, or both.

Privately, downtowners think suburbanites just didn't pay attention in college.

In contrast, if I want to lure snide comments from the suburbs, I write:

• "Far-flung suburban development is hobbling public schools close to Lexington's downtown."

This makes the give-me-my-school-right-now suburbanites grit their teeth and send me inflammatory e-mails about how nobody goes downtown anymore but lawyers, bankers and journalists. The McMansion owners believe that it's their tax money that goes to subsidize those snooty freeloaders downtown, delaying serv-ices -- especially roads and schools -- that they're convinced they deserve.

Privately, suburbanites think they deserve such services more than poor people, but they will never say so in public. They also think that downtown defenders took college way too seriously and need to lighten up.

Crass generalizations, you say? Then tell me different.

Here are your prompts. My contact information appears below. Responses will run in a future column. Please include your full name, address and telephone number in case I need to contact you.

Prompt No. 1: "I live downtown because of (insert attractions here). Here's what I think of the suburbs and those who live in them: (Insert remarks about your friends in suburbia here)."

Prompt No. 2: "I live in the suburbs because of (insert attractions here). Here's what I think of downtown and those who live there: (Insert kind words about colleagues who live downtown here)."

Plainly, we're living in a city divided, not always by income or race, but by housing styles. I want you to tell me just how divided we are, and whether there's any common ground between the farmland-gobbling Vinyl Pirates and the city-center-hugging Granola Grotto.

By Andy Mead
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
The entrance to a scientifically important cave in southwest Lexington can be covered with dirt before homes are built nearby, the Urban County Planning Commission decided yesterday.
City attorneys are negotiating with developer Tim Haymaker for an agreement that would allow officials to open Crystal Cave with a backhoe if safety problems, such as sinkholes, develop sometime in the future.
But ongoing research in the cave that some of the University of Kentucky's leading scientists had hoped for will not be included in the agreement.
Shortly before their vote, commission members were given a letter from the scientists, who promoted the idea that research in the middle of a neighborhood "could become a national model for environmentally friendly development."
They also were given a letter from UK President Lee Todd, saying that the scientists didn't speak for the university.
"As a general rule, the university does not involve itself in issues concerning private property ..." Todd wrote.
The cave, which has been closed most of the last several decades, lies under one of the last areas to be developed in Beaumont Centre near Man o' War Boulevard.
Several commission members said yesterday that they were interested in seeing research take place. "This is a unique natural resource ... and we've got a duty to protect it," said Linda Godfrey.
But Haymaker's attorney, Job "Darby" Turner, insisted that the government had no right to place such a requirement on private land.
Before the unanimous vote that cleared the way for lots to be sold and building permits sought, chairman Dallum Harper noted that the commission can accomplish more when it has cooperation from developers than when it tries to force them to do things. "That is where we find ourselves at this particular point," Harper said.
There might be one research project before the cave is closed. Turner said Haymaker is negotiating with Harry Rowe, a University of Kentucky geographer, for a project that could take place over a year while homes are being built.
Rowe could not be reached for comment yesterday. But Jim Cobb, who is state geologist and director of the Kentucky Geological Survey, said Rowe and a student from Western Kentucky University want to take samples of cave rocks and monitor cave conditions.
"His analysis will provide a record of climate change for the Inner Bluegrass region extending back tens of thousands of years," Cobb said in a letter to Haymaker that was written in support of Rowe's proposed work.
Commission members thought they had cleared the way for negotiations leading to a research agreement during a meeting in May 2004. Turner told the commission that the relationship between Haymaker and two cave experts who attended that meeting "is pretty sour." In the end, commission members settled for Turner's assurances that covering the cave entrance with 5 feet of dirt wouldn't permanently end the chance of research.
Randy Paylor, who works for the geological survey and is one of the experts who had tangled with Haymaker, told the commission he hoped an agreement could be worked out with the homeowners' association that will eventually own undeveloped land directly over the cave.
"Scientists are patient people," he said.
Turner said he doubted owners of the new homes would ever agree to allow research.
Crystal Cave apparently got its name from the purple fluorite crystals that are among several mineral veins running through its limestone walls.
The cave has impressive formations but also a lot of mud. A stream runs through parts of it.
Nearly a mile was mapped before the entrance was closed about 1970. It was considered to be Fayette County's second-longest cave, behind Russell Cave, but more recent explorations might have moved it up to No. 1.
A UK entomologist, Harrison Garman, found two rare beetle species there several decades ago.
One, called Garman's cave beetle, or Pseudanophthalmus horni, has been found only in six caves in Fayette County and one in Scott County.
Fossils thought to be from animals that roamed Kentucky during the Pleistocene epoch (1.8 million to 11,000 years ago), including the tooth of a long-extinct horse, also have been found.

***Just across the Lexington/Fayette line....

PLANS TO TURN FARM'S HOUSE INTO HOME FOR TOURISTS
HERALD-LEADER STAFF REPORT
The owner of the Woodford County castle said yesterday he plans to turn a nearby farmhouse into a tourist home.
Thomas R. Post of Miami purchased Crescent Hill Farm on Shannon Run Road from the Stilz family, long-time Woodford County residents. He paid more than $3.5 million for the 200-acre property.
Post's plans for the farm include refurbishing the main farm home, enhancing the columns in the front and making other improvements to allow the home to call itself "a true Kentucky Mansion," according to a release.
He intends to seek permission to operate part of the new acquisition as a tourist home to provide unique, high-end options for guests during the Keeneland racing and sales seasons.
Some of the remaining land on Crescent Hill Farm, filled with barns and horse stalls, will either be sold or leased to others with equine interests.
Post hopes to have the new Crescent Hill Farm Mansion redone before Keeneland's October meet so it can be rented to a single user until the tourist home application is approved.
He also is working on turning the Woodford County castle into a tourist home. In May, a group of local planners gave him the go-ahead for the project.
Some residents of Versailles are concerned about Post's plans for Crescent Hill Farm, just off U.S. 60.
Although Woodford County Judge-Executive Joe D. Gormley said the county needs more places for visitors to stay, he wonders what will become of the beautiful rolling farmland.
"We are always worrying about the commercialization of U.S. 60," Gormley said. "We hope it stays horse farms, that it doesn't become a Richmond Road or a Nicholasville Road."
Robbie Stilz, whose family owns the farm, would not comment on the selling of the land.
Gormley said Post's plans for the Woodford County castle, which sits diagonally across an intersection from the Crescent Hill Farm, are more appropriate.
The castle, which was heavily damaged by fire in May 2004, was an eyesore, he said.
Renovating that structure for tourist use was more logical, especially considering the amount of curiosity the castle attracts, Gormley said.
Post, who purchased the castle for $1.8 million in 2003, said work on the structure is progressing.
The walls of a new residence are going up, and the structure should be under a roof before it snows, according to the release. Detailed interior work is scheduled to be completed by Christmas.
Plans call for an authentic medieval interior, with a great hall, an elegant dining room and adjoining kitchen, ballroom, artist studio, music room and library on the main floor, the release said.
Leading from the great hall will be a massive staircase to the guest quarters on the second story.
Post said that work on the four corner turrets of the perimeter wall and the adjacent estate grounds will be completed along with the rest of the castle in the spring.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v511/krosejr/147380400240.jpg
Two parcels, foreground and in background with dump trucks, along Midland Avenue in Lexington have been purchased by Vice Mayor Mike Scanlon and his family since June 2004. Scanlon has cleared the lots and plans to build a warehouse for his classic cars on one.

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BLUEGRASS-ASPENDALE ROAD PLANS PUBLIC FOR FOUR YEARS
By Michelle Ku
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
In the last year, Vice Mayor Mike Scanlon and his family have spent nearly $1.4 million amassing a block and a half of downtown property along the route of a new boulevard to be built by the city.
Scanlon has big plans for the property -- including a 12,000-square-foot brick warehouse to house his classic car collection -- and says he is cleaning up a previously blighted stretch along Midland Avenue at the entrance to downtown Lexington.
But critics, including two Urban County councilmen and one former councilman, are questioning Scanlon's land purchases, especially because the property sits next to the proposed path of the new road.
The city hopes to start construction of the boulevard through the Bluegrass-Aspendale public housing project in a few months.
Scanlon said he's done nothing wrong and has recused himself from votes involving the boulevard.
Still, the criticism led to a dust-up at an Urban County Council meeting last week, during which Scanlon all but challenged detractors to file an inquiry with the city's Ethics Commission.
Michael Wilson, a pastor and former 1st District councilman, took Scanlon up on his challenge and filed an ethics complaint yesterday.
He said the ethics commission needs to look at whether Scanlon had any inside knowledge about where the road would be built.
The boulevard has been on the drawing board since at least 2001.
Councilmen Jacques Wigginton and George Brown said Scanlon's land holdings don't appear to pass the "smell test."
And they questioned why Scanlon recused himself from votes regarding the boulevard if he saw no ethical issues.
For his part, Scanlon said he recused himself "to avoid the perception of involvement. I have an interest nearby and some people might confuse it."
Connector not part of his plan
Scanlon's land, which has been purchased since June 2004, sits along Midland Avenue between Corral and Goodloe streets, next to the proposed boulevard.
The current plan for the road -- part of a larger proposal to revitalize the area around the Bluegrass-Aspendale public housing project -- calls for extending Shropshire Avenue from East Sixth Street and connecting it to Midland at Goodloe.
Scanlon said he didn't buy any of the property along Midland because of the Bluegrass-Aspendale connector.
For the last two years, he had been looking for land to construct a warehouse to store his classic car collection.
He had one parcel under contract when a lot on the next block was put up for sale, Scanlon said.
In all, Scanlon and his family have purchased about 2.5 acres for nearly $1.4 million.
He has started the grading work to construct the warehouse on the 0.8-acre section of Midland between Corral and East Second streets.
He said he is investing more than $1 million in the building.
In addition to housing his car collection -- which includes a 1931 Ford Roadster, 1960 Ford Thunderbird and a 1966 Cadillac Eldorado -- it will also be used as a car restoration facility.
At this point, his family doesn't have any definitive plans for the larger 1.6-acre site along Midland that's bounded by East Second, Warnock and Goodloe, Scanlon said.
"Having assembled that makes a delightful development opportunity for a very delightful corridor coming into town," Scanlon said.
After purchasing the property, the first thing he did was demolish the existing structures, seed the property with grass and plant trees, he said.
"What I did was I cleaned up a blighted area," Scanlon said.
Wilson cites conflict of interest
In Wilson's ethics complaint, he says that there may be conflict-of-interest issues related to Scanlon's property purchases.
He also questions how the city found and freed up $200,000 to buy land along Ann Street to make way for the boulevard.
The freeing up of money to purchase property on Ann will make Scanlon's land more profitable, Wilson wrote in his complaint.
The property on Ann is needed for the boulevard to run along its current proposed path.
The council hasn't approved the plan to use the $200,000 yet.
As an elected official, Scanlon said, he expects to be held accountable and welcomes any ethics inquiries into his land purchases.
But, he said, "ordained ministers should not make wild accusations."
When he first went public with his concerns about Scanlon's property holdings last week, Wilson said the proposed boulevard would run through land owned by Scanlon.
It doesn't.
This week, Wilson said that, although Scanlon doesn't own land the city could have to purchase for the road, the vice mayor is setting himself up to profit.
There's also a perception issue when it comes to an elected city official owning so much land right next to the route, Wilson said.
Milton Dohoney, the city's chief administrative officer, said Scanlon has never received any inside information regarding the possible alignment of the road.
"At no time has there been any meetings where we have talked with the vice mayor about the potential path of the street or sought some sign off from him or given him some insider's information on the project or plan," Dohoney said. "He has never called here asking exactly where the street is going. He's never said the street should be over here versus over there. None of that has ever happened."
Other council members said they don't think Scanlon had inside information.
Discussions about the possible route have been public for at least four years, they said.
"It's one thing if we would be coming through his land and we would have to buy his land," said Councilman Kevin Stinnett. "But at this point, being next to it, I don't see a problem with it. It's free enterprise."
Park is important
Scanlon said he doesn't think the boulevard will ever be next to his property.
He said he would actually prefer that the boulevard stop at Third Street, before it reaches his land.
A city park next to his property would be better for either a commercial or residential development, Scanlon said.
The current proposal for the boulevard has it running through part of the park.
It's unclear how much of the park will remain once the connector is constructed.
"Being next to a city park is much more desirable than being next to a road," Scanlon said. "I bought that property despite what may happen with that boulevard."
Property values "could go either way" depending on whether Scanlon decides to build a commercial development or a residential one on the rest of his property, said Brent Ambrose, director of the University of Kentucky Center for Real Estate Studies.
"If he puts in a commercial or retail establishment, having a park across the street is not as beneficial," Ambrose said. "Having a road is better for the property."
But provided there's good access, a park is a nice amenity to have next to residential development, he said.
Charlie Milward, the city's municipal engineer, said there haven't been any discussions about stopping the boulevard at Third Street.
Even if the new road does continue toward Midland, there is nothing improper or unethical about the property he's bought, Scanlon said. "There has never been any plans (for the boulevard) involving this property."

****There are some great ideas...

Readers want fresh approach at Lexington Mall site

By Karla Ward

HERALD-LEADER BUSINESS WRITER

Should the Lexington Mall property be turned into a flea market or a modern residential development that puts loft-style apartments alongside a public park?

How about a Super Wal-Mart versus a beautified mall with a tree-lined stream running into it from the reservoir out front?

One thing that seems clear: Many Lexingtonians do not want Saul Centers Inc., which owns the nearly empty mall, to put another big-box mecca on the concrete plain where it now sits. This month Dillard's, the only retailer left in the mall's main building, said it will pull out in September.

"I can't stand to see another Bed Bath & Beyond or Bath & Body Works. I'm sick of it," said Sharae Myers of Lexington, one of dozens of readers who responded to a call published in the Herald-Leader last week for redevelopment ideas for the Richmond Road site. "They've got to go in and do a concept that nobody else is doing."

Saul Centers is based in Bethesda, Md., and most of its 41 properties are open-air, strip-mall-type developments. The company has redeveloped many of its centers, often anchoring them with grocery stores or big-box retailers.

Saul's Web site says that Lexington Mall, the company's only Kentucky property, is in line for redevelopment, but it has not provided any specifics.

When architect Graham Pohl looks at the vacant shell of the mall and at the reservoir out front, he sees "magical potential."

He envisions pedestrian and traffic bridges across a stream leading from the pond into a newly developed mall. Inside, the stream would culminate in a water feature.

"It would capture the reservoir as the theme for the entire mall," Pohl said. "It would be a really family-friendly place. People fish there now in that little pond."

John Scott, who lives near the mall, had another idea focused on the reservoir.

"The greatest resource at the mall is the water," he said. "That ought to be the focal point of whatever development does take place there."

He and several others suggested a mix of residences, stores that would be new to the area, and waterfront restaurants in a development with "lots of trees."

Scott was also one of a few people who recommended that the developers encourage local businesses to move into the space.

Loft space and courtyard-style houses appeal to David Mohney, dean of the University of Kentucky College of Design. He likes the idea of the mall as a residential venue, with some commercial space and a park tied in with the reservoir.

"I'd love to see it turn into a neighborhood," he said. "Make it a new place to experiment with new kinds of housing for Lexington."

Entertaining new ideas

Several Lexingtonians suggested entertainment complexes along the lines of Louisville's Fourth Street Live, Northern Kentucky's Newport on the Levee or Jillian's, a chain that offers dining, dancing, bowling, video games and billiards all under one roof.

"Lexington's real boring when it comes to taking your family out," said Richard Gibson, who suggested a go-cart track and miniature-golf course.

Others mentioned an aquarium, water park, zoo or ice-skating rink.

Myers thinks a specialized mall of stores catering to the home would go over well, especially in light of the Home Depot next door.

Lexington has neither a Pottery Barn nor its competitor, Crate & Barrel, and Myers thinks a Restoration Hardware would be perfect there, too.

But an Ikea store is what she'd really like. The Scandinavian furniture retailer has children's playrooms and Swedish restaurants inside its home-furnishing stores.

"I'm so desperate for one that I'd be willing to do my own 'I Want My Ikea' campaign," she said.

Several people said they'd like the mall to become an outlet or discount center with stores that sell name brands for less than the regular prices, such as Nordstrom Rack or Loehmann's.

"You have to drive all the way to Georgetown ... just to go to an outlet mall," said Cindy Sanders. She said she'd specifically like to see a Nike store and a Carter's children's clothing outlet.

Grocery stores and a Super Wal-Mart also were among some of the more frequent recommendations.

"We are in need of a competitive grocery in this area. The people on the in-town side of the mall are not close to a grocery," wrote Barbara Kincaid. She said a Super Wal-Mart would provide some competition to the Kroger farther down Richmond Road.

Room for government?

Ken Kurtz, a retired television news director, said he isn't interested in patronizing anything Saul Centers does.

"They have treated this city so badly that I see no reason why Lexington should support them in any way, shape or form," he said. "I think they ought to reap exactly what they've sown, which is a bad business reputation."

He said the city should consider buying the land and operating it for profit, or study using it as a parking lot, with free or low-cost shuttles taking people to and from downtown.

Kurtz wasn't the only one to suggest that the public sector get involved with the property.

Carolyn Gabbert said she'd like to see a branch of the Lexington Public Library, and a county clerk's office where citizens could renew their driver's licenses.

Other suggestions included an extension of the city park behind the mall, a Lexington Community College campus, and a public school.

And more than one person said they'd like to see the property converted to a flea market.

"There's nothing like that in Lexington," said Asher Combs. "I think it would go over great."

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OLD HORSE CEMETERY WILL BE DEVELOPED
By Art Jester
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
In death, there is new life for some of the most famous horses that once raced for one of Lexington's most historic horse farms.
Last Thursday, workers finished exhuming and moving the remains of 18 horses from the 97-year-old Hamburg Place cemetery on Winchester Road (U.S. 60). They were moved to help make way for a new commercial development that will include a Wal-Mart Supercenter and a Lowe's.
The remains were reinterred at the farm's new cemetery on Sir Barton Way, across the road from the entrance to the Tuscany residential development.
The owners of Hamburg Place, Preston and Anita Madden and their son, Patrick Madden, plan for the new cemetery to be configured in the same horseshoe shape as the old cemetery.
The family said the new cemetery will be accessible and open to the public. When Winchester Road was last widened in 1990, the highway's shoulder made the old cemetery inaccessible, Anita Madden said.
"We're trying to reproduce it as close to the original as possible," she said yesterday. "We want it to be pretty and open all the time."
The old cemetery's stone wall and grave markers with bronze plates will also be moved to the new cemetery, but that won't be completed until about Nov. 1, Anita Madden said. For now, the horse's new graves are marked with small numbered sticks.
The new cemetery will be along one of the main access roads to Hamburg Pavilion, a commercial development of stores, restaurants, offices and a movie theater on part of what was once one of the nation's most illustrious horse farms.
Hamburg Place has been owned by the Madden family since 1898, beginning with Preston Madden's grandfather, John E. Madden, a renowned breeder and trainer who was dubbed "The Wizard of the Turf."
Among the horses whose remains have been moved are Plaudit, the 1898 Kentucky Derby winner; Lady Sterling, dam of Sir Barton, who in 1919 became the first Triple Crown champion; Bel Sheba, the dam of Alysheba, the 1987 Derby winner; Ida Pickwick, winner of 44 stakes races; Nancy Hanks, a standardbred who was once the nation's fastest trotter; Pink Pigeon, which held records for 11/8 and 11/4 miles; Princess Mary, dam of 1925 Derby winner Flying Ebony; Sir Martin, the U.S. champion 2-year-old in 1908; Star Shoot, the nation's leading sire for 11 years; and T.V. Lark, a champion sire.

Publications find us ideal, in different ways
By Michelle Ku
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
First, The New York Times came touring. Then USA Today came calling.
Lexington grabbed prominent spreads in both national publications in the past four days.
On Friday, the Bluegrass -- horses and bourbon in particular -- dominated the cover of the Times' travel section in a dream piece for tourism boosters.
"It's kind of clichŽ, but it's the type of advertising that money can't buy," said David Lord, president of the Lexington Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Then yesterday came a two-page spread in USA Today, on how the heartland has been affected by George W. Bush's presidency. Included were comments from Mayor Teresa Isaac, Fayette County Schools Superintendent Stu Silberman and Bill Langley, father of Sean Langley, a Marine killed in Iraq.
USA Today considered demographics and wanted a city that voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004. Lexington won out over Green Bay, Wis., and Chattanooga.
"For a lot of reasons Kentucky felt like the right place," said Judy Keen, USA Today's White House correspondent.

check it out: www.nytimes.com and www.usatoday.com do a "Lexington" search.

By Jennifer Hewlett
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
The New York Times, known for its best-seller list and crossword puzzles in addition to the news it prints, has now lent its name to a bookstore.

And the first New York Times bookstore won't be in New York, Los Angeles or even Chicago. It will be here at Lexington's Blue Grass Airport.

"Within a year or two they'll be peppered across the country, but it's significant they decided to launch the brand right here in Kentucky," said Blue Grass Airport executive director Mike Gobb. "It reflects positively to bring this stature of a bookstore to the airport and the community."
The local New York Times Bookstore, scheduled to open in October, will cover 1,738 square feet, including storage space, and be located in the airport's Concourse B, across from the Bourbon Bar restaurant.
The bookstore will be operated by The Paradies Shops, which currently operates two news and gift shops and The Paddock Gallery at the airport.
The Paradies Shops approached The New York Times Co. about establishing bookstores using the company's name. Gobb was very interested in having such a store, and Blue Grass Airport had a place for one, said Bobbi Passavanti, the Paradies Shops director of communications. The New York Times is a brand that has been around a long time, she said, "and they're the most trusted source for news."
Other airports that may be getting New York Times Bookstores in the near future are Bradley International Airport in Hartford, Conn., and New York's LaGuardia International Airport, she said.
In addition to hardback and paperback copies of books on The New York Times' best seller list, the store at Blue Grass Airport will have a children's section; an online station allowing people to log onto The New York Times Web site; a plasma screen television running programming from the Discovery Times Channel, book-related videos, and news and documentaries produced by The New York Times; and New York Times souvenirs and gifts. Of course, the newspaper itself will be for sale there.
"It's going to have the look and feel of The New York Times," Passavanti said.
"As the nation's leading seven-day newspaper, The Times is honored to have its first bookstore open in this critical region, reinforcing our expanded distribution and printing plans as announced last fall," said Christian Edwards, president of The New York Times news services division.
"This is yet another way in which to build The Times brand nationally," said Toby Usnik, The New York Times Co. public relations director.
Gobb said that about 60 percent of the passengers going through Blue Grass Airport are business travelers who would especially be interested in such a bookstore.
Small airports throughout the country have been trying to offer more merchandise with names that passengers recognize, said Tom Tyra, Blue Grass Airport spokesman. He added that a bookstore is the perfect thing for Blue Grass Airport to offer at a time when travelers have to spend more time at the airport because of security checks.

I saw that construction had started on a new building on Vine Street next to PNC. Any idea on what this building will be? I remember seeing a sign up a couple of years ago that had a picture on it. I tried to look for information, but I couldn't find anything.

Also, any information on The Blackhorse condos that are supposed to be built on Mill Street? I think I saw somewhere that it was supposed to be nine floors, but I've never seen a rendering.

I saw that construction had started on a new building on Vine Street next to PNC. Any idea on what this building will be? I remember seeing a sign up a couple of years ago that had a picture on it. I tried to look for information, but I couldn't find anything.

Also, any information on The Blackhorse condos that are supposed to be built on Mill Street? I think I saw somewhere that it was supposed to be nine floors, but I've never seen a rendering.

I have notice that also, I will look into it this weekend...see what I can find out. As for The Blackhorse Condos, I haven't heard anything there as well, they did have something up but it isn't there now.

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OLD HORSE CEMETERY WILL BE DEVELOPED
By Art Jester
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
In death, there is new life for some of the most famous horses that once raced for one of Lexington's most historic horse farms.
Last Thursday, workers finished exhuming and moving the remains of 18 horses from the 97-year-old Hamburg Place cemetery on Winchester Road (U.S. 60). They were moved to help make way for a new commercial development that will include a Wal-Mart Supercenter and a Lowe's.
The remains were reinterred at the farm's new cemetery on Sir Barton Way, across the road from the entrance to the Tuscany residential development.
The owners of Hamburg Place, Preston and Anita Madden and their son, Patrick Madden, plan for the new cemetery to be configured in the same horseshoe shape as the old cemetery.
The family said the new cemetery will be accessible and open to the public. When Winchester Road was last widened in 1990, the highway's shoulder made the old cemetery inaccessible, Anita Madden said.
"We're trying to reproduce it as close to the original as possible," she said yesterday. "We want it to be pretty and open all the time."
The old cemetery's stone wall and grave markers with bronze plates will also be moved to the new cemetery, but that won't be completed until about Nov. 1, Anita Madden said. For now, the horse's new graves are marked with small numbered sticks.
The new cemetery will be along one of the main access roads to Hamburg Pavilion, a commercial development of stores, restaurants, offices and a movie theater on part of what was once one of the nation's most illustrious horse farms.
Hamburg Place has been owned by the Madden family since 1898, beginning with Preston Madden's grandfather, John E. Madden, a renowned breeder and trainer who was dubbed "The Wizard of the Turf."
Among the horses whose remains have been moved are Plaudit, the 1898 Kentucky Derby winner; Lady Sterling, dam of Sir Barton, who in 1919 became the first Triple Crown champion; Bel Sheba, the dam of Alysheba, the 1987 Derby winner; Ida Pickwick, winner of 44 stakes races; Nancy Hanks, a standardbred who was once the nation's fastest trotter; Pink Pigeon, which held records for 11/8 and 11/4 miles; Princess Mary, dam of 1925 Derby winner Flying Ebony; Sir Martin, the U.S. champion 2-year-old in 1908; Star Shoot, the nation's leading sire for 11 years; and T.V. Lark, a champion sire.


I'm sorry, I am all for economic development, but for me, history comes first, and that cemetery was a very fascinating piece of history. You want your Wal-mart, build it around the cemetery. Hell, make the cemetery part of the development, work it in. yeesh.
We have several shopping centers in Louisville with old buildings in the middle of parking lots and cemeteries nitched inbewteen a Blockbusters and a Red Lobsters.(I am reffering to a very nice stone walled cemetery in front of book-a-million on Breckenridge Ln)

I was so pissed when they announced a freakin' wal-mart was going up there. I agree that this cemetary could have been better preserved. I know they are relocating it but still... I think Anita Madden got pissed when she couldn't get approval to build her enclosed mall she had planned some years ago, so she turned into one giant strip mall, suburban housing nightmare. It has some nice things about it, but it could definitely have been done better. (I know the family also never got over having their land divided by I75) I have never been to an outdoor shopping plaza that was less pedestrian friendly. Does anyone know if the homes on the property will be razed. There are two on Winchester Rd on either side of the interstate.

By Susan Baniak
BUSINESS LEXINGTON
Budding tennis stars won’t be the only new arrivals in Lexington showcased at this year’s Fifth Third Bank Tennis Championships.
To coincide with its grand opening as Lexington’s first exclusive Audi dealership, Audi of Lexington has signed on as the headlining sponsor for this year’s tournament, to be held from July 25 to 31.
The event will kick off just as the finishing touches are placed on the dealership’s hangar-like facility, which has begun to attract attention on the corner of Man o’ War and Pink Pigeon Parkway near Hamburg Pavilion. For auto dealer Steve Gates and his partners in the venture, local businessmen Rob Rosenstein, Antony Beck, Alec Boone and Steve Reed, the timing couldn’t be better.
Gates, who is also the owner of Toyota South in Richmond, first became involved with the annual Fifth Third tournament through his involvement with the Toyota dealers of central Kentucky, which had previously served as the main sponsor for the event. When Toyota declined the sponsorship opportunity this year, Gates and his partners saw a chance to build needed exposure for Audi in the market while supporting what Gates considers an exciting and prestigious event for Lexington.
With no real Audi presence on Lexington’s luxury car scene since the early ‘90s and a dearth of exclusive U.S. dealerships to focus the Audi brand image for the American market over the years, building local awareness of the company’s lineup is even more important, said Gates.
“I think just introducing the brand to the community is a big challenge, because there has not been an Audi dealership here for so long,” Gates said.
The dealership plans to have cars on display in its sponsor tent at the Fifth-Third event, along with product brochures and an Audi specialist to discuss the brand’s finer points. Although Gates hopes the event will generate interest in ownership of the German-engineered vehicles, he also considers the tennis tournament itself to be a worthwhile local investment.
“When you go and you watch these people play, you realize it’s every bit as exciting as a Grand Slam tournament,” Gates said. “It’s incredible tennis.”
The new 15,000-square-foot Audi facility, which is scheduled to open by August 1, is the result of a five-year lobbying effort for a Lexington Audi franchise by the local partners. It wasn’t until 2003, after traveling to Michigan to vie against competing groups for the local franchise rights, that the partnership earned Audi’s approval to enter the growing Lexington market.
“Rob Rosenstein and I have stayed in constant contact with Audi for at least five years, and their response was always that they didn’t feel that Lexington was ready for Audi,” said Gates. “But we persevered.”
For his part, Gates has a family history of perseverance in the car industry that dates back to 1915. His grandfather, Bernard Gates, started in the auto business by driving new cars one-by-one back from Detroit with his wife, along the rough horse trails that served as roads at the time, to sell from his livery stable in Lagoda, Ind. By the mid-1950s, he had built his automobile business into one of the country’s largest DeSoto dealerships. Steve Gate’s father, race car driver Bud Gates, made his Indianapolis dealership, Bud Gates Chevy Town, into one of the largest GM dealerships in the Midwest, and was also one of the first Toyota dealers in the Indianapolis area.
For Steve Gates, who started working in the family business when he was in the eighth grade, selling cars was all he ever wanted to do, he said.
“My mother says that the first word I ever said was ‘Plymouth,’” Gates said. “I think she’s telling the truth. ... Only a mother could put that together.”
While he was in high school, his parents convinced him of the importance of good study habits by replacing his first car, a Camaro convertible, with a grandmotherly Studebaker until his grades showed improvement.
“I always did well in school from that point forward,” Gates said.
In 1989, Gates moved to Kentucky after purchasing the struggling Toyota South dealership, which he turned around with the help of his father. In addition to his partnership in the Audi franchise, Gates is currently one of 12 members of the National Toyota Dealers Council and has won numerous customer satisfaction accolades. He also owns Nissan dealerships in Winchester and Frankfort and is a partner in a Honda dealership in Johnson City, Tenn.
Gates, who sees a growing market for luxury car sales in Lexington, said the new dealership is expected to sell approximately 20 to 25 new Audis per month along with 35 to 40 additional used cars of various makes. The dealership will also offer service and maintenance through the facility’s eight service bays, providing a more convenient option for local Audi owners who previously had to travel to Audi dealerships in Cincinnati or Louisville.
Gates also expects the Audi to gain new followers in Lexington among luxury car drivers who want high performance in what he considers a less conspicuous package than BMW or Mercedes Benz.
“When people see the cars and take time to drive them” Gates said. “We’ll be well on our way.”
Jul 15, 2005

By Matt Ernst
AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS COLUMNIST
The value of the landscape provided the Bluegrass by area farms is hard to measure.
“It’s the most unique place in the world,” says Billy Van Pelt, a Woodford County native and Program Administrative Officer for LFUCG’s Purchase of Development Rights (PDR) program.
But area farms breed more than aesthetic benefits for the local economy, as indicated in a forthcoming study, “Strategies for Developing Agricultural Opportunities in the Greater Lexington Area.”
“The study reinforces the horse industry’s tremendous importance economically,” says Jim Mansfield, an agricultural consultant who conducted the study with Dr. Tim Woods, associate professor of agricultural economics at UK.
The study will report updated estimates of the economic impact from Fayette County’s farms. Mansfield says the study’s first recommendation involves promoting infrastructure necessary for equine industry retention.
“The equine industry must be promoted to equine investors, as well as tourists,” he says.
Woods and Mansfield’s analysis of updated data reveals an increasing contribution of the equine industry in a farm economy now less dependent on tobacco. Attracting further investment in the equine industry will help Fayette County retain its unique economic hybrid of farming, industry, and tourism.
“If the horse industry is healthy, the county ag industry is healthy,” says Maner Ferguson, who spent 25 years as Fayette County’s cooperative extension agent for agriculture before becoming program manager for the Purchase of Development Rights.
More than just the county’s farm economy is riding on the horse industry. Keeneland horse sales approached $700 million in 2004. Tourism, anchored by the equine environment, generates $670 million annually in Fayette County. And Fayette County farms banked a cumulative payroll of $40 million, according to the 2002 US Census of Agriculture.
These figures suggest Fayette County comprises perhaps a quarter of Kentucky’s $4 billion horse industry. But Fayette’s equine economy is a complicated hybrid, wholly dependent on a fragile asset: large tracts of contiguous land.
50,000 Acres Preserved by 2020
The study notes Fayette County farmland fell 14 percent from 1997 to 2002. Lands used for pasture were primarily lost; the amount of Fayette County cropland used for tobacco and hay remained the same. Pasture is critical to the horse industry, which contributes over 90 percent of Fayette County’s $289 million cash farm receipts.
Recognizing this trend, LFUCG initiated the Purchase of Development Rights (PDR) program in 2001 to shore up the land required for an energetic thoroughbred industry. The program’s goal is preserving 50,000 acres, 27 percent of the county, for agricultural purposes by 2020.
“PDR is an economic development tool,” says Van Pelt, the program administrator. “It encourages responsible development and is not anti-growth.”
The study notes the program’s positive progress, with 13,361 acres signed up in just four years. Modeled after programs operating since the 1970s in agricultural areas with high development pressure, PDR enables LFUCG to purchase the right to develop farmland from the owner. Conservation easements designed to limit the land’s use to agriculture are placed on the property after development rights are purchased.
Van Pelt says preserving large tracts of land necessary for the county’s equine industry is crucial for retaining thoroughbred farms.
“Cluster development pressure too near horse farms is unattractive to horsemen who are not going to want to risk dangers of dogs, trespassers, traffic, and other potential intrusions onto thoroughbred farms,” he says.
Jul 15, 2005

By Harold Tate
GUEST COLUMNIST
Lexington residents don’t have to look too hard to see the difference a downtown master plan can make. Concepts from downtown Lexington’s current master plan, created in 1967, have come to fruition in projects like the Lexington Center (home of Rupp Arena) and the removal of the railroad lines along Vine Street. It created the Lexington Fayette County Historic Commission that helps preserve all the wonderful historic neighborhoods around downtown, and the Lexington Urban Renewal Agency that assists in the underground placement of utility lines along Main and Vine Streets.


It also initiated the one-way traffic system that now exists in downtown Lexington. Not everything in the plan was good.


So at the suggestion of the Lexington Kentucky College Town Study, which won the 2004 Innovation Award from the Congress for New Urbanism, the Lexington Downtown Development Authority decided that it was time for a new Downtown Master Plan that would assist in the development of our wonderful downtown.


The downtown study being conducted by Ayer Saint Gross, Architect and Planner, Washington D. C. office, is an endeavor funded solely by private funds from various individuals, groups and institutions that believe in downtown Lexington. It began in August of 2004 and is now near completion, with one more public hearing on the Downtown Master Plan before it moves to the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government’s Planning Commission for adoption into the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government’s Comprehensive Plan. During the review by the Planning Commission, public meetings will be held for citizen comments and input.


The plan will create a set of principles that are based upon the thoughts voiced by local citizens and a Downtown Master Plan Steering Committee, chaired by Lexington Herald Leader Publisher, Tim Kelly. The basic principles include the following:



A decrease of the current land uses for the downtown area from 17 categories to 3 land-use categories ( Downtown Core, Transition, and Neighborhood)


Development of land use guidelines that encourage buildings to be placed on the site so as to create a true urban setting


Conversion of all current one-way streets to two-way streets, phased over time


Increased residential development in the downtown area that accommodates a diverse population through varied housing types and price points.


Creation of a Downtown Lexington Parking Authority that would have bonding capacity for the construction of new parking garages and oversee enforcement of parking meters.


“Density through Design” to maximize a site’s potential while fitting into its context.


Celebration of urban entrances to let everyone know that they are entering the downtown area.


Investment in a pedestrian network to link people, downtown and the neighborhoods through a green pedestrian ribbon.


Integration of Rupp Arena into the “Urban Fabric.”


Redevelopment of Vine Street with consideration of options such as the creation of a linear park, a green usable median, and or a water feature that could reference Town Branch


Infill of vacant sites and surface parking lots


Development of the west side of Rupp Arena through the creation of an outdoor Amphitheater and other recreational elements, such as a bike trail, along the Town Branch trail.


Creation of a community center in the Eastend neighborhood


More definition for Thoroughbred Park with buildings


Creation of a new green space at Main, Vine, Elm Tree / Rose


Incorporation of Town Branch Trail into downtown


Connection of downtown to the surrounding region through material palette, history, and/or Town Branch


Promotion of infill development in the downtown core

In addition to the Downtown Master Plan, American Engineers, Lexington, Kentucky, is conducting a Downtown Lexington Traffic Analysis that will review current traffic conditions and make recommendations on how to make downtown Lexington a much more pedestrian/bikeway friendly city while still allowing vehicular traffic to flow smoothly through the downtown.

The principal focus of the Downtown Master Plan will be the downtown area as defined in the Study Area Boundary. That covers 925 acres. The northern edge of downtown is established by a boundary of church properties and Transylvania University, while the eastern edge is defined by a major street and office buildings. Several cemeteries form the western edge of the study area, while the U.K. campus defines the southern edge. The principal test for refining the boundaries is to identify a contiguous economic district that is walkable and best serves as the central business district of Lexington.


Mr. Kelly and the Steering Committee have done an outstanding job in the development of this study. In addition to the Steering Committee, over 400 interested citizens and groups have participated to create a plan that has elements that nearly everyone has agreed upon. U.K.’s College of Design has also been involved in the creation of this plan by allowing a Downtown Master Plan studio to be taught downtown at the Lexington Downtown Development Authority Office. This has allowed design students to work on a “Real Life” project that will actually be implemented.


We should all be very excited about the future of our downtown. In the last 18 months, over 200 new residential units have opened and there are over 800 residential units either under construction or on the drawing board. These residential units will lead to more retail in the near future and maybe even a grocery store near downtown. To experience downtown as it is today or how it will be in the near future, be sure to attend the Second Annual Urban Life & Style Tour Sunday September 18, from Noon to 5 p.m. There will be 35 residential, educational and business facilities on tour for all to experience. It is a Wonderful Downtown and the Lexington Downtown Development Authority and the residents of downtown want to share it with everyone.


Harold Tate is the president and executive director of Lexington Downtown Development Authority

Jul 15, 2005

By NewCities Staff
GUEST COLUMNIST
Nearly 30 years ago, one of the most famous residents of Boulder, Colo., was a friendly alien named Mork. After crash-landing his egg-shaped spaceship outside of town, he lived with a young woman named Mindy. Mindy walked downtown to work at her father’s record store, while Mork wandered around the city learning about the strange ways of Earthlings.

The choice of Boulder to be the backdrop for the “Mork and Mindy” TV show must have seemed strange at the time. Why Boulder? Why not a big city, or a rural small town? What did Boulder have that was attractive to Mork’s Hollywood-based creators?

By 2005, the rest of the world is finding out. Boulder has long been a world-class, world-focused city.

A tremendous variety of people choose to live and do business in a city that is tolerant of their cultures and lifestyles and one that supports their dreams. Over the last 30 years, perhaps people have thought: “If Boulder was friendly and open to an alien like Mork, it will be good enough for me.”
And yet, even though Boulder’s open-arms persona might even allow an Orkan to blend in seamlessly, the city is not terribly unique. In fact, there are many similarities between Boulder and Lexington.

Lexington’s population is around 270,000, while Boulder’s (including the surrounding county) is approximately 293,000. Boulder is a college town, home to the state’s flagship university, the University of Colorado. The university boasts 29,151 students, which is very similar to the University of Kentucky’s enrollment. Just as with Lexington, there are also several smaller, but vitally important institutions of higher learning.

Just as Lexington is not the largest city in Kentucky, Boulder is 45 miles up the freeway from Denver, Colorado’s largest city. In 2002, both Boulder and Lexington had similar median income levels: $53,987 for Lexington and $53,420 for Boulder. Both Boulder and Lexington are proud of their world famous landscapes; the Rocky Mountains and the Bluegrass horse country.

However, there are also some striking contrasts.
Nearly 45 percent of all Boulder residents have a college degree, compared to less than 33 percent for Lexington. The University of Colorado is a seamless part of the city, while the University of Kentucky for many years considered itself a place apart. Boulder ranks higher in public education scores despite spending $1,000 per student less than Lexington. Over 90 percent of the population in Boulder are high school graduates, while less than 79 percent of Lexingtonians are. Also, Lexington ranks much higher in crime statistics than Boulder.

On the other hand, Boulder’s cost of living is very high, especially housing costs, which are nearly twice the national average. Lexington ranks well in cost of living scores, including housing, which is $20,000 less than the national average. The low housing costs here are indicative of a great success story of over 40 years of careful planning to not only preserve greenspace but also affordability.

Strikingly, Boulder is nearly five times as dense as Lexington, perhaps due in part to the economic demand for developers to gain as much value per acre as possible. But this efficient land use has enabled many positive things to occur. First, this density has enabled the city to protect thousands of acres of greenspace from development. Second, it has fostered lively, pedestrian-friendly downtown and college districts. Third, it has enabled Boulder’s citizens to support efficient mass transit. And finally, the density has not turned people off living there. In fact, many people move to Boulder because of the advantages that are brought about by the higher density.

Perhaps the most significant difference between the two cities may be in their approach to economic development. In addition to many traditional economic development strategies, Boulder has chosen to carefully develop and manage its most precious asset: quality of life. Great quality of life is more than just those things needed by citizens to survive on a daily basis. It also means creating those things that are attractive to modern lifestyles.

Boulder’s leaders have invested heavily in bike and pedestrian trails as well as restoring the creek that flows through town into a linear park. These amenities link parks and greenspaces, enabling citizens to leave their homes and walk or bike for miles throughout the city.

Boulder was the first city in the country to implement a Purchase of Development Rights program in 1967. The program’s success has added greatly to the image that Boulder uses as its “brand:” green and environmentally conscious.

By carefully controlling sprawl, Boulder has been able to create and maintain one of the best downtowns in the U.S.A. The car-free pedestrian mall in the heart of downtown Boulder throbs with people year-round. Boulder also makes itself attractive to foreign visitors and global businesses: the city’s Web site can be read in eight languages.

The flourishing human habitat that Boulder’s leaders have created makes it very attractive to entrepreneurs. “People love the Boulder lifestyle so much, they invent jobs for themselves just so they are able to live here. They don’t wait for jobs to be created,” says Frank Lampe, vice president of InnerDoorway, an alternative health media company based in Boulder.

Boulder is not perfect, but city leaders are willing to acknowledge that and thus are always striving to find ways to make their city better. They understand that significant hurdles exist in the city to business growth. Aging infrastructure, rising housing costs, permit delays, and the growing competitiveness of surrounding communities all combine to give Boulder’s leaders a sense of urgency often lacking in other cities. With the evident success of their past efforts visible throughout the city, it won’t be surprising if Boulder uses this challenge to climb several notches higher.
Jul 29, 2005

By Tom Martin
EDITOR IN CHIEF
Since launching in early May, Business Lexington has included in each issue a section bearing the somewhat pointed label, “Role Model.” The intent of the column, provided by the staff of the NewCities Foundation, is to learn from the downtown redevelopment successes and failures of other cities as Lexington considers a new direction for its own urban heart. So far, we’ve looked at places like Spokane, Oklahoma City, Providence, Walla Walla and Sioux Falls.


As people react to the series, we keep hearing about Boulder, Colorado. We’re told that, of all the places to explore, Boulder — with its colorful, cosmopolitan character, thoughtful planning and well-organized mass transit — is a city the people of Lexington should look to for inspiration on how best to make the most of what we have. So Boulder graces the Role Model section of this edition. We invite you to turn to page — and see if you agree. Or disagree. The point is, we’re inviting discussion, and the sooner, the better.

Why such urgency? Earlier this summer, the fragility of our region was underscored when the Kentucky Bluegrass became the only cultural landscape in the entire United States to land on the World Monument Fund’s endangered list for 2006. Here’s what they said about this place we all care about:

“Over the past decade, the Bluegrass Region has been threatened by rapid development, primarily suburbanization. The result is substantial loss of rural farmland, compromising sense of place, undermining traditional industries such as horse breeding, and endangering historic structures."


That stings. But finally, somebody has shouted from the rooftops the ugly truth: we’re spoiling our nest here, folks. No need to go into it. Just drive out of the city in any direction. The loss is there to see and absorb.

Can we find salvation in the example of Boulder, Colorado? Some believe it possible. But, says Bluegrass Tomorrow’s Steve Austin, we can’t just ‘talk the talk’: “Boulder’s similarities to Lexington make me hopeful that we can shake off our inertia and begin to move purposefully forward in improving, not just promoting, our quality of life.”


We agree with Austin. Let’s get a grip on this. We can start by defining this “quality of life” – “The Big Q” -- that we all sense but find difficult to articulate in unison. In the process, let’s summon some collective self-discipline, place the politically ambitious on notice that scheming to sew distrust and division will render them unelectable, and build some bridges in this rapidly evolving community.


Let’s start here: developers are in business to develop. That’s what they do for a living. In this American society of ours, that’s a fundamental right. Developers accept the risks of investment, support the tax base like everyone else in business and live right alongside of the rest of us. So they have a great deal at stake as well.


Establishing ironclad limits on what is developed, how and where is the larger responsibility of bold, visionary leadership. Preventing the catastrophe forewarned by our placement on that “endangered” list requires the courage to make hard decisions about how much more development — and what kind — the region can tolerate before the balance tilts irrevocably and we find our heads ringing with the Joni Mitchell refrain,

“Don’t it always seem to go

That you don’t know what you’ve got

Till it’s gone

They paved paradise

And put up a parking lot”


Our current “Role Models” column on Boulder devotes some discussion to the advantages of tolerating population density in the interest of containing the continuing unchecked sprawl cited by the World Monument Fund. Think about it: the area contained within New Circle Road, at approximately 27 square miles, is actually larger than that of Manhattan (23 square miles.) Yet, Manhattan contains approximately 25,000 people per square mile versus Lexington’s approximate 4,000 per square mile. We’re bigger than New York City in area but we have allowed our far smaller population to expand outward, devouring in the process our most precious asset: our beautiful and storied farmland. Of course, that spaciousness is at the heart of what makes Lexington so attractive. But as the bluesman wailed, “the same thing that makes us rich, can make us poor.” We’d better keep that in mind as our main attraction endangers our main attraction.


We would like to suggest that Commerce Lexington strongly consider Boulder as next year’s destination for the annual Leadership Visit. Perhaps, in the meantime, we’ll discover other cities that have struggled with similar tensions between inevitable growth and invaluable character. If and when we do, you will be invited to read about them in these pages.


This is one great city and region. People come here to visit. We take them for a ride through “horse country,” perhaps treat them to the casual elegance of one of any number of wonderful restaurants, or maybe we take them to see a cutting-edge art film or a great concert at the historic Kentucky Theater or an edge-of-the-seat game at Rupp. What often happens next? Hooked by the vibe of an interesting, friendly and affordable city, they return to Atlanta, New York, Miami or L.A., pack their things and come back to Lexington to live, work, raise families and play host to out-of-town guests.


Let’s make them glad they took a chance on placing their trust in our notion of good stewardship and sense-of-place.


Better still, let’s do this for ourselves.


We hope you will think about this and take a moment to jot down your thoughts. This page is open to that guest commentary in your future. Get cracking. We’re on deadline here.


Jul 29, 2005

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v511/krosejr/151447738226.jpg
The Lyric Theater on the corner of Elm Tree Lane and East Third Street, fell into disrepair after the structure closed in 1963. Before that it served as host to nationally known acts such as Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Ike and Tina Turner and comedian Redd Foxx.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v511/krosejr/151447762838.jpg
The theater opened in 1948 and thrived before desegregation. The city of Lexington took ownership of the Lyric Thursday, May 4, 2005, and promised to breathe new life into the decaying building.


STILL, JURY MUST DETERMINE ITS PRICE
By Michelle Ku And Art Jester
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITERS
After a long and contentious court battle that reached the state court of appeals, Lexington took ownership of the historic Lyric Theatre yesterday and promised to breathe new life into the decaying building.
But the legal case is far from over.
A jury still has to determine how much the city will ultimately pay for the Lyric.
At one time, the Lyric, at East Third Street and Elm Tree Lane, was the entertainment hub for Lexington's black community and played host to the likes of Count Basie and Duke Ellington. But the building has sat vacant for more than 40 years and has fallen into disrepair.
So far, the city has paid $125,080 for the property, the assessed value of the Lyric. The court is holding the money pending a Sept. 27 jury trial to set a final value of the property.
Mayor Teresa Isaac plans to appoint a task force to explore the best uses for the property. The deed requires the city to restore the Lyric and turn it into an African-American cultural center.
Gayle Slaughter, president of God's Center Foundation, which has owned the Lyric since 1984, compared the court's decision to give the city the Lyric's deed to a crime.
"The strong-armed robbery is complete," she said. "But instead of guns, they used judges."
God's Center, a non-profit organization, has been at odds with the city over the Lyric's future since the 1990s.
God's Center wanted to dedicate the building to "Judeo-Christian values and community service" for the east end of Lexington.
In fighting to keep the Lyric, God's Center officials publicly raised allegations that Ron Berry, then head of Micro-City Government, was involved in improper activity with the youths who participated in the program. The foundation thought that city officials would allow Berry to have a role in refurbishing the Lyric. Berry was later convicted of 12 counts of sodomy with 12- to 16-year-old boys in 2000.
The city's determination to turn the Lyric into a cultural center stems from a 1996 lawsuit settlement with the state, which had sued the city for failing to build a cultural center downtown. The settlement required the city to spend millions on a number of cultural projects, including the Lyric.
The dispute culminated with an eminent-domain action filed by the city in 1997. Fayette Circuit Judge Gary Payne later ruled that the city had the right to take the Lyric.
Following a number of appeals, Payne's ruling was upheld. In May, Fayette Circuit Judge Pamela Goodwine ordered that ownership of the Lyric be transferred to the city.
That happened yesterday.
"We now have a tremendous opportunity to make that property a valuable asset to the east end of Lexington," Isaac said in a statement yesterday. "It will be a welcome addition to the revitalization and beautification already being done there."
Since 1990, dilapidated housing along Elm Tree Lane has given way to a mix of apartments and new single-family homes. The most recent project was built in 2003, a $3 million apartment and townhouse complex for senior citizens.
Over the years, the city has set aside about $1 million for the purchase and renovation of the Lyric, but some of that money has already been spent on legal bills and feasibility studies.
This year, Isaac set aside an additional $250,000 for acquisition and development of the Lyric site.
Terry Anderson, attorney for God's Center, said he doesn't think the city really has allocated money for the Lyric. The city has never responded with any proof that it had set aside any money, he said.
God's Center thinks the building is worth about $300,000, Anderson said.
Two comparable properties, one on Third Street and one on Fourth Street, were sold for about $300,000 each, Anderson said. "We have argued that this is a unique building that has historic significance."


Lyric Theater Q&A

What happened?
The Urban County County Government now owns the Lyric Theatre at East Third Street and Elm Tree Lane.

What will the Lyric become?
The new deed requires the city to restore the theater and use it as an African-American cultural center.

What did the city have to pay?
Special assessors determined that the Lyric property was worth $125,080. The city has paid that amount to Fayette Circuit Court, pending another court case.

What comes next?
The former owner, God's Center Foundation, will contest the $125,080 assessed value in a jury trial set for Sept. 27. The foundation contends that the Lyric is worth about $300,000. Under state law, the city has eight years to meet the deed's requirements that the Lyric be restored and used as an African-American cultural center.

Why is the case significant?
The Lyric is historically important to Lexington's black community. God's Center and the city have been fighting in court for eight years over the property.

Timeline

1948: The Lyric opens at the intersection of Third Street and what was then DeWeese Street. The building cost $250,000, seated 924 people and had a restaurant inside. Through the years, Lyric headliners include jazz musicians Count Basie, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, and comedians Jackie "Moms" Mabley and Redd Foxx. Ike and Tina Turner, Ray Charles, Clyde McPhatter, and Etta James also perform at the Lyric.

1963: As other theaters integrate, the Lyric closes. It opens occasionally in following years for special events.

1973: The theater is condemned for code violations.

1984: God's Center Foundation Inc. buys the building with plans to convert it into a community center.

1996: The city agrees to restore the Lyric as part of a sweeping cultural plan.

1997: The city moves to take the Lyric through eminent domain.

1997: God's Center says it fears the city will give the building to Micro-City Government, the youth education and social program. It says Micro-City's director, Ron Berry, is involved in "improper activities."

March 2000: Berry is convicted of having sex with Micro-City youth participants in the 1970s and 80s.

May 2000: The city unveils plans for how it will restore the theater if it gets ownership.

October 2000: An attorney for God's Center files a motion in Fayette Circuit Court, claiming a small group is conspiring to take the theater by government force. The motion is filed against the city and eight individuals: The Rev. Michael Wilson, Julius Berry, Theodore Berry, Robert Jefferson, Julian Jackson, Councilman George Brown, Mayor Pam Miller and former Mayor Scotty Baesler.

February 2001: Workers begin giving the Lyric Theatre a new roof.

March 2001: Fayette Circuit Judge Gary Payne turns down a request from God's Center to throw out the city's lawsuit attempting to gain ownership of the historic theater.

November 2002: Despite the ruling by the Kentucky Court of Appeals that Lexington is legally entitled to take over ownership of the Lyric Theatre, an attorney for God's Center vows to appeal the condemnation all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court if need be.

August 2005: The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government secures the deed for the Lyric Theater.

Although not really HUGE news and it is a chain restaurant, but a really tastey one and one of my favorites. Abuelos is coming to Lexington, around Fayette Mall. I am glad to have one kinda close to me since it is something I crave and I used to eat all the time when I would go to Texas, and then Columbus, Oh. [/being a dork]

By the way, with the death of Lexington Mall, is Fayette Mall the only traditional shopping mall left in Lexington aside from Hamburg Pavilion?

Although not really HUGE news and it is a chain restaurant, but a really tastey one and one of my favorites. Abuelos is coming to Lexington, around Fayette Mall. I am glad to have one kinda close to me since it is something I crave and I used to eat all the time when I would go to Texas, and then Columbus, Oh. [/being a dork]

By the way, with the death of Lexington Mall, is Fayette Mall the only traditional shopping mall left in Lexington aside from Hamburg Pavilion?

I am glad to hear that they are coming also, never been to one. As for "traditional mall" (enclosed malls like Fayette) there is Turfland Mall, Lexington first indoor mall. Hamburg, Lexington Green, etc....I don't concern "traditional malls", just large shopping areas.
Turfland Mall has being doing pretty well, I have a friend that used to work there and it is getting a lot of business. I think because it is so much smaller than Fayette. They have remodeled the store and it is nice (that was some time ago). I even shop more at Turfland (and I live just a few blocks from Fayette) because of the size.

I saw that construction had started on a new building on Vine Street next to PNC. Any idea on what this building will be? I remember seeing a sign up a couple of years ago that had a picture on it. I tried to look for information, but I couldn't find anything.

Also, any information on The Blackhorse condos that are supposed to be built on Mill Street? I think I saw somewhere that it was supposed to be nine floors, but I've never seen a rendering.

The only sign up now is the "Bristol Group" who is doing the work. I went to their website and nothing about the project (as of yet) on there. So I emailed them. Once I heard back, I'll post some info. :)

I was wondering if any of you had pictures of the Chevy Chase area. I was fumbling around online and saw something about a mixed use development there with condos and shops and offices, it looked really nice. I would like to see more of the area.

Also I was wondering how the Boulevard Centro projects were coming. I believe City Courts and Center Court? Also just a quick rundown of what projects are actually happening downtown.

I was reading the Lane Report and saw that the class A vacancy was really low for downtown and on the downtown site it showed small amounts of consecutive square footage that was available, have there been any rumblings or cancelled plans for any offices recently? It definately seems poised for one, what has it been since 87, since a project of height has gone in?

The City Courts are coming along nicely. It doesn't seem like it will take much longer for them to be completed. I don't have a picture. I believe they are scheduled for an October completion. The land has been cleared for the Center Court, but no construction as of yet. Buildings have been demolished and the site being prepared for the 500s on Main. I have not heard of any planned office buildings, but the groundbreaking in previous posts on Vine Street next to PNC is most likely a 6-7 story office building. The Gameday Center that was to be built on the corner of Broadway and High seems more and more unlikely all the time. Hopefully, an agreement can be reached or an alternate site selected. As of now, this is the only major downtown construction taking place. Several other projects have been planned like Main and Rose and The Blackhorse Condos. A friend also told me that the Transit Center Condo project may still be alive. I have seen no official word on that project in some time. Last I heard several years ago, new bids were requested.

Sorry I don't have any pics of Chevy Chase. It is nice though.

I had a picture I was going to post, but I can't seem to figure out how. Can someone help?

I had a picture I was going to post, but I can't seem to figure out how. Can someone help?

hey man, setup an account with www.photobucket.com and upload to it

let me see if this works..hopefully it is a pic from today of the City Courts condoshttp://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a100/georgebglass/e9117b09.jpg

I just found this website today. There is nothing on there right now, but I am curious to see plans for this. Here is the site anyway:

http://www.blackhorselofts.com/

I am so excited about the development in Lexington right now. The place is headed in the right direction no doubt!!!

I've always liked Lexington, the whole " Golden Triangle" region od Kentucky is imo going in the right direction, I just hope Lexington protects it's farms and natural beauty( I think it will). Thats my 2 cents for now.

I have seen renderings of this project in a window front on N. Lime near the Sayre School and it looks really good. This is a wonderful thing for that area because that stretch of Limestone was a rough patch, but this and some other recent improvements will help tremendously.



Kimball House to get extreme makeover

LIMESTONE LANDMARK TO BECOME DAY SPA, CONDOS

By Jim Jordan

HERALD-LEADER BUSINESS WRITER


Since 1882, the buildings that make up the Kimball House have been used as Victorian residences, a boarding house, a hotel and a sorority house.

By the 1960s, as many as 15 monkeys lived behind the hotel in a large cage that was dubbed "monkey house" by University of Kentucky students and local children who came to see the animals.

But like many other downtown hotels, the Kimball House fell on hard times in the 1970s and '80s.

"Famous or infamous" at various times in its past, the Kimball House has always been "an interesting piece of architecture and history," architect Gregory Fitzsimons said yesterday.

Now the former hotel on South Limestone Street near UK is headed for a $12.5 million facelift and expansion that will create Kimball House Square, featuring a 15,500-square-foot day spa and 36 condominium apartments.

La Bella Salon, Spa & Self Image Centre -- a Cincinnati company owned by UK graduates Leslie and Dr. James Foster -- will occupy the first floor and basements of the five core buildings.

La Bella is expected to open in September 2006 and have at least 50 employees.

Condominiums will be built on the second and third floors of the five main buildings, and also in a new building to the rear. The apartments will range from 600 square feet to 1,500 square feet and will cost $150,000 to about $300,000 each.

Lexington officials praised the project yesterday when it was announced by developer Marcum King of Kingland Cooper Commercial Real Estate and his partners.

They said it will preserve historically interesting buildings and strengthen the links between the UK campus and downtown, including Transylvania University.

"This project will really help the college-town corridor," said Mayor Teresa Isaac. "I also think it will bring a lot of people downtown."

Leslie Foster said she and her husband decided to bring La Bella to Lexington because of the high number of local residents who are driving to Cincinnati and Louisville to get the massages, body treatments, peels and other services that day spas offer.

About 60 percent of La Bella's clients are women.

The spa will use the services of nearby dentists and physicians as needed. It also will have a cafe and provide limousine service to clients who request it.

"It's going to be a true destination-type of spa," Leslie Foster said. "There is nothing quite like it here now."

The Kimball House closed in 2000. It was bought by King and his partners, Todd Darland and Jeff Cooper, in 2004 from Doris Warder, widow of Kimball House founder Douglas Warder.

Doris Warder told the Herald-Leader in 2000 that her late husband bought the first Kimball House building, which had been a UK sorority house, in 1942 before he left for Army service in World War II.

After the war, he acquired four adjacent Victorian-era houses, connected them with passageways and opened the Kimball House in 1948.

Fitzsimons said all of the houses are at least 99 years old. Two show up on city records in 1882 and the other three by 1906.

Warder named the Kimball House, which would grow to 100 rooms, for a Kentucky congressman who lived in one of the houses at the turn of the century and for the Palmer House in Chicago, where he had learned the hotel business.

In 1960, after Joyland Amusement Park closed, a hotel guest bought one of the park's Rhesus monkeys at an auction and then abandoned it at the Kimball House.

Douglas Warder kept the monkey in a large cage behind the hotel and eventually acquired as many as 14 more.

The cage was dubbed the "monkey house" and was popular with the younger set for years, Isaac remembered yesterday. "Everybody loved the monkeys."

^^^
I know I was so happy to read the paper this morning!!!

DEVELOPERS' PLAN CALLS FOR RETAIL SPACE AND APARTMENTS; CITY'S APPROVAL NEEDED
By Jim Jordan
HERALD-LEADER BUSINESS WRITER
South Broadway will lose a tobacco warehouse and gain an "urban village" under a $70 million retail/residential project proposed by firms from Ohio and Indiana.
Shelburne Plaza would fill the block on the west side of South Broadway between Pine Street and the Norfolk Southern railroad tracks where the Shelburne Tobacco Warehouse now stands.
Construction of the plaza's 80,000 square feet of retail space, including a supermarket, and 220 two- to four-bedroom apartments is expected to begin next spring and to be completed in 2008.
However, city regulators, who must give their approval, have not yet formally considered the plan.
The project is the first proposed under Lexington's new mixed-use community zoning law that regulates large developments near residential areas. It is also the latest in a series of developments that are reshaping an area replete with aging houses, historic districts and a few survivors of the tobacco warehouses that once earned Lexington the nickname Buckle of the Burley Belt.
"When I saw such a large site available in such a great neighborhood," said developer Guy Totino, "my mind immediately went to an 'urban village' that could be a self-contained mix of retail and residential, and still be in the thick of a really neat urban area that is experiencing tremendous redevelopment."
Other projects in the area include:
• A $12.5 million renovation and expansion of the Kimball House hotel on South Limestone Street will create a 15,500-square-foot day spa and 36 condominium apartments.
• Two projects by developer Bill Lear -- South Hill Crossing on South Mill Street and CenterCourt on South Upper Street -- could add 144 townhouses and condominiums in the area.
• Lear also has a proposed townhouse project in the South Hill neighborhood in the 400 block of South Mill Street, but the number of units is not yet known.
• Gameday Center at South Broadway and West High Street, a proposed retail/condominium project near Lexington Center, is struggling to win the approval of city planners.
Totino said a supermarket is a cornerstone of the Shelburne project because downtown workers and residents have long said one is needed in the area. Developers are working with several supermarket companies to get a store, Totino said in an interview. Restaurants and shops would fill the remaining retail space.
Shelburne Plaza is designed to appeal to University of Kentucky students and young professionals who are seeking upscale living spaces.
Totino said the apartments would be "very urban," with hardwood floors and ceiling fans. "Students today are looking for the same amenities that they had in their parents' homes," Totino said. "So there will be state-of-the-art broadband Internet access and cable in every room.
"Our buildings are also very secure. We will have roughly 300 security cameras that will be digitally tracked on computers," he said.
The exterior of Shelburne Plaza's three main buildings -- two of which will be connected with glass-enclosed walkways -- will be covered with brick and limestone to match nearby structures.
There will be at least 150 street-level parking spaces and about 600 more in an underground structure.
Totino said the buildings will range in height from about four stories along Pine Street to about eight stories near the railroad tracks because of a natural change in ground level in the area.
The railroad tracks are expected to become part of the corridor for Newtown Pike if it is extended to Broadway, but the exact route has not been finalized.
Harold Tate, president and executive director of the Lexington Downtown Development Authority, said Shelburne Plaza will be different from anything found today in Louisville or Lexington because of the way the retail and residential work together to create a village atmosphere.
"I think this will let people in Lexington see what true urban development is all about," Tate said. "If we are going to get the mass and the density that we keep talking about downtown, these are the type of projects we need to have."
The project's design was also endorsed by UK President Lee Todd. "An urban village is exactly the type project I envisioned when we first launched the College Town plan" to strengthen links between the campus and downtown, Todd said in a statement.
"This is a spectacular project that will benefit the university and the community as a whole," he continued. "Launching a project like this is a clear indicator that the college-downtown corridor is the place to be."
The developers of Shelburne Plaza are Bloomington Group LLC of Bloomington, Ind., and Polaris Real Estate Equities of Highland Heights, Ohio. Totino is president of Polaris. Bloomington and Polaris have partnered on five previous residential and retail projects in Indianapolis and others in Pittsburgh and Knoxville.
The architect for Shelburne Plaza is Ratio Associates of Indianapolis, with civil engineering from Strand & Associates of Lexington.

I saw that construction had started on a new building on Vine Street next to PNC. Any idea on what this building will be? I remember seeing a sign up a couple of years ago that had a picture on it. I tried to look for information, but I couldn't find anything.

Also, any information on The Blackhorse condos that are supposed to be built on Mill Street? I think I saw somewhere that it was supposed to be nine floors, but I've never seen a rendering.

THIS WAS IN THE PAPER ABOUT THIS PROJECT:!!! :)

A five-story office building is under construction at Vine and Mill streets in Lexington.

Alex Olszowy, code enforcement supervisor, said plans submitted to city building inspectors show that the prime tenant will be the offices of the U.S. attorney, although some vacant space will remain in the building.

Total square footage for the building is 58,140, Olszowy said yesterday, although that total might not be final. "The plan could be amended before it is done," he said.

The building will be located in a former parking lot at 260 West Vine between PNC Bank and Central Bank.

The site was owned by 222 West Vine LLC in 1999 when the project was first announced as an 11-story, $15 million structure. 222 West Vine LLC also owns the PNC Bank building.

Farra Alford, managing member of 222 West Vine LLC, did not return phone calls.

I took a picture of the building as it appeared in the paper, but it didn't turn out too well. I guess it gives some idea to those who didn't see the paper.

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a100/georgebglass/building.jpg

Thanks Krosejr for the info.

A stream of good news for downtown Lexington turned into a positive gusher this week.

Yesterday, developers from Ohio and Indiana announced plans for a 600,000-square-foot residential and retail project that will occupy an entire block on South Broadway. On Monday, hope was finally breathed into the five linked buildings on South Limestone called the Kimball House.

Between the two projects, the south end of downtown near the University of Kentucky will gain close to 300 high-quality new housing units.

The bulk of them will be in Shelbourne Plaza, the mixed-use project on a block long occupied by a tobacco warehouse. There, a development team from Ohio and Indiana will spend about $70 million to build 250 apartments in three buildings connected by glass towers and anchored by a supermarket and other commercial activity.

At the Kimball House, the first floor will be devoted to a day spa while the upper floors and an addition will become 36 condominiums.

Many things have to go right for a big project to get off the ground, but one reason the Broadway deal could be made is a new zoning designation that allows complex mixed-use developments. The city took the right step, recognizing that the world is changing and zoning must change with it.

A downtown development plan, soon to be presented for review, should also help establish the framework for more people to live, work and shop downtown while preserving the city's historic neighborhoods.

Other developers and UK might also note that Shelbourne's backers had done their homework, meeting with and apparently listening to neighborhood groups as well as UK and city traffic and planning officials before announcing the project. Even big players do well to listen to those around them.

City officials must still examine the project closely before approving it.

But it is a good sign for Lexington and the region that we can attract high-quality development that can house hundreds of people and revitalize the urban core without destroying an acre of farmland.

DEMOLITION STARTS TUESDAY; NEW CLUB OPENS NEXT SPRING
By Jim Jordan
HERALD-LEADER BUSINESS WRITER
The walls of the Lansdowne Club will begin tumbling down Tuesday to make way for The Signature Club of Lansdowne, a $3.5 million dining and swimming club at 3200 Lansdowne Drive.
"We are going to give the people of Lexington the kind of club they deserve," developer Ron Turner said yesterday.
First proposed as a $2 million renovation of a 47-year-old Lexington landmark, the project gradually grew into a total rebuilding as outdated electrical, plumbing and air-flow systems, and other problems, were discovered, Turner said.
Demolition of the 9,400-square-foot clubhouse will begin at 2 p.m. Tuesday. A new 16,000-square-foot clubhouse and 8,000-square-foot poolhouse are expected to open in March or April.
The new "zero-entry" pool with a water playground that includes slides and sprays will open May 15 and close Sept. 15 every year. The club will continue as the home of the Lansdowne Gators Swim & Dive Team.
"We have already sold over 300 memberships for 2006," which is roughly the club's 2005 membership, said Pam Stone, general manager of The Signature Club. Eight weddings also have been booked for 2006.
"It's going to be very family oriented," Stone said. "The only difference is that it's going to be very state-of-the-art," including a "cashless environment" where members sign for purchases and are billed later.
Other club facilities will include a fitness center and spa; restaurant and lounge; game room and arcade; ballroom and conference center; and tennis, basketball and volleyball courts.
Full memberships range from $1,500 a year for a family to $800 for a single senior citizen. The family rate in 2005 was $750 a year. Partial 2006 memberships for the restaurant, lounge and special entertainment programs are also available.
Non-members and groups may also rent club facilities.
The restaurant will feature steaks, ribs and other local favorites, but its specialty will be seafood. Turner is part owner of a Destin, Fla., seafood wholesale company that he said can provide items not usually found on local menus.
Turner also said he plans to light up the club at Christmas just as he lights up his house at 1008 Chinoe Road with thousands of bulbs that often cause motorists to stop and stare.
Turner, a real estate developer and founder of Amteck of Kentucky, bought the Lansdowne Club in May in partnership with his son Troy, the owner of Commonwealth Copy Products.
The club was built in 1958 by the developers of the Lansdowne subdivision -- J.W. Davis Jr. and C.B. McEachin. It was the first Lexington subdivision to have a private swim club.
The clubhouse was seriously damaged by fire in 1979, but the pool opened every summer.
The club struggled in the 1990s because of aging facilities and declining membership. In 1999, it was bought by an investor group led by Bill and Linda Varney to keep it open until new owners could be found

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v511/krosejr/news_dom1.jpg
By Tom Martin
BUSINESS LEXINGTON
There’s an old saying that “circumstance and timing give an action its character and make it either good or bad.” The circumstances of demographics have merged with the timing of key federal funding and important zoning changes to bring the renaissance of downtown Lexington to the brink of “critical mass.” Whether the outcome will be good or bad depends on what happens next.

Many moving parts had to synchronize perfectly to translate decades of discussion and hard work into the realities now taking shape and form. Perhaps the most pivotal development came this summer when 6th District Congressman Ben Chandler won $20 million in federal funding to complete the Newtown Pike Extension. “We have to have that traffic artery in and out of downtown Lexington in order to make it more pedestrian friendly, and in order to attract people to build in downtown Lexington the residential complexes we need to have people live there,” Chandler said in an interview that can be heard in full at www.bizlex.com. “The Newtown Pike project provides development opportunities, growth opportunities, economic opportunities here in Central Kentucky without destroying our most precious asset, the Bluegrass. To me that’s the best of all worlds.”

With investors also attracted by the city’s new “MU” zoning designations (permitting complex mixed-use developments) and encouraged by a reversal of the “urban flight” of the late 20th century, two major projects recently entered the rapidly expanding downtown development scene.

“We have critical mass happening. Timing is the key for a lot of things in life,” observed Lexington developer Marcum King, who recently unveiled a $12.5-million plan to transform the five inter-connected Victorians that comprise the Kimball House Motel - circa 1882 - into a mix of residences and street-level retail.

La Bella Salon, Spa & Self Image Centre, a Cincinnati company owned by Leslie and Dr. James Foster, is spending $3 million to restore and equip the first floor and basements of the Victorians. The Fosters plan to open in September 2006 with at least 40 employees, plus the staff of a partnering plastic surgeon, limousine service and catering from nearby upscale restaurants.

King said in addition to the spa, 36 condominium apartments are to be located on the second and third floors and in a building situated behind the familiar Victorians facing Limestone.

Only a few blocks to the east of King’s Kimball House Square project, on the South Broadway site of a vacated tobacco warehouse, Bloomington Group LLC and Polaris Real Estate Equities Ltd. have unveiled plans for Shelburne Plaza, a $70-million “urban village” of apartments and street-level retail.

Developer Guy Totino said the plan calls for 250 two, three and four-bedroom apartment units and 80,000 square feet of retail space. “We plan on having some rooftop garden amenities for the apartments, and we’ll offer entertainment-driven retail. We see that as restaurants and shops. We’ll have a courtyard theme that will have a gazebo for community-type events, such as Bluegrass bands on Friday afternoons, children’s magic shows, holiday events and things of that nature. Every restaurant will be required to have outdoor seating to give the area a very nice sense of community,” he said.

Four supermarket companies are said to have expressed interest in occupying a portion of the project’s retail space.

The Shelburne plaza construction project is expected to employ more than 400 over two years and is slated for completion in mid-2008.

Why bother?
Proponents of downtown revitalization say such urban developments are more widely beneficial than many realize. In a recent guest column for the Courier-Journal, Kansas City Mayor Kay Barnes noted that “cities with strong job growth in their downtown areas have stronger area-wide growth in jobs, population growth and economic growth.” And, she added, “cities with fast-rising downtown populations enjoy faster-rising home values across the entire metropolitan area.”

In addition, Lexington is beginning to experience a national trend of “reverse urban flight” as most of the advantages of living in the suburbs have disappeared while the disadvantages have increased. Phil Holoubek, president of the Lexington real estate firm LRC, Inc., said for many, the suburbs have lost their allure. “When people fled for the suburbs, they could get more land for less money. Since then, lots have shrunken, developers have to cram single family homes right next to each other, housing prices have shot up so that you get less land and spend more money and you’re nearly as close to your neighbors as you would be in an urban area. Finally, the suburbs often lack the culture that an urban area offers with live theater and that sort of thing.” Holoubek’s firm anticipates breaking ground in early 2006 on “Main and Rose,” a mixed use project located at its namesake downtown intersection featuring ground floor retail with residences above with completion expected by the summer of 2007.

New demographic realities
Recalling a finding in the housing study conducted for the downtown master plan, Downtown Development Authority president Harold Tate pointed out that “over half of Lexington are singles and couples, and that changes the demographics in terms of what people are looking for.” Some people, said Tate, “want the option of having a townhouse, a condominium or a rental unit where they don’t have to take care of the yard, or they can lock up the place and go on their travels. I think you’re seeing more and more of that happen.”

Mayor Teresa Isaac, possibly eyeing the hundreds of engineers and medical specialists heading for Lexington as Belcan and the UK Medical Center expand, joins Holoubek and Tate in citing new demographic realities to explain the rising demand for the urban lifestyle. “We’re seeing a lot of young urban professionals who want to live in downtown,” said Isaac, “and we see people who want to live close to where they work.”

The next ten to fifteen years will be the “perfect storm” for downtown housing said Phil Holoubek. “Here’s why: 72 percent of downtown residents are young professionals. 22 percent are empty nesters and 6 percent are ‘non-traditionals’ - gay couples, midlife crises, divorcees, that sort of thing. So 94 percent of downtown residents fall in two generations. There are 82-million baby boomers, between 43 and 57 years old. They are just now becoming empty nesters because of the fact that in today’s society, kids move back home from college and stay at home longer. So as the (boomer) generation finally starts becoming empty nesters, you’ve got 14 more years of providing them with the downtown housing and lifestyle they want. My generation, which is 28 to 42 year olds, is irrelevant to downtown housing because we have kids, and when you have kids, you flee for the suburbs for twenty years. The generation behind us numbers 78 million. This is what’s shocking. No one ever thought there would be another generation as big as the boomers, but the 27 year olds of this so-called “echo” or “millennial” generation are just leaving the nest for the first time. We have 18 more years of providing downtown housing for them. The two biggest generations in our country's history, both wanting to live downtown at the exact same time - that’s the big demographic reason why urban density in downtown housing is a must.”

Attorney Bill Lear, one of Kentucky’s leading practitioners in real estate development law, whose South Hill projects are in various stages of progress, said Lexington developers have been reluctant to join a national trend of downtown revitalization - until now. “The demographics really support it,” he said. “The two biggest elements of our population right now are empty-nesters and the children of the baby boomers. The two biggest cohorts in the American population are the two biggest candidates for downtown housing. That’s why you’re seeing so much of it springing up.”

New perception of “urban density”
“That is the key word here: density,” said developer King. He believes this aspect of urban life should be viewed in a more positive light; one that emphasizes the pleasures of living within walking distance of the office, grocery, theater or a favorite eatery. “People get scared of that word ‘density,’ but instead they should be all for it. Because it’s exactly what they want.”

Citing suburban sprawl into surrounding horse farms, the World Monument Fund recently singled out Kentucky’s Blue Grass region as the only cultural landscape in the United States appearing on its endangered list for 2006. Urban planners in places such as Boulder, Colo., have embraced density as a way to prevent damage to the very landscape that has made their cities attractive. (See “A Boulder vision” in the archives)

“Urban density is our future,” said landscape architect and Bluegrass Tomorrow president Steve Austin. “It preserves greenspace, creates the vital, vibrant atmosphere we want to attract young professionals and creative minds, will help us reduce traffic, and will create new ways of adding development value.” Austin, however, offered a caveat: “Urban density without great urban design is fatal. We must stress the importance of architecture, ‘streetscaping,’ and proper mixed-uses. We must have developers and people in the city government who understand this and have a public that demands this.”

“We have a saying in our projects: height is our friend,” said builder Lear. “In an urban environment, you can’t go out, you go up.” In Lear’s opinion, a city’s structures and greenspace should not be mutually exclusive. “You can’t just have all buildings and concrete. You have to have some nice outdoor spaces where people can go and spend time, walk their dogs; nice streets that are tree-lined. We’re trying to create that environment.”

On hearing the news of the latest developments in downtown Lexington, Clive Pohl of the Lexington architecture firm, Pohl Rosa Pohl, was optimistic that the city finally has reached an important juncture. “It feels as though, at long last, the tipping point has been crossed and that life, with all its color and potential, will find its' way back to our city center where it belongs.”

By Van Meter Pettit
Guest Commentary
Anyone who has spent time in Lexington can tell you it’s a lovely place to live or visit. We have a 200-year-old history, two universities, a highly educated population, and a diverse and prosperous economy. We sit astride two major highways - and of course (as if anyone will let you forget) we’re the Horse Capital of the World.


For just a moment, let’s step back from the Lexington we all know and love and ask a question: What more could Lexington be? What are the missing pieces that would make Lexington an even more wonderful and prosperous place, the kind of magnet for talent, creativity, and by extension, economic development, that other places in the country have become?


In drawing a comparison, let’s look at successful medium-sized cities like Austin, Boulder, San Antonio, Providence or Portland. What is a common feature? Each has a vibrant and well-designed urban center that has transformed their respective downtowns into 24/7 live-work-play environments.


In my opinion, Lexington has tremendous unfulfilled potential in this regard. Without diminishing downtown’s numerous entrepreneurial businesses or the spike in private development that has sprouted over the last year, our downtown is still well behind the curve of other American cities with whom we should be able to compete. Our downtown has numerous existing and dormant locations of interest, whether they be historical, cultural or economic, but downtown conspicuously lacks a centering element that would synch it together.


A growing number of Lexingtonians are beginning to believe that it is high time for Lexington to dream big and follow that with action. If we can “connect the dots” of our city, promoting a number of places of interest through a unifying and active experience, then we will pull tens of thousands more visitors off the highway to visit, attract many more bright young professionals to live and work here, and convince scads more lively retirees to spend their golden IRAs with us.

What could provide that unifying thread? The very same element that drew frontiersmen to this glorious spot of wilderness in the first place: Town Branch Creek.


Ever wonder why Lexington is located where it is? Why the city grid has no cardinal bearings? Why the central business district is so long and thin?


Believe it or not, Lexington was settled in 1779 along the banks of the middle fork of Elkhorn Creek, a small tributary called Town Branch that now lies buried under Vine Street.

What Town Branch Trail, Inc., a five-year-old 501-c-3 nonprofit, hopes Lexington can achieve is no less than the rebirth of the forgotten creek where our city was born at the dawn of the American Revolution. At its fullest, the project would take the form of a ten-foot-wide asphalt path shared by bicycles and pedestrians running a minimum of eight miles from downtown Lexington out to Masterson Station Park (which has an additional four-mile grass loop). Within the immediate downtown area, we envision a half-mile ribbon park running down Vine Street that would connect Thoroughbred and Triangle Parks (over the footprint of the buried creek). This Vine Street section of the trail would emulate the dry-stone canal and tree-lined “commons” that our city created out of the creek over 200 years ago. (We don’t propose digging up the actual buried stream.)


The scope and potential of this project can at first appear by degrees thrilling, daunting, or hopelessly far-fetched. Nonetheless, this project is slowly becoming a reality. A Downtown Master Plan commissioned by the Lexington Downtown Development Authority has integrated this project as a central element. Town Branch Trail is a major component of the city’s unanimously approved Greenway Masterplan. It has been integrated into the design for the Newtown Pike Extension, and Congressman Ben Chandler has offered enthusiastic support for the idea. To date, the project has attracted over $1,000,000 of in-kind donations of land and labor and $450,000 of funding to build two miles of trail. On October 8 at 10 a.m., we will dedicate the first half-mile of trail across from Masterson Station Park in the McConnell Trace neighborhood.


Now let’s put our efforts in context: The San Antonio Riverwalk took 40-plus years to create, and cities like Austin and Portland have been building miles of urban trails since the 1970s. These lovely places have been enjoying a very positive urban renaissance for decades as a result. Our situation is a bit like what Mark Twain said about Kentucky: “When judgement day comes, I’m moving to Kentucky, because everything happens there twenty years later.” Well, our twenty-year lag time is over, folks, and we have lots of nitty-gritty work ahead, but with equal measures of inspiration, perspiration, and cooperation we can carve a path into the future that will take Lexington to a whole new level of prosperity and urban life.

By Phil Holoubek
Guest Commentary
The most important economic development strategy any American city can take in the 21st century is the creation of a thriving, vibrant, 24-hour downtown.


As Richard Florida points out in his “Rise of the Creative Class,” thriving downtowns are one of the most important factors that knowledge-based young professionals consider when choosing whether or not to relocate to a new city. Once knowledge-based young professionals move to a city, knowledge-based companies soon follow. This is critical to the success of cities in the 21st century because the old, manufacturing-based approach to economic development is dead. In just the past three years alone, 1 out of every 6 manufacturing jobs (16 percent) has been lost to locations outside the United States!


Thriving downtowns contain lots of cool, owner-occupied housing, they have abundant restaurants and nightlife, they are pedestrian-friendly, and they also contain ample, usable greenspace. Vine Street, in its current state, falls short in every single one of these categories.



The concept
In August, the city council’s planning committee asked me to present a proposal for the creation of a linear park along the length of Vine Street. It’s not a new idea. As far back as 1804, a similar concept existed along the linear canal that ran through downtown.


The more recent proposal connects Triangle Park to Thoroughbred Park, contains water features throughout, is historically correct, is consistent with Lexington’s brand image, and would be built with local materials. The park would be 60 feet wide in some places, and narrower in others. Due to the enormous distance between buildings across Vine Street from one another (150 feet on Vine Street, as compared to 90 feet on a typical city street), we are able to add this linear park and still have room for two-way traffic, ample on-street parking, and sidewalks.

The specific design of the park has not been discussed in detail yet, nor is it important at this early stage in the process. Rather, several different designs have briefly been reviewed. At this early stage, it is far more important to agree on a broad concept, than on specific design elements.


For example, it is important to agree upon the general scale and scope of the project. Will it be a memorable icon or something less? The Opera House in Sydney, Australia, provides a great example of an iconic image. Sydney needed a new opera house. However, rather than building an “opera house,” they built an iconic image. As a result, when you picture Sydney in your mind, the first image you see is probably the harbor with the opera house in the background. This is an economic development engine. Although it cost more to build than a lesser opera house, the economic returns have been far greater. We should look at the opportunities for our linear park in the same way.



The benefits
The benefits of this concept are numerous. The park improves quality of life by providing residents a place to walk, work, bike, eat, and just “be” downtown. It provides a sense of place, lowers traffic speeds and makes Vine Street more pedestrian-friendly.


The park is also a major economic development tool. It will encourage the development of mixed-use projects (retail, restaurants and residential) along Vine Street, and also make Lexington a more appealing place to visit. The result is increased property, sales, tourism and occupational tax revenues. As a study by the Brookings Institute points out, “In fact, successful downtown turnarounds have shown that for every $1 of public investment, there will be $10 to $15 of private money invested.”


This concept also provides the one “shared vision” that can jumpstart the rebirth of downtown. It is not divisive among party lines, and everyone in the private and public sectors, and at the local, state and federal government levels, can agree that this improves our city’s quality of life. As Congressman Ben Chandler said, “A linear park is certainly something all Lexingtonians can be proud of. It will attract more people to Lexington and the downtown area, which will be very beneficial to all residents and existing businesses. It will also greatly improve our quality of life. Downtown Lexington is very important to me.”


The concept also protects our one brand image - horse farms. Since this concept will likely lead to increased density in the urban core, it reduces pressure on city leaders to expand the urban service boundary area. As a result, we help limit sprawl and increased traffic.

Finally, the concept is historically accurate. It takes us back to a time when Vine Street was referred to as “The Commons,” the Town Branch was run through an open canal, and this area was a major congregating place for citizens. Although this concept does not necessarily recommend returning Town Branch to the surface, it does recommend including water features that are representative of the Town Branch. It also recommends including the long-running and successful Farmers Market.



Other cities’ successes
Many other cities have created downtown linear parks with water features as economic development tools. Successful projects that were studied for this concept were located in San Antonio, Texas, Oklahoma City, Okla., Boulder, Colo., Denver, Colo., Providence, R.I., and Indianapolis, Ind. All of these cities have seen improvements in quality of life, tax revenues and economic development as a result of their projects. Oklahoma City created a temporary 1 percent local sales tax to raise $40 million for a new linear park with a canal (a total of $500 million was raised for other downtown projects). The result has been more than $1 billion of private investment to date. Providence spent $50 million on a linear park and additional money on other downtown projects. The resulting private investment has been over $1.5 billion to date.



Funding parks
In some cases, federal funds have been used to create linear parks. For example, 77 percent of Providence’s funding came from the federal level. In other cases, local dedicated taxes are created, as was the case in Oklahoma City and Boulder. Some cities have used a temporary local sales tax. Other cities have created temporary tourism taxes (hotel tax, car rental tax, etc). Additionally, naming rights for certain park amenities are usually created, in order to encourage corporate and individual donations, thus increasing the sense of “ownership” that the community feels for their park. After all, downtown is often referred to as “everyone’s living room.”



Next steps
The city is in the process of creating a task force to determine how best to implement this project. The task force will consist of both public officials and private citizens, and will include input from all key stakeholders. The task force will also identify possible funding sources and create a timeline for the project. With the possibility of Lexington hosting the World Equestrian Games in 2010, that sounds like an appropriate deadline to me!

I had seen these mentioned in a few articles and I found a web address with more detail. It seems like a great project.

www.arteklofts.com

By Tom Martin
Business Lexington
We’ve been seeking answers to questions about a disturbing recent event for the city of Lexington.

The announcement that Lexington’s loss of the biennial ideaFestival will soon become Louisville’s gain is deeply troubling for a city that is openly striving to reinvent its identity as a place that values knowledge and talent. The ideaFestival had been presenting our city in a new context that was beginning to counter those dispiriting and widely held negative perceptions of Kentucky’s intellectual capital. You know the ones we’re talking about.

It’s not as though we weren’t warned that this could happen. Festival founder and organizer Kris Kimel made it known in late 2004 that the festival was in the red - that while it was his desire to keep it in Lexington, he also had to make it work, and that other cities, Louisville among them, had come courting with offers of more broad-based support than Lexington seemed willing or able to provide.

Forewarned, we had a choice: invest more substantially or let it go. As we all now know, we let it go.

Perplexed and concerned about the message this sends, we’re left to sort out how we failed as a community to support and sustain such an invaluable tool of progress.

There’s an old blues tune, “The Same Thing That Makes You Rich Can Make You Poor.” Its original intent was simply to make a statement about one of life’s most disappointing ironies. But in the case of the ideaFestival, it could be reversed to say that the same thing that costs also provides. The festival was no profit center. Most such civic ventures operate on the thinnest of margins, if not in the hole, relying on underwriting and subsidy to cover the deficit. The projected gap between known funding and estimated costs - $150,000 remaining from the 2004 event - surely would have been retired by a more responsive community.

As a city and culture, Lexington has been making progress in its efforts to catch up with other American medium markets in the race to lift its economy and, by extension, its people onto a more competitive footing. That progress has been due, in part, to such undertakings as the ideaFestival, which had been branding our city as a place of the inquisitive and innovative; a place where anyone with a brain would want to live, work, think, innovate, raise kids, play and walk the dog.

There was something exciting and seductive about a community that greeted some of the nation’s deep thinkers with standing-room-only crowds. The thought of it makes you smile with a mixture of bemusement and pride. Just look at a short list of festival lecturers and participants: theoretical physicist Brian Greene; Beatles producer Sir George Martin; author Oliver Sacks; bio-medical engineers, psychologists, commercialization experts, spiritualists, filmmakers, public policymakers, biologists … your head swimming yet? For anyone who enjoyed intellectual stimulation, it was heaven.

Quite a few businesses and institutions did step forward with dollars, air-time, advertising space, expertise, enthusiasm and elbow grease, including the University of Kentucky, Lexmark, Belcan, Georgetown College, Toyota, FifthThird Bank, the Lexington Clinic, WLEX, Cornett-IMS and the Herald-Leader, just to name a handful.

We had a somewhat engaged corporate community. And we had a somewhat supportive city government. In retrospect, however, we now see that it wasn’t enough to ensure in full measure that this event - and all that it stood for - created the foundation of credibility that is absolutely critical to a city striving to grow and attract industries and academics engaged in such heady things as high technology and vital research.

Louisville, led by the enlightened Mayor Jerry Abramson, saw in the meantime an opportunity to snatch away this innovative tool of economic development and leaped at the chance to brand itself as an epicenter of smarts, ponying up the funds and shaking local corporate trees to ensure its success.

This loss is a victory for Lexington’s competitor cities - those actively positioning to score big for their economies by adapting to the times.

Writing in The Atlantic Monthly, Richard Florida, whose appearance at the 2002 ideaFestival drew an SRO audience, observed that “innovation, economic growth and prosperity occur in those places that attract a critical mass of top creative talent.” Nothing more clearly defines the ultimate purpose of the ideaFestival.

In her front page story about a new direction for Commerce Lexington, Janet Holloway quotes Ed Morrison, a consultant to the chamber and a proponent of a new model of economic development - open innovation systems or civic networks - as advising that, “we need to identify priorities, find a way to get everyone’s input without blame or finger-pointing, and listen carefully to each other. Then we do something; we make a decision that allows each person to have some ownership of the trip.”

This is the positive approach, the high road, the way we believe good things ultimately are accomplished. The way we would prefer to see our city and state operate.

So, enough hand-wringing. It’s futile to tend to the barn doors now that the horse is in clover, 70 miles to our west.

This loss serves notice on all of us that this is a time for serious reflection; a time to ask some penetrating questions about ourselves as a community: Was the ideaFestival important to us? What is implied by its departure? Maybe this wasn’t for us. But what is?

Now that Louisville has wrested the ideaFestival from our grasp, how can we leverage this situation to make the entire Commonwealth of Kentucky a better place? After all, Lexington doesn’t corner the market on intellectual curiosity. Maybe there’s room around this state for more than one IdeaFestival. Maybe we need to start thinking within a framework of “co-opitition” - working in cooperation WITH such competitive markets as Louisville, Paducah, Bowling Green, Covington, Ashland, Owensboro, Henderson and Pikeville to create a statewide series of smaller, more sustainable events that could serve to brand Kentucky - all of us - in an attractively positive light. How many of us would jump at the chance to be involved in such a collective, non-partisan effort, pulling in the same direction for the common good? Is it at least worth a try?

In the words of the Rolling Stones:
“You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometime
You just might find you get what you need.”
The ideaFestival is what Kentucky needs. Let’s try to keep it.

By Eugene Bell
Contributing Columnist
When construction first began in Hamburg Pavilion, some of my friends quickly dubbed it “Hamburger Center,” in honor of the fast food restaurants that were the first eateries to spring up in the soon-to-be burgeoning retail development. The area has since developed well beyond its initial quick-service offerings into a “destination” restaurant scene, as a growing variety of dining establishments have chosen locations on and around Sir Barton Way. Not only are the fast food restaurants thriving, but upscale chain operators are locating there also, an indication of an environment ripe for continued growth of the restaurant scene in Hamburg.


And for good reason. According to Forbes Best Places latest study, when it comes to the cost of doing business, Lexington is the second best place in the country to locate a company in terms of business costs.


“The demographics of Hamburg are what major restaurant companies are looking for, such as new housing growth within a short radius, accessibility and disposable income, not to mention the median age of adults in the area (which is a relatively young 33),” said Michael Maloney, a partner at I Ching in Hamburg. “Hamburg is the most progressive mall in the area.”


I Ching, which opened its doors in September of 2003, offers quick-casual fare that blends a variety of modernized Asian flavors, including Chinese, Thai and Japanese influences. The restaurant draws its business, especially at lunch, from a predominantly white-collar crowd of business people and shoppers going about their routines in the immediate area, but the attraction of Hamburg, both in terms of retail and restaurants, reaches beyond Fayette County’s borders.


“Hamburg is in Lexington, but it doesn’t actually draw as many people from Lexington as it does from surrounding counties,” Maloney said. “It’s what some have called an ‘eastern Kentucky draw mall.’”


Even with a significant amount of the area’s residential development yet to come, business “is getting better every day,” said Maloney, and the high-end home prices in nearby developments bode well for I Ching’s business.


In terms of staffing, Lexington’s nearby colleges and universities offer a good supply of potential help for restaurants like I Ching, which employs between 30 and 50 people at any given time, according to Maloney. There are twelve institutions of higher education within 30 miles of Lexington, providing ample student populations to fill the part-time staffing requirements of local restaurants. Finding good help, as they say, has always been a challenge for the food service industry, but the challenge has become increasingly important to restaurants of late, as growing costs in areas such as insurance have added pressure to the industry’s already tight margins.


“The top two challenges to the restaurant industry are labor and insurance,” said Kentucky Restaurant Association President and CEO Stacy Roof. “One reason that it’s hard to keep people in restaurant jobs is the high cost of insurance. Health insurance now accounts for 40 percent of a business’ operating costs. It’s just hard to make a go of it under those circumstances.”


And the collegiate presence around town also makes modern venues like Hamburg appealing to relatively new and expanding restaurant concepts for another reason.

“Louisville and Lexington are, indeed, test markets for restaurant concepts,” said Roof. “Both are medium-market college towns, and that makes them attractive to companies that are fine tuning their marketing and overall presentations.”


Hamburg (and the surrounding area) is well on its way to becoming a thriving suburb in its own right. With the development of more new hotels, office space and surrounding homes, many who live and work in the area see the Hamburg community quickly becoming a world unto itself.


“It’s almost becoming its own little city,” Maloney said. “It’s got everything you need. You almost don’t have to leave if you live here.”


But that doesn’t mean the community isn’t a draw for “outsiders” as well. Hamburg is easily accessible from two major crossroads in the state, I-64 and I-75, and with over 400 hotel rooms available, nearby restaurants are provided with a wealth of new diners daily.


And the high concentration of restaurants, while it creates increased competition among those dining establishments, also provides added appeal for diners. A long wait for tables at one favorite stop turns into an opportunity to try another location just down the road, and those considering eating out become less daunted by the potential for crowded dining rooms and long waiting lists. The operators, for their part, feel there are still plenty of customers to go around.


In this writer’s opinion, it all goes back to the first three rules of successful restaurant ownership: Location, Location, Location, and Hamburg’s restaurant scene has indeed become a thriving home for a lot more than hamburgers.




Sep 23, 2005

By Anne Sabatino
Guest writer
For nearly 10 years, Malone’s Restaurant has built a reputation as a popular “inside New Circle” steak-and-seafood dining spot for a varied crowd, from families to businesspeople to sports revelers relaxing after a day at the races or on the greens. Local figures and traveling celebrities have been drawn to its tables at the Lansdowne Shoppes, often taking time to scribble a quick note on their menu to Lexington locals and co-owners, Bruce Drake and Brian McCarty.


Together the two created the Bluegrass Hospitality Group, which owns and operates many Lexington-based favorites around town - including Malone’s and Oscar’s, Sal’s Chophouse and Harry’s American Bar and Grill, Regatta, The Club Room and Malone’s Banquets.


Now, the restaurant management company is carving a place for itself in Lexington’s new restaurant frontier - Hamburg Place. Although the idea of a second Malone’s location in the area’s most busy and popular shopping area seems like a recipe for success, the Hamburg economy presents challenges the group has not faced before - particularly a massive area with a lot of big competition.


Downtown may attract many diners looking for a distinct local dining flavor, but what happens when one of those restaurants jumps in the game with the big chains? Are the local ties enough to sustain the business? Will food speak louder than words?


McCarty and Drake have taken that chance and think the new Malone’s - to open in the renovated Damon’s location - will stand out in the crowd. They point to the high quality of food and service people expect from the restaurants and the fresh appeal of a new concept as reasons. In addition, the location already features a successful Bluegrass Hospitality Group restaurant, Harry’s American Bar and Grill - also a second installation of the original in Lansdowne.


The group has experienced success with various applications of restaurant models, but their experience hasn’t come without trial. The Hamburg location of Harry’s was completed about one year ago inside the Damon’s owned by the Bluegrass Hospitality Group. Though business at Harry’s helped the flow into Damon’s, the franchise didn’t produce. Drake and McCarty took a look at the situation and came up with a new plan.


“We had to address the fact that the Damon’s brand is an issue. It reached its peak 10 to 15 years ago and has been on a downward slide for a while,” said McCarty. “The upside is that we were fortunate to get a great location.”


So, what do you get when you combine a dying franchise with a high-dollar ticket for prime real estate in a popular shopping area? You know the saying, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” McCarty and Drake chose to stick it out. And renovate.


Harry’s has been open during the renovations that were essential to transforming Damon’s sports bar into Malone’s classic dining room. In addition to the transformations in the main dining room, the kitchen facilities had to be updated and a special section of the restaurant will house a chic new concept: Aqua Sushi and Oyster Bar.


Only months ago, the two pushed the envelope of fine dining in Lexington when they presented The Club Room at Malone’s, which features prime steaks, coldwater lobster tails and Wagyu “Kobe style” beef all served in a well-appointed private room by a highly-trained, full-service staff.


“It’s part of our business model to listen to the consumer and deliver on those preferences,” McCarty said. “That’s critical to any success - whether it’s the decision to change a menu and feature Malone’s steaks at Sal’s, create a new concept like Sushi or bring Malone’s to a different audience.”


Indeed, Hamburg opens a new pool of potential diners for the restaurants, but that pool is not available without some competition. New-to-Lexington chain concepts vying for the attention of diners in Hamburg include Bonefish Grill, Carrabas, Ted’s Montana Grill and I Ching - and they’re all flourishing so far.


McCarty and Drake acknowledge the competitive nature of the business.


“We’re big believers that the good ones survive,” said McCarty. “These restaurants have a great fan base, and they are operated well. I think that some of those restaurants may even feel an increase from the attention that is increasingly being focused on the area because of our establishment and other developments. Plus, this area brings in people from a lot of different areas.”


In addition to drawing a Lexington crowd, McCarty and Drake expect Central Kentuckians from Richmond, Georgetown, Winchester and Mt. Sterling will be more regular at Malone’s than they were able to be with only one Lexington location.


With all the new traffic pouring into Hamburg, hopes have been dashed that the new Malone’s location will take the pressure off the traditional Friday night fight for a table. McCarty and Drake are happy to keep it that way.


“Malone’s is on an hour wait every night, and we need to keep it that way,” said McCarty.


Only time - and a few Friday nights - will tell whether the gamble on this Lexington locale will pay off.


Malone’s second location and the new restaurant, Aqua Sushi and Oyster Bar are scheduled to open on October 10. Harry’s has remained open during the renovations.


Sep 23, 2005

America's 100 best communities for young people (Newsweek)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9466949/site/newsweek/

KENTUCKY
- Mt. Sterling
- Lexington
- Louisville
- Murray/Calloway County
- Ohio County

America's 100 best communities for young people (Newsweek)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9466949/site/newsweek/

KENTUCKY
- Mt. Sterling
- Lexington
- Louisville
- Murray/Calloway County
- Ohio County

The fact that they put Ohio County in that list just dis-credits that ranking right off the bat. Pure stupidity. I should know, I lived in Muhlenberg County for 20 years of my life, right across the Green River from Ohio. Both are suffereing from a bad case of the red-neck fever.

I'd agree, besides Lexington and Louisville, which to me are still lacking in things to do for young people, none of those places would strike me as a great place for young people.

Speaking of things to do for young people, I'm always curious about Lexington because I went to UK for grad school. When I was there from 01-02, the club scene was pretty dry for the 21 and older crowd. Have they opened up any new clubs since 02? I used to hate having to drive to Louisville or Cincy on weekends sometimes. I know when i was there they closed down two clubs, I know i'll be coming up to lex next sat to visit some family. Any new clubs to check out? Any new bars? I think it would be nice if UK would construct some type of entertainment district around campus like the ones in Bloomington, Knoxville, and Columbia. I think a district like that would really make the area around UK attractive, because Knoxville and Lexington have a lot in common, the only thing the seperates the two is night life. Again thats just my opinion, or even if they had a strip of clubs and bars, that would keep alot of patrons in Fayette county.

It's still pretty dry imho. Lexington to me is a great place to be if you are a UK student 18-21ish or you are settled down with a family. If you are somewhere in between I find it lacking.

There are a few new bars and 1 new music venue called The Dame which occ. has some decent acts. Mostly though it's the same places with new ownership and names, and the same crowd.

If you let me know what type of stuff you enjoy, I'll try to recommend some places for you to check out. Send me a PM.

There are a lot of things happening in the downtown/campus area. A lot of the development is housing and shopping/restaraunts, but hopefully that will bring more people to the downtown area and liven things up. There was an article a year or 2 ago in the Lexington Herald Leader that discussed the lack of young proffesionals/singles in the area. One of the biggest complaints was nightlife and things to do. People were leaving the area for cities that offered more for them to do as well as high paying jobs.

It's still pretty dry imho. Lexington to me is a great place to be if you are a UK student 18-21ish or you are settled down with a family. If you are somewhere in between I find it lacking.

There are a few new bars and 1 new music venue called The Dame which occ. has some decent acts. Mostly though it's the same places with new ownership and names, and the same crowd.

If you let me know what type of stuff you enjoy, I'll try to recommend some places for you to check out. Send me a PM.

There are a lot of things happening in the downtown/campus area. A lot of the development is housing and shopping/restaraunts, but hopefully that will bring more people to the downtown area and liven things up. There was an article a year or 2 ago in the Lexington Herald Leader that discussed the lack of young proffesionals/singles in the area. One of the biggest complaints was nightlife and things to do. People were leaving the area for cities that offered more for them to do as well as high paying jobs.

Your right eighties the 18-21 UK crowd can always find a party or two around campus from August-May. Thats the only thing Lexington Lacks right now imho as far as keeping young professionals around. Its a great city to raise a family in, there is no doubting that. Lexington will continue to thrive without nightlife don't get me wrong. They are doing the right things now to get people either downtown or close to the downtown area. I'm definitly impressed with what is going on in Lex. Lexington definitly has a charm that no other city its size can claim. Plus the locals support the different events that happen around town. Thats one of the things that I really enjoyed about lexington, it really didn't matter what type of local event was going on, you would always have a nice crowd. People really take pride in the city. Another thing I hated to was last call at the bars, but I know recently that got pushed back a little later which is definitly better. I enjoy reading all the development going on in Lex and I definitly plan on driving by some of the new development tommorow.

It's still pretty dry imho. Lexington to me is a great place to be if you are a UK student 18-21ish or you are settled down with a family. If you are somewhere in between I find it lacking.

There are a few new bars and 1 new music venue called The Dame which occ. has some decent acts. Mostly though it's the same places with new ownership and names, and the same crowd.

If you let me know what type of stuff you enjoy, I'll try to recommend some places for you to check out. Send me a PM.

There are a lot of things happening in the downtown/campus area. A lot of the development is housing and shopping/restaraunts, but hopefully that will bring more people to the downtown area and liven things up. There was an article a year or 2 ago in the Lexington Herald Leader that discussed the lack of young proffesionals/singles in the area. One of the biggest complaints was nightlife and things to do. People were leaving the area for cities that offered more for them to do as well as high paying jobs.


I would have to disagree with you on this...I believe there is a lot for those of us in our 30 +. There are more bars and clubs in Lex, than most think. There is are outstanding comedy bars, there are great places to go at night such as horse racing, dancing, (shoot there are 5-6 clubs for us gay folks to go to and for Kentucky that isn't too bad). We have the wonderful Lexington Opera House and serveal other outlets, Downtown Art Center, etc...too many to list. Whatever your taste Lex has it...for somethings it may be on a smaller scale than larger cities but we are a "small to midsize city".

We just had my little sister come in last week and there were so much too do we didn't get to it all...and she can't wait to come up for more.
Yes, all cities need to make sure there is a nightlife and other things to keep folks without kids around...and for Lexington's size...I think it does very well. I have traveled a lot and other cities around Lex size..she does well.

With last call being 2:30am now it puts Lexington just a little behind Lou & Cincy. And no smoking...this is great (sorry smokers) but if the entire state of CA can do it and it hasn't hurt them...I think it is great.

LEXINGTON BUYING HISTORIC THEATER
By Brandon Ortiz
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
The city must pay $240,000 to the Lyric Theatre's last owners for taking the historic but decaying building, a Fayette County jury said yesterday.
The verdict culminated a two-day trial over the financial value of the Lyric -- once considered the "nation's finest colored theater," but now abandoned and crumbling. Last month, the city took possession after a lengthy condemnation battle that reached the state appeals court.
City leaders say they plan to transform the dilapidated building at East Third Street and Elm Tree Lane into an African-American cultural center.
City lawyers declined comment last night. A non-profit group that owned the Lyric said it accepted the verdict.
"It was never about the money," said Gayle Slaughter, president of God's Center Foundation. "There was never any doubt that our government doesn't operate in the best interests of the public, and this (trial) proves that."
God's Center officials said they plan to monitor the city to make sure it keeps its promises. The city has eight years to meet the deed's requirement that the Lyric be restored into an African-American cultural center.
A private appraiser contracted by the city testified that the facility is worth $165,000. City attorneys said it needs substantial renovations and that its historical significance, although unique, did nothing to enhance its market value.
Tuesday, jurors toured the dark theater, and saw holes in the walls, rusted stairwells and loose electrical wires. Rochelle Boland, an attorney for the city, urged jurors to use "common sense" when assessing a value.
The non-profit argued that the building was worth $486,000 because of its concrete walls and sturdy, steel truss roof, which was replaced in 2001. Terry Anderson, representing God's Center, said the structure is unique and is strong enough for hanging sound and lighting equipment.
The theater had sentimental value to God's Center as well, Anderson said. The non-profit dreamed of using the building to educate and nurture Christianity in young boys and girls, he said.
"The only way to address this loss is for you to give us $486,000," Anderson said.
God's Center has feuded with the city since the 1990s over the Lyric's fate. In its defense, it publicly raised allegations of sexual impropriety in the Micro-City Government program. The non-profit said it feared a repeat of the scandal.
Micro-City Government's director, Ron Berry, was convicted in 2000 of 12 counts of sodomy with 12- to 16-year-old boys. He is at the center of a federal class-action lawsuit against the city.
At one time, the Lyric, built in 1948, was the entertainment hub for Lexington's black community and played host to big-band legends Count Basie and Duke Ellington. But it became economically unsustainable after segregation came to an end.
It was abandoned in 1963, and has sat vacant ever since.
Lexington attorney William Huffman bought the Lyric in 1984 for $20,000 and later donated it to God's Center, which wanted to use the building to promote Judeo-Christian values and community service. In later years it acquired neighboring buildings that have since been demolished.
The city sought to turn the Lyric into a cultural center after a 1996 lawsuit settlement with the state, which sued the city for failing to build a cultural center downtown. A year later the city filed an eminent-domain action, which allows municipalities to take property for public purposes.
After a jury trial and several appeals, the city was allowed to take the Lyric.
A city task force that will look at potential uses for the Lyric will meet at 11 a.m. Oct. 6 at the Greater Liberty Baptist Church, 330 Chestnut Street.

I would have to disagree with you on this...I believe there is a lot for those of us in our 30 +. There are more bars and clubs in Lex, than most think. There is are outstanding comedy bars, there are great places to go at night such as horse racing, dancing, (shoot there are 5-6 clubs for us gay folks to go to and for Kentucky that isn't too bad). We have the wonderful Lexington Opera House and serveal other outlets, Downtown Art Center, etc...too many to list. Whatever your taste Lex has it...for somethings it may be on a smaller scale than larger cities but we are a "small to midsize city".

We just had my little sister come in last week and there were so much too do we didn't get to it all...and she can't wait to come up for more.
Yes, all cities need to make sure there is a nightlife and other things to keep folks without kids around...and for Lexington's size...I think it does very well. I have traveled a lot and other cities around Lex size..she does well.

With last call being 2:30am now it puts Lexington just a little behind Lou & Cincy. And no smoking...this is great (sorry smokers) but if the entire state of CA can do it and it hasn't hurt them...I think it is great.

Thats where I have to respectfully disagree with you, I'm not 30 + I'm 25 soon to be 26. I know me and my friends and alot of people my age we don't attend opera's and horse races. Don't get me wrong I know some people love to go to churchill and or Keeneland, but I just can't get into that. For folks like myself you want variety. I'm not gay but i think its good that Lexington has gay clubs, most cities lexington size don't have any or they have maybe 1. When I talk in terms of clubs and or bars, i'm talking about lounges designed and dedicated specifically for the 21 and older crowd. After hours lounges are becoming very popular places and good places to mingle an meet people without having to hear music blaring in your ear. Clubs that have variety or multiple clubs in one to get that variety. These are the things that will attract people my age. Or a area where you can bar hop, go to a coffee shop, or a music hall. Sometimes people want to go to music venues, so they can be close to the artist that, most concerts in arena's have terrible acoustics. Even if you have a concert in a club the acoustics are bad, and having music venues specificall designed to have concerts is a plus. I know of Varsity blues and A1A in lex, but those places are like clubs and not really music venues. I have nothing against the opera, thats just not my cup of tea and for me personally thats not intriguing to alot of people 21-30 age range. You can turn just about any hole in the wall into a club, I'm talking about clubs that actually "cater" to specific age groups. Horse racing is fine but I'm talking about after hours, you know late night. Horse racing is what you do during the day time. I guess when I said entertainment I should have specifically said night "life". Thats why i said if Lexington had a designated club scene or entertainment district then you can cater to a more specific crowd. That is what i was meaning when I said entertaining the 21-30 crowd. I'm telling you that would really and truly help keep people from having to go to surrounding cities to party. In my opinion thats the only thing Lexington lacks is a entertainment destination a place that will be alive 24/7.

As far as Horse racing and things of that nature, yes that is entertainment and i'm sure its good entertainment for those who attend those events but if you want to keep your patron dollars in the city of Lexington you are going to have to think outside the box and look out for the people who are the future of the city. Lexington is lucky because its a college town and they have the opportunity to keep well educated UK students in Lexington. If Lex was to expand the entertainment needs for people in that age range, I guarantee you jobs high paying jobs will move there and once students graduate from UK they will most certainly want to stay in Lexington. Its a win-win situation to me, thats the trend alot of cities are now trying to accomplish.

By the way I was in Lexington on Saturday and I decided to take a stroll around and I'm pretty impressed with the lofts and condo's they are building in the urban areas. The one thing I wish they would do is spread out the suburban development, they are over developing hamburg pavillion, traffic was terrible in that part of town. They should of split the development up and put half on one side of Man O War and half on the other side. That way you it wouldn't be as cluttered. Or they could of just built half on the other side of 75. Anyways I was impressed with what they are doing with the lofts and condos and its about time they did it. I wish they would of done all that when i was living there. They should be able to attract alot of people.

It's kinda like what's going on Raleigh. They cashed in on their student population with technology and high pay jobs and have ben trying to expand their entertainment quite a bit.
But I would NEVER want to see Lexington end up like the triangle... *HURL*
I do think that Lexington could really up its payroll and become a bit more upperclass if it could keep these educated young people in the city.

Thats where I have to respectfully disagree with you, I'm not 30 + I'm 25 soon to be 26. I know me and my friends and alot of people my age we don't attend opera's and horse races. Don't get me wrong I know some people love to go to churchill and or Keeneland, but I just can't get into that. For folks like myself you want variety. I'm not gay but i think its good that Lexington has gay clubs, most cities lexington size don't have any or they have maybe 1. When I talk in terms of clubs and or bars, i'm talking about lounges designed and dedicated specifically for the 21 and older crowd. After hours lounges are becoming very popular places and good places to mingle an meet people without having to hear music blaring in your ear. Clubs that have variety or multiple clubs in one to get that variety. These are the things that will attract people my age. Or a area where you can bar hop, go to a coffee shop, or a music hall. Sometimes people want to go to music venues, so they can be close to the artist that, most concerts in arena's have terrible acoustics. Even if you have a concert in a club the acoustics are bad, and having music venues specificall designed to have concerts is a plus. I know of Varsity blues and A1A in lex, but those places are like clubs and not really music venues. I have nothing against the opera, thats just not my cup of tea and for me personally thats not intriguing to alot of people 21-30 age range. You can turn just about any hole in the wall into a club, I'm talking about clubs that actually "cater" to specific age groups. Horse racing is fine but I'm talking about after hours, you know late night. Horse racing is what you do during the day time. I guess when I said entertainment I should have specifically said night "life". Thats why i said if Lexington had a designated club scene or entertainment district then you can cater to a more specific crowd. That is what i was meaning when I said entertaining the 21-30 crowd. I'm telling you that would really and truly help keep people from having to go to surrounding cities to party. In my opinion thats the only thing Lexington lacks is a entertainment destination a place that will be alive 24/7.

As far as Horse racing and things of that nature, yes that is entertainment and i'm sure its good entertainment for those who attend those events but if you want to keep your patron dollars in the city of Lexington you are going to have to think outside the box and look out for the people who are the future of the city. Lexington is lucky because its a college town and they have the opportunity to keep well educated UK students in Lexington. If Lex was to expand the entertainment needs for people in that age range, I guarantee you jobs high paying jobs will move there and once students graduate from UK they will most certainly want to stay in Lexington. Its a win-win situation to me, thats the trend alot of cities are now trying to accomplish.

Bingo!

Bingo!
I'm telling you eighties fan, when you have the state university located in your city, you have the opportunity to attract educated young professionals. When you try to attract young professionals the first thing you try to sell them is cost of living, the second thing you try to sell them is night life. I've had alot of companies try to sell me those two things as far as relocating to another city. For example, Austin Tx, is doing big things to keep University of Texas students there and its paying off. They have a awesome college scene as well as 21 and over scene. These things are attractive to people wanting to relocate. Young adults want a social life, and i'm telling you the opera is not going to do it. YOu need to have places that are open 24/7 and coffee shops open like that would be the start. Young adults love to mingle and just take in the city. If lexington actually created a entertainment row or block they would keep alot of Uk students there to work. Of course it would take high paying jobs to move there, but young adults are looking for fun. They want variety. You just can't have one type of club and expect for people to show up they will get bored to easy. Thats why Atlanta is such a hot place, Atlanta has clubs for everyone. Bars for everyone, lounges for everyone, you don't have to alot of these venues] just a few to keep people spending there money within the city limits. Once you grow another tax base companies will look to move there. If you don't believe me, its happening in Knoxville, TN and Chattanooga and Columbia, SC. These are places relatively the same size as lexington. They are taking it apond themselves to measure up with larger cities and develop nighlife. You don't have to be a large city to be a popular place amoung young people. You just need that variety.

If you don't believe me, its happening in Knoxville, TN and Chattanooga and Columbia, SC. These are places relatively the same size as lexington. They are taking it apond themselves to measure up with larger cities and develop nighlife. You don't have to be a large city to be a popular place amoung young people. You just need that variety.

I hear what you are saying and I agree but....when you place Knoxville, Chattanooga, etc...as having great night life..I have to ask where? My folks live in Bristol VA/TN and folks there go to Knoxville for night life and I lived in Middlesboro, KY for 4 years and drilled for the Navy in Knoxville....I partied a lot down there...and it is no different than Lexington...same with the times I have been in Chattanooga. When we have friends come up here from Knoxville...they are like "damn, it is great to have so many clubs to chill at"...so when you state the happenings in K-town...I am lost. What has Knoxville done? that is different?

I have to say something about age...you state 21 and older...almost all the clubs in Lex you have to 21...I feel sorry for the younger crowed that can't get in, they have to go to Richmond where the places are 18 and older. I think Lexington should change this.

Lexington does (like a lot of cities) need to keep it's young professionals, I am not saying that.

I'm telling you eighties fan, when you have the state university located in your city, you have the opportunity to attract educated young professionals. When you try to attract young professionals the first thing you try to sell them is cost of living, the second thing you try to sell them is night life. I've had alot of companies try to sell me those two things as far as relocating to another city. For example, Austin Tx, is doing big things to keep University of Texas students there and its paying off. They have a awesome college scene as well as 21 and over scene. These things are attractive to people wanting to relocate. Young adults want a social life, and i'm telling you the opera is not going to do it. YOu need to have places that are open 24/7 and coffee shops open like that would be the start. Young adults love to mingle and just take in the city. If lexington actually created a entertainment row or block they would keep alot of Uk students there to work. Of course it would take high paying jobs to move there, but young adults are looking for fun. They want variety. You just can't have one type of club and expect for people to show up they will get bored to easy. Thats why Atlanta is such a hot place, Atlanta has clubs for everyone. Bars for everyone, lounges for everyone, you don't have to alot of these venues] just a few to keep people spending there money within the city limits. Once you grow another tax base companies will look to move there. If you don't believe me, its happening in Knoxville, TN and Chattanooga and Columbia, SC. These are places relatively the same size as lexington. They are taking it apond themselves to measure up with larger cities and develop nighlife. You don't have to be a large city to be a popular place amoung young people. You just need that variety.

So true, but the sad thing is a lot of the interesting people I know who go to UK have decided while they are here that it's not where they want to stay. It was a fun college party town but that's it. And these are the types of people you would want to stay around and contribute to the area. It's more than the right job, people our age want to enjoy where thay live and have options available to them. I'm not too familiar with the some of the cities you listed but I do know multiple people who have picked up and moved to Austin, TX for these very reasons.

When retailers move out, they leave a hulking shell in search of an identity
By Jim Jordan
HERALD-LEADER BUSINESS WRITER
It wasn't Bardstown's 300 historic buildings that fascinated Julia Christensen when she was growing up in Nelson County. It was the town's three Wal-Marts.

Over the years, the first Wal-Mart was replaced by a larger Wal-Mart that was replaced by an even larger Wal-Mart. Each new store was built in a different place, leaving behind a "big box" that sat empty for a long time.

Christensen began wondering about the thousands of big boxes that are left behind every year as major retailers, grocers and health clubs make adjustments. She asked: What are the best uses for them?

To find out, she has been traveling the country in her 1999 Subaru since January 2003, taking pictures, interviewing big-box users and compiling what amounts to a database. Along the way, Christensen is speaking on the topic to civic groups, urban planners and anyone else who's interested.

She hopes to publish a book on the topic in 2006.

"It's interesting how these buildings shape the community even after the retailer has left," she said during a recent visit to Lexington.

Don't blame the retailer

Big boxes are massive -- usually 80,000 square feet or more -- with huge parking lots, extensive storm-drainage systems and often with entrances on at least one major road or highway. They tend to dominate their neighborhood.

Christensen, 29, who recently earned her second master's degree in the arts from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, believes empty big boxes are the inevitable result of businesses trying to fulfill consumer demands, so it's futile to blame Wal-Mart or Kmart for causing the problem.

What counts, she says, is how the space is recycled.

That's "when the community starts to breathe its character back into these buildings," she said.

New uses can include other big-box stores, such as the Furniture World Super Store that moved into the Pace Membership Warehouse off Richmond Road in Lexington. In other cases, the big box might be filled by several smaller users, such as professional offices or retail stores.

Churches, fitness centers, schools and clinics also love big boxes. An abandoned Kmart in Minnesota became the Spam Museum, and a former Wal-Mart in Texas is now an indoor go-cart track, Christensen noted.

Plan well ahead

The recycling process should begin when big boxes are planned, not when they become empty, says David Mohney, dean of the University of Kentucky College of Design. That's why many cities, including Lexington, have ordinances to regulate the location and design of big boxes.

"If you really build these things as isolated empires off by themselves, it makes it very difficult to go back in and figure out what to do if the occupant moves on," he said. "The trick is to ... incorporate them into the community."

A good example in Lexington is the Kroger supermarket on Romany Road, Mohney said. "You can imagine actually walking to the supermarket because it is such a pleasant area."

To create more such livable areas, planning commissions have to make sure big-box developers meet community standards, he said. Most companies are "ready to give a little bit" and to work with local planners.

Another encouraging sign, Mohney said, is that more retailers, especially grocers, are tailoring the size of their stores to the areas they want to serve, instead of building supercenter-size stores everywhere they go.

It's also practical, because smaller big boxes are easier to lease or sell to new occupants than supercenters, said Bruce Isaac, senior vice president of NAI Isaac Commercial Properties Inc. in Lexington.

The rule of thumb is, the larger the space, the longer it typically takes to find a new tenant, Isaac said. Wal-Marts, Kmarts and other really big boxes often require several occupants, and that can take more time than finding just one.

"Typically for these big boxes it's an opportunity to do a variety of uses, whether it's a school or offices or other retailer," Isaac said. "There is really no limit to what can come out of it."

Two businesses in one

A good example -- one that Christensen came to Lexington to see -- is the former Kmart on New Circle Road at North Limestone.

Two occupants fill the building -- Alltel (60,000 square feet) and Goodwill Industries of Kentucky (40,000 square feet). Both say the site is exactly what they needed.

Alltel wanted to consolidate several of its Lexington sites. It needed office space, a warehouse and a fenced-in area to park trucks and equipment, said Erin Ascione, the telephone company's Lexington spokeswoman.

The offices went into the front of the former Kmart, the warehouse was in the back, and the former Kmart garden center made a great place to park vehicles.

"It was kind of a grand slam. It had everything we wanted," Ascione said. "Some places had one and not the other, but they found this one and it was perfect."

At the other end of the building was the former Kmart auto service center with lifts, oil tanks and work spaces cut into the floor, said Erin Gold, vice president of Goodwill Industries of Kentucky.

"When I looked at it, I thought 'This is going to be really more than what I want to get into,'" Gold said. "It was really a mess and had to be cleaned up so it was quite an undertaking."

Gold accepted the challenge and "it came out OK," she said. Goodwill now has its division headquarters, offices for its work force development program and a retail store in the building.

As for Gold, the experience made her a fan of big boxes because of the flexibility they offer. If she finds another one in the right location, she will definitely consider it, Gold said. "I wasn't really like that before. It opened my horizons, and my thought processes up."

Communities urged to keep trying

Christensen has heard many similar success stories and hopes they will motivate communities with long-vacant big boxes to keep trying to find new occupants.

"I'm really interested in collecting the information and just putting it out there so people are able to make decisions and choices, and think about alternative uses for these buildings," she said. "So basically I am a collector and distributor of information."

She doesn't consider herself a consultant or an expert in a niche she pretty much created for herself.

"I'm an artist," Christensen said, noting that all of her college degrees are in the arts, not engineering or architecture. "I talk to people and I share my information, but I always tell them I'm really not an expert.

"More and more," she said, "artists are sort of taking on these projects to examine things that are happening in the social realm."

Here are 10 Lexington area big boxes that are being put to new uses:

From recycling ...

• Alltel and Goodwill Industries in former Kmart, North Limestone and New Circle Road.

• Furniture World Super Store in former Pace Membership Warehouse, 151 North Mount Tabor Road.

• Burlington Coat Factory in former Kmart, 2909 Richmond Road.

• Planet Salon in former Kroger Supermarket at 2909 Richmond Road that was also occupied until recently by Gold's Gym.

• Big Lots in former Randall's supermarket, 820 Lane Allen Road.

• Motorvation Motor Cars in a former Lowe's, 1209 East New Circle Road.

• Galls Inc. in former church, 2680 Palumbo Drive.

• Urban County Government Records Center and Archives in former Furrow store, 1306 Versailles Road.

• Home Depot in place of Montgomery Ward store at Turfland Mall.

• Two stores, Home Goods and The Tile Shop, in a former Service Merchandise store in Woodhill Plaza.

... to empty ...

Here are some vacant big boxes that are awaiting new uses:

• Former Winn-Dixie supermarket, Mist Lake Plaza on Richmond Road.

• Former Slone's Signature Market, Park Hills Center on Pimlico Parkway

• Former Winn-Dixie supermarket, Tates Creek South on Saron Drive.

• 13 vacant or soon-to-be vacant Wal-Mart stores in Kentucky.

... to history

On Sept. 19, 1993, the Herald-Leader ran this list of some of the major stores on Richmond Road from Lexington Mall to Man o' War Boulevard.

Question: Which of these stores are still there? McAlpin's, Dawahare's, County Market, Pace Membership Warehouse, Kmart, Kroger, Winn Dixie, Wal-Mart, J. Peterman, Pet Pantry, Megamarket and Jos. A. Bank Clothiers.

Answer: Wal-Mart and Kroger (although Kroger vacated one big box, now occupied by Planet Salon, and moved to another, the former Megamarket).

I hear what you are saying and I agree but....when you place Knoxville, Chattanooga, etc...as having great night life..I have to ask where? My folks live in Bristol VA/TN and folks there go to Knoxville for night life and I lived in Middlesboro, KY for 4 years and drilled for the Navy in Knoxville....I partied a lot down there...and it is no different than Lexington...same with the times I have been in Chattanooga. When we have friends come up here from Knoxville...they are like "damn, it is great to have so many clubs to chill at"...so when you state the happenings in K-town...I am lost. What has Knoxville done? that is different?

I have to say something about age...you state 21 and older...almost all the clubs in Lex you have to 21...I feel sorry for the younger crowed that can't get in, they have to go to Richmond where the places are 18 and older. I think Lexington should change this.

Don't get me wrong Krosejr, I was just using knoxville and chattanooga as examples because they in planning to raise the bar on things to do at night for the young professionals. I wasn't saying they are light years ahead of lexington because they are certainly not. What i'm saying is these mid-size cities are atleast trying to do something about it. Yes I am aware that most places in Lex are 21 and up, but those clubs are all identical, nothing seperates them from the others. They all offer the same kind of entertainment. That gets old really really quick, and you look to other places to entertain yourself. That was really my main point, and i certainly wasn't meaning to say that Knoxville has a leg up, I was just saying I read about knoxville trying to build entertainment complexes for the grad students and young professionals that moved to Knoxville. I think that would be a good thing for Lex to do. Knoxville and Lexington have alot of similarites so I chose to use Knoxville as a example.

Lexington's leadership is still stuck in the eighties for one thing. The Government has the horse industry in it's pants and as long as that is the case, things will continue to drag through the city with little or no action. It has to ralize (the city) that Horses aren't everything. Its great and a bit of a money maker, but it is not the end all be all some would have you to think. When they realize this, they will change their ways.

I think it is also worth mentioning that if Government leaders would stop the in-fighting that always takes places down at the Lafayette Hotel! They spend too much time trying to keep Lexington small and country and not enough with keeping it up to date with the times. All this condo development in the city has thrown me for a loop. When I lived there, I worked at 590 WVLK and got to talk with city leaders all the time. All that ever goes on is fighting about this and that.

Great post Lexy! When I lived in Lex, it was always slow motion, I think you hit it on the head as far as being behind times. I didn't really see it as a negative, I just took for what is was. I just thought this is what the locals want and they are content with Lex being this way.

I love Lexington for what it can be. Often though it is very frustrating for what it is not, because their is a lack of vision among many residents. Don't get me wrong, the fighting among city leaders is a big problem. On the other hand, certain city leaders have had good ideas that were strongly opposed by certain people. For example, Mayor Miller wanted to close the part of Vine Street that separates the civic center from Triangle Park and connect the two. I thought that was a wonderful idea because it would make the park more of an attraction and it would have opened an area for a plaza type space that the civic center does not have. It would have been more like public spaces in Europe. However, some citizens freaked out because they felt that traffic would have been affected too much. She also was a big advocate for constructing mid-rise condos over the transit center, but that project faltered. Another example is when the current Mayor proposed a light rail system between Nicholasville and Lexington in her campaign. That is a great idea, but not a lot of people seem to support it because they are afraid it will be too expensive etc, etc. Lexington has also had countless projects proposed, then due to oppositon from neighbors the projects either become compromised or get dropped altogether. An exampke of this is the Reynolds Road area. That is one of the ugliest parts of town in my opinion. It is ironic that so much debate over what to do with that land resulted in what is there now.
I think one of Lexington's biggest problems is that the residents we have here tend to leave. In today's society people are constantly moving and transferring. A lot of people are only here a short while and do not get too involved in the affairs of the city. Until more visionary citizens become vocal, Lexington will not change. It will be left to the very vocal group of people who seem to always fear change. There will be more sprawl and less downtown development. Fortunately, some visionaries have started to make their presence known.

I love Lexington for what it can be. Often though it is very frustrating for what it is not, because their is a lack of vision among many residents. Don't get me wrong, the fighting among city leaders is a big problem. On the other hand, certain city leaders have had good ideas that were strongly opposed by certain people. For example, Mayor Miller wanted to close the part of Vine Street that separates the civic center from Triangle Park and connect the two. I thought that was a wonderful idea because it would make the park more of an attraction and it would have opened an area for a plaza type space that the civic center does not have. It would have been more like public spaces in Europe. However, some citizens freaked out because they felt that traffic would have been affected too much. She also was a big advocate for constructing mid-rise condos over the transit center, but that project faltered. Another example is when the current Mayor proposed a light rail system between Nicholasville and Lexington in her campaign. That is a great idea, but not a lot of people seem to support it because they are afraid it will be too expensive etc, etc. Lexington has also had countless projects proposed, then due to oppositon from neighbors the projects either become compromised or get dropped altogether. An exampke of this is the Reynolds Road area. That is one of the ugliest parts of town in my opinion. It is ironic that so much debate over what to do with that land resulted in what is there now.
I think one of Lexington's biggest problems is that the residents we have here tend to leave. In today's society people are constantly moving and transferring. A lot of people are only here a short while and do not get too involved in the affairs of the city. Until more visionary citizens become vocal, Lexington will not change. It will be left to the very vocal group of people who seem to always fear change. There will be more sprawl and less downtown development. Fortunately, some visionaries have started to make their presence known.

You're right george, its going to take some folks who have moved away from Lexington to more progressive cities only to come back because of there love for the city to change it. Thats why its so important to keep young professionals there. Young people require change because they don't share the same views as the baby boomers. In my opinion its just the element of time, once the baby boomers serve there purpose and move on will start to see many more forward thinking people occupy the city. The sad part about all this is politics gets in the way of everything and its going to take a leader who is willing to take alot of political blows to move lexington forward. To many politicians are worried about being re-elected and they lose vision on what really needs to happen to make the city move into the next tier. This type of things happen from New York city all the way down to hazard Kentucky.

Speaking of lightrail, I don't really think lightrail would be the best answer, I think creating a better thorough fare through the city would be the best answer. I think that really hurts alot of urban and suburban development in lexington because of the lack of interstate access through the city. You have to get off 64 and drive through the outlying areas to get into downtown. Where most cities you drive through downtown, I think creating a better highway system with beltways will go along ways to improving the overall commute. Lexington is pretty compact if you had a highway that runs through the city you could get from point a to point b in no less than 10-15 min max. Think about if you didn't have to drive down Nicholasville rd or Harrodsburg rd to get through the city. What if you could hop on 64 or 75 to get anywhere in the city. You could cut down your commute more than half. You can waste alot of gas in lexington just riding down those main ateries in stop and go traffic. Living in louisville we complain about traffic but we are spoiled with a excellent commuter system of highways and beltlines. If we didn't have 264 or 265 you are talking about an hour or more to get to alot of places around the city. I think getting a highway system in and around the city would go along ways to making lexington a destination place. You could have a beltline that goes from Nicholasville around to Georgetown through versailes and back to Lexington. People would be able to really see all of the beautiful bluegrass region and still have access to the city. I bet alot of companies would move to lexington if they had a better way to commute through the area without having to drive through a gazillion lights a day. It would be nice if you could just drive right into downtown from the highway. Just my opinion

I hear what you all are saying and I agree with most...but there are a few points I want to lay out. 1. The horse thing...it is the biggest money maker for the entire state of KY. and Lex is the center of it...to lose this would hurt not only the city but the state. 2. This horse things give Lexington the charm it has. Lex doesn't want to become like any other city it's size...it doesn't want to be all burbs...3. The city needs to focus on the center core and it is..smart growth.
I don't see it being behind 15 years...it is on track with a lot of cities in its size..it is not stuck in the 80's. You can look all over and see the new projects in almost every cities, doing the same thing...so Lexington isn't behind, she is right on the money.
4. The road systems need to be update...our loop (New Circle) is outdated..it was design for 60,000 not 300,000, yeah it would be nice to have a connector but at what cost? The hist. center neighborhoods? :-(
Lexington is on the right track...and will cont. to move forward, she will never be a Boston, NY City, Louisville, etc...and that is what makes her so great (at least why we moved here).
What I like about the city govt..is that they do visit other cities to learn and grow..they are a least not wasteing time and money on doing something and finding out it didn't work. :-) the do however fight too much!!!
George as for the Reynolds Road area...which side are you talkin? I live down Reynolds that turns into Greenlawn....the work near Fayette Mall is a great improvement and my side, well there is still work to be done but I wouldn't put it as the ugliest in the city. LOL

Guys & ladies, I am only 31 and was in the Navy for 4 years...after 19 countries and more cities than I can remember, living 2 years south of Tokyo ,,,I have seen a lot of urban/city "stuff"....as for my fair city Lexington...I am very pleased :-)

Lexington hosting

Let’s get together….how about 15 Oct..afternoon in Lexington…go for a Bourbon tour, catch the races (Keeneland & Red Mile) a little drinkin – lay $2.00 down. Etc…

Hit me back with an email and lets see if this is a go..if the 15th doesn’t work…lets chose another Sat.

Then maybe have another meeting with Louisville hosting?

I hear what you all are saying and I agree with most...but there are a few points I want to lay out. 1. The horse thing...it is the biggest money maker for the entire state of KY. and Lex is the center of it...to lose this would hurt not only the city but the state. 2. This horse things give Lexington the charm it has. Lex doesn't want to become like any other city it's size...it doesn't want to be all burbs...3. The city needs to focus on the center core and it is..smart growth.
I don't see it being behind 15 years...it is on track with a lot of cities in its size..it is not stuck in the 80's. You can look all over and see the new projects in almost every cities, doing the same thing...so Lexington isn't behind, she is right on the money.
4. The road systems need to be update...our loop (New Circle) is outdated..it was design for 60,000 not 300,000, yeah it would be nice to have a connector but at what cost? The hist. center neighborhoods? :-(
Lexington is on the right track...and will cont. to move forward, she will never be a Boston, NY City, Louisville, etc...and that is what makes her so great (at least why we moved here).
What I like about the city govt..is that they do visit other cities to learn and grow..they are a least not wasteing time and money on doing something and finding out it didn't work. :-) the do however fight too much!!!
George as for the Reynolds Road area...which side are you talkin? I live down Reynolds that turns into Greenlawn....the work near Fayette Mall is a great improvement and my side, well there is still work to be done but I wouldn't put it as the ugliest in the city. LOL

Guys & ladies, I am only 31 and was in the Navy for 4 years...after 19 countries and more cities than I can remember, living 2 years south of Tokyo ,,,I have seen a lot of urban/city "stuff"....as for my fair city Lexington...I am very pleased :-)

Your right I did forget about the horse farms and all that good stuff, I was really just trying to come up with ways to improve the overall commute in Lexington, because it makes no sense to sit in traffic that long in some places. Lexington has created most of its own traffic problems because of horrible planning. Thats why i said if you create sometype of belt line even within fayette county you can get to anywhere there in 10-15 min. It makes no since for all that stop and go, I think Lexington is passed that stage now we aren't talking about Bowling green or Owensboro. One thing of note I went to a siminar on economic development and they were discussing what industry makes the most money in the state. Yes the horse industry is the largest "agricultural" money make in the state. It doesn't bring the most in the state. I think there is a misconception on that, i know the horse industry loves to sell that information. Actually what makes the most money in the state are the conventions that come here. Tourism is the biggest money make in this state by far. The horse industry does make money but its not even in the top 5 to be honest, thats why they want gaming.

^^^Hey man, I understand...Lexington's roads are totally in need of work...commute can be a killer.
I was incorrect about the top money...manufacturing is in fact the money maker in the state (http://www.thinkkentucky.com/kyedc/pdfs/kyecotrd.pdf) the equine export is rank first in the nation!
Other fact:
Kentucky's Horse Industry Ranks Fourth

KENTUCKY – As reported by the Kentucky Post: "Kentucky's horse industry is the fourth largest in the nation in terms of dollar magnitude, number of industry participants and employment generated, according to a recent study.

"Kentucky's horse industry is the fourth largest in the nation in terms of dollar magnitude, number of industry participants and employment generated, according to a recent study.

"…Kentucky trails California, Texas and Florida, in the number of jobs created and sustained by its horse industry, creating about 96,000 jobs in the state.

"The American Horse Council Foundation, a horse lobby group, commissioned the study to assess the effects of the horse industry on the United States…"

^^^Hey man, I understand...Lexington's roads are totally in need of work...commute can be a killer.
I was incorrect about the top money...manufacturing is in fact the money maker in the state (http://www.thinkkentucky.com/kyedc/pdfs/kyecotrd.pdf) the equine export is rank first in the nation!
Other fact:
Kentucky's Horse Industry Ranks Fourth

KENTUCKY – As reported by the Kentucky Post: "Kentucky's horse industry is the fourth largest in the nation in terms of dollar magnitude, number of industry participants and employment generated, according to a recent study.

"Kentucky's horse industry is the fourth largest in the nation in terms of dollar magnitude, number of industry participants and employment generated, according to a recent study.

"…Kentucky trails California, Texas and Florida, in the number of jobs created and sustained by its horse industry, creating about 96,000 jobs in the state.

"The American Horse Council Foundation, a horse lobby group, commissioned the study to assess the effects of the horse industry on the United States…"

Good find Krose, I can easily believe that, alot of people think we just breed thorobreds and that is not the case at all. Kentucky breeds just about any type of horse you can think of. The Horse industry will continue to thrive, my only beef with the horse industry is how they are the number 1 opponents of bringing land based casino's to Kentucky that would generate all kinds of money. Indiana is making a killing off there riverboat casino's especially from Jefferson county residents. That is another topic of discussion for another day

By Tom Martin
BUSINESS LEXINGTON
Rising gasoline prices appear to be driving recent increases in public transportation ridership, with Lexington among 33 cities nationwide reporting a boost since post-Katrina price spikes hit the pumps. And rising interest in public transit is coinciding with recommendations for a major makeover of LexTran.

“We are seeing phenomenal growth,” confirmed LexTran General Manager Terry Garcia Crews. “We are seeing routes showing anywhere from a 6 to 10 percent increase in ridership.”

The bump in ridership in Lexington and other cities was noted at a recent international gathering of public transportation officials converging on Dallas for the American Public Transportation Association’s annual expo.

“With gas prices now at record levels,” said APTA president William Millar, “more people across the country are turning to public transportation, and what they are finding is that public transportation in the 21st century has been revolutionized by a wide array of advances.”

Many of those advances appear in recommendations recently presented to the LexTran board of directors by a task force created with last year’s voter referendum approving a transit tax.

Highlights of the task force recommendations include: adopting a “subway type routing grid” that would integrate mainlines such as Nicholasville or Richmond Roads with intersecting “cross town connector routes.” These routes, in turn, would be fed by “neighborhood collector routes” serviced by vans or trolleys that commuters could catch at corner stops located within walking or biking distance of their homes; using “smart technologies” at all transfer stations to provide real-time information regarding locations and arrival times of buses; making it easier to pay fares and board buses by installing “smart technology” payment kiosks at bus stations that accept credit/debit cards or embedded value cards. These kiosks and cards would allow consumers to purchase weekly, monthly or annual passes, rather than limiting their options to daily fare purchases. The cards could also accommodate “frequent rider reward programs;” improving the current LexTran Web site to be more interactive, with real-time information on exact locations of buses that would allow riders to determine when they should leave their homes or businesses; locating comfortable bus-stop shelters throughout the city, equipped with such amenities as monitors showing when the next bus will arrive as well as TV news channels, and providing space for the display of public art; installing simple technology to turn transfer stations into wireless hot spots; increasing the frequency of service from current 30- to 60-minute intervals to no more than 15 minutes between buses.

Encouragement for improvements is also being heard from downtown revival advocates. “As plans continue to revitalize downtown, it is imperative that Lexington have a more full-service public transportation system,” said Congressman Ben Chandler. “Clearly, a convenient and efficient public transportation system is a vital component to any thriving city. It is noticeably apparent that something needs to be done in Lexington to improve the current system.”

In its report, The LexTran Task Force acknowledges that a perception problem will have to be overcome before working professionals will be persuaded in significant numbers to leave their cars at home. “Make riding LexTran a fun experience,” urged task force member Phil Holoubek. “The downtown commuters have their blackberries; let them check e-mail. Provide kiosks where they can buy Starbucks coffee and something to read on the way to work.” Holoubek says the task force also encourages LexTran to look into using electric or hybrid buses, “not so much because of the cost savings, but also because of the branding and the progressive image it would provide for our city.”

For Garcia Crews, the immediate challenge is to achieve “operational excellence; stepping up the product so that when people have that first-time experience, it’s a positive one and making sure that we’re doing it right, that we’re on time.” Garcia Crews added that it gets exciting when it turns to making sure the system is marketed effectively, but it’s important that “people know how to use the system, so that it’s not an intimidating situation.”

“Cities around the United States, as well as the world,” notes the task force report, “are moving in the direction of increased Transit Oriented Development (TOD). According to the Web site of “Reconnecting America,” a national non-profit organization promoting TOD, “demographers estimate that as much as 30 percent of the demand for housing is for denser, walkable, mixed-use communities, and that less than 2 percent of new housing starts are in this category. Transit-oriented development may provide the answer to the challenge of meeting this demand.”

In the view of the LexTran task force, “TOD will allow Lexington to remain competitive in attracting knowledge-based individuals and businesses which can choose to locate anywhere, and who may not be attracted to a city that is completely dependent upon private automobiles.”

The Federal Transit Administration has made TOD a high priority. According to agency chief, Jennifer L. Dorn, TOD will be where the funds for transit are found in the 21st century.

The prospect of accelerated federal transit funding is not lost on Lexington, where hopes are high in anticipation of being named host-city for the 2010 World Equestrian Games. “We hope to get the positive news in December.” said Holoubek. “It’s a wonderful deadline to have. I think it would be great to be sitting here in five years and have an entirely new mass transit system along with an entirely new downtown.”

But state follows national trend of fewer stallions
By Janet Patton
HERALD-LEADER BUSINESS WRITER


Kentucky once again leads the pack in stallions and breeding mares, even as the number of stallions in the state slipped slightly.

That decline mirrors a general industry trend, according to statistics released yesterday by The Jockey Club.

In North America this year, 3,097 stallions had bred to 58,739 mares through Oct. 13.

Not all the reports are in for the year, but it appears that nationally there were 4.4 percent fewer stallions overall and 1 percent fewer mares being bred.

That indicates a continuing increase in "book" size -- the number of mares bred to each stallion.

There was a 7 percent increase in the number of stallions who bred to 100 mares or more. Those stallions, the majority of which (86 horses) are in Kentucky, accounted for more than 27 percent of the mares bred.

If you think 100 mares a year is eye-popping, four stallions covered 200 or more. All four stand at Ashford Stud in Versailles.

Lion Heart topped the charts with a record 233 mares bred. He edged out Chapel Royal, who covered 222.

Giant's Causeway, with 215 mares bred, barely topped Fusaichi Pegasus at 213.

Kentucky continues to dominate the breeding market, with 20,651 mares bred, a 2.2 percent increase over 2004's numbers. The state also lost three stallions.

But the biggest increases in numbers of mares bred came in two states where slot machines fatten purses: West Virginia gained 28.4 percent, while Pennsylvania gained 26.7 percent.

The state that slipped the most was Maryland, with 13.3 percent fewer mares bred.

West Virginia also experienced the most growth in stallions: 21.4 percent, or 68 stallions, in 2005. New York suffered the worst losses, losing 24.6 percent of its stallions, down to 101 this year.

By Art Jester
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER

The University of Kentucky's massive expansion of its medical center is growing even bigger.

UK will build not one but two bed towers and make other additions to the expansion, pushing the project's total budget from $375 million to $450 million. It was already one of the biggest construction projects ever in Kentucky.

The second bed tower, which has been added to the original plan, will cost about $26 million, Michael Karpf, UK's executive vice president for health affairs, told the University Hospital board, a subcommittee of UK's board of trustees, yesterday.

The hospital board approved the increase in the project total to $450 million. The bigger expansion plan will go to UK's board of trustees today for its approval.

Karpf said medical center officials have already met individually with each trustee to discuss the $75 million growth in the project.

Two bed towers, with a total of 473 beds, will be built on the site currently occupied by the University Hospital parking garage.

When a new parking garage for 1,129 vehicles is completed across Limestone by March 2007, the hospital garage will be torn down immediately so construction can start on the towers, Karpf said. Construction is scheduled to finish in 2010.

Each tower will be six stories tall, and both will sit on a four-story "podium," he said.

Among other additions to the medical center expansion are a $27 million "strategic contingency fund" to cover the cost of new equipment that could become available while the project is under way, and $11 million for a lobby that will link the bed towers, the critical care tower and the Gill Heart Institute.

Karpf said that the $450 million total cost will be paid for by a $250 million bond issue and $200 million from University Hospital revenues.

The state has authorized UK to put $104 million of bonds on sale. That will occur this week on Wall Street. UK will have to get state authorization again to sell the remaining bonds needed to pay for the expansion.

The project's architects encouraged UK to build the second bed tower for two reasons, Karpf said.

• It can help speed up the move from the old hospital, which is 45 years old and is considered unsuitable for renovation to serve as a contemporary hospital.

• It will be cheaper to build while expensive construction equipment, such as cranes, are already in place.

Karpf said that stronger-than-expected revenues at University Hospital in the last two fiscal years have enhanced UK's ability to sell the $250 million in bonds and to pay for the remaining $200 million for the project.

Karpf attributed the University Hospital's vigorous finances to new programs; more than 80 nationally known faculty recruited to UK; and Kentucky patients who had been going out of state choosing to get medical treatment at UK.

UK had total operating revenues of $345 million in fiscal 2003. An increase in the number of in-patients -- those staying in hospital rooms -- caused the operating revenues to grow to $441 million in fiscal 2005. Revenues are projected to grow to $500 million to $550 million in this fiscal year, Karpf said.

University Hospital will have an operating margin, or profit, of about $40 million, some 8 to 9 percent, Karpf said.

The entire expansion is scheduled to be finished in 2010.

University Hospital has 440 beds, and UK has state authorization to have a maximum of 473.

UK MEDICAL CENTER EXPANSION

Cost in millions

Hospital Construction $262.1

Parking $20

Infrastructure $ 50

Huguelet Avenue widening $4.5

Equipment $29

Land acquisition $5

Construction fees, administrative costs and miscellaneous $52.4

Strategic contingency fund $27

Total $450

UK hopes to attract high-tech businesses
By Karla Ward
HERALD-LEADER BUSINESS WRITER
A private developer plans to spend $50 million to construct two five-story buildings that will house offices and labs at the University of Kentucky's Coldstream Research Campus.

UK officials say they hope the project, the Lexhold International Center for Technological Innovation, will attract high-tech companies to the campus at Newtown Pike and Interstates 75 and 64.

"It's hard to market dirt," said John Parks, UK's associate vice president for research and development and director of Coldstream. "We've got to be able to accommodate them (new companies) quickly."

Meanwhile, UK might sell Coldstream Center, a 165,000-square-foot building it bought last year for $9.6 million. Only 60 percent of the building, which houses Lexel Imaging Systems, is leased. UK bought it because Lexel, a manufacturer of cathode ray tubes, did not need all the space and had been planning to move.

Buying the building allowed Coldstream to retain the company as a tenant and, Parks said, provided a ready place for UK to put high-tech companies that might want to come to the campus.

He said there has been some interest in the building from the private sector, but UK would only sell if it could maintain control over what goes into part of the building and could get more for the building than its appraised value.

The Board of Trustees is scheduled to vote Tuesday on whether to permit the sale of the building.

The Lexhold center, which should be ready to be customized for tenants in January 2007, will provide 332,000 square feet of space at Coldstream. A groundbreaking for the center is scheduled for 3 p.m. Tuesday.

The state bought the 735-acre Coldstream campus in 1957 for use as an agricultural experiment station, and over the years, the vision for the site has evolved. However, none of the visions has ever been fully realized.

UK decided to turn the site into a research park in 1989.

Now, Parks said, the activity at Coldstream represents a "good start" to making the property a mecca for high-tech industries such as lean manufacturing, pharmaceutical research and equine pharmaceuticals and diagnostics.

Nine tenants and 170 new employees have joined Coldstream since June 2004.

And UK is putting the finishing touches on the $17 million Center for Pharmaceutical Science and Technology building, which should open in February.

The center already exists in a small space on UK's main campus. It is one of two in the nation that has approval from the Food and Drug Administration to make small batches of drugs for human trials.

Parks said he hopes the center's presence at Coldstream will help draw pharmaceutical companies to the site, and the Lexhold Center could provide space for them.

Kris Kimel, president of the Kentucky Science and Technology Corp., thinks the new office and lab space will be attractive to high-tech companies because the mix of university research and private industry already at Coldstream will provide incoming organizations with "access to knowledge."

"Coldstream is really accelerating and really on the right track," he said.

Harold Tate, president and executive director of the Lexington Downtown Development Authority, said the momentum is building at Coldstream.

"You're starting to see that increased interest in high-tech technology in Lexington," he said.

Tate hopes there will one day be a high-tech corridor running from the UK campus through downtown and out to Coldstream. He cited Belcan Engineering's recent move to downtown Lexington as one sign that that could become a reality.

Michigan-based developer Kale Roscoe, who will build the Lexhold center, also owns the IBM building at Coldstream.

He is leasing the property for the new centers from UK on a 100-year lease.

Two locally based organizations, the American Board of Family Medicine and data protection company AsiGuardian LLC, have already signed on to locate at Lexhold, and Roscoe said one of the new buildings is already completely leased.

He said he's in preliminary negotiations with "four other major companies" not already in Lexington, one of which is Bayer Pharmaceuticals.

"The Lexhold development is a great example of how the UK Coldstream Research Campus will serve a broad mission of linking university interests and research activities with the business community," Wendy Baldwin, UK's executive vice president for research, said in a statement. "These links are a vital part of UK's role in economic development."

A NEW NEIGHBORHOOD
U.S. giving city $20 million
By Michelle Ku And Cassondra Kirby
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITERS

Sitting outside her apartment in Bluegrass-Aspendale yesterday, Joquetta Paris clapped her hands after learning that Lexington had finally won a $20 million federal grant to tear down the housing project and build a new neighborhood in its place.

"The ceilings are falling in," said Paris, 32. "Some of the apartments are in real bad shape."

The view from her front step is of grass littered with trash and sidewalks that glitter in places from broken beer bottles. Around her stands what's left of Lexington's last barracks-style public housing project.

Soon, the area northeast of downtown will be transformed with a mix of 419 new privately owned single-family homes and Lexington Housing Authority-owned townhouses, duplexes and apartments. The development will be anchored by a new 400-student elementary school. New streets will be built, with a grand entryway into the neighborhood.

"As a community, we'll be able to transform that neighborhood over the next five years to rid this community of the last of the typical stereotypical housing units," said Austin Simms, executive director of the Lexington Housing Authority. "Bluegrass-Aspendale is the last of the 1930s, '40s and '50s public housing in this community."

The housing authority learned yesterday that it will receive the long-sought federal grant to demolish and revitalize Bluegrass-Aspendale. It was Lexington's fourth try for a federal Hope VI grant, distributed to cities by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to remove and replace dilapidated public housing.

Simms said strong community support -- including that of the mayor, governor and Kentucky's representatives in Washington, D.C. -- made the grant possible, particularly since the application had been rejected three previous times. "This is not the housing authority's day. It's the community of Lexington's day," Simms said.

Both of Kentucky's U.S. senators -- Mitch McConnell and Jim Bunning -- threw their support behind the grant application. McConnell spoke about the project with HUD Secretary Alfonso Jackson and wrote him a letter in support of the housing authority's proposal.

"I asked him to give it every consideration," McConnell said yesterday. He added that it was the people who put the grant together who "deserve the lion's share of the credit."

Charlotte Court, Lexington's other high-density public housing project, was razed in 1999 using a $19.3 million Hope VI grant. It was replaced by The Arbors, a suburban-style neighborhood of 95 single-family homes on Georgetown Street.

The new grant "will complete our efforts to dramatically change the face of the east end of Lexington by providing modern, affordable and attractive housing options for our citizens," Lexington Mayor Teresa Isaac said in a statement.

Some officials caution that redevelopment must be done the right way.

The revitalization will have serious ramifications in the area, such as gentrification and the dispersal of the primarily African-American population that lives in Bluegrass-Aspendale, said Urban County Councilman George Brown, whose district includes Bluegrass-Aspendale.

"If those people are moved out or if very few return, that really has an impact on the demographics in the first council district," said Brown, whose district has historically had an African-American majority.

The community should play an active role in the upcoming redevelopment, Brown said.

The council recently had to delay construction of a proposed new street through Bluegrass-Aspendale because of an outcry from neighbors who said they hadn't been involved in the decision-making. The council has since approved holding a three-day design exercise in November to discuss the proposed route and other aspects of the redevelopment plan.

Simms said counseling and relocation aid will be provided to the people living in the remaining 389 units of Bluegrass-Aspendale after the first of the year. Over the years, nearly two-thirds of the original 963 units in Bluegrass-Aspendale have been demolished.

Demolition on the remaining units could start in late summer 2006 or early fall, Simms said. Construction on the new homes could start by 2007.

The housing authority will have five years to redevelop the area, he said.

Some current Bluegrass-Aspendale residents said they worry about where they will live if they don't qualify for the new housing.

"Most of the people around here live here because they have no choice," said Jennifer Sweeney, 25. "This is the cheapest housing in town."

Sweeney has lived in Bluegrass-Aspendale since August, when injuries from a car accident forced her to quit working. Although the neighborhood is known for crime, Sweeney said, she will miss the residents.

"Most of the people here will give you everything they've got, if you need it more than they do," said Sweeney, who has used neighbors' phones and borrowed everything from milk to diapers from them.

"To tear up a community, especially a tight community, is kind of sad," she said. "I hope that the plan isn't going to leave everybody ... high and dry."

James Taylor, 49, has lived in Bluegrass-Aspendale for five years, but said he will be glad to move if the neighborhood is going to be improved. "It's about time for a change," he said. "It's time for these old buildings to come down."

^ It's about time! That is a horrible development over there. I am glad to see it going down with the wrecking ball and people behind this. That was one of the most blighted areas in the city which should change with this news.

Equestrian games are a gamble
By Jim Warren
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER

Officials of the Kentucky Horse Park and the U.S. Equestrian Federation estimate that it would cost about $33 million to put on the World Equestrian Games in 2010, but they expect to make that much and more from ticket sales, TV deals, sponsorships and other revenue generators.

That's based on the expectation that the event would bring about 300,000 people to Lexington from 40 or more countries.

Some experts say it's difficult to predict just how successful the games might be, and previous events have not been without problems.

The 1994 World Equestrian Games in the Netherlands were plagued by organizational snags, and Ireland had to back out of plans to hold the 1998 games when the Irish government elected not to provide funding.

But Kentucky officials say the horse park's worldwide reputation, vast facilities and long track record of holding major equestrian events constitute unique advantages that should make for successful games.

"The games would have the largest economic impact of any event ever brought to Kentucky," said sports marketing executive Jim Host, who has worked on Lexington's bid to host the games and until recently was Kentucky's commerce secretary.

"The international TV exposure alone would be unlike anything that's ever happened in this part of the country," Host said.

That's if the games come to Lexington, and there won't be a decision on that until December.

The Horse Park and the equestrian federation are polishing the joint presentation they will make to the Federation Equestre Internationale at its meeting in Bahrain on Dec. 6.

A group representing the Normandy area of France -- thought to be the only other finalist -- also will present a bid. The FEI is expected to announce a decision that day.

If Lexington is selected, it would be the first city outside Europe ever to host the games.

"I certainly would never declare victory before we've been selected, but I am confident that we've put together the best bid we possibly can," said John Nicholson, executive director of the Kentucky Hose Park. "But I think we have to proceed as if we're going to be awarded the games, because we'll need to get moving just as soon as a decision is made in order to be ready."

With the games five years away, much could change. But Nicholson says the budget for staging the event will be about $33 million, including the cost of security, extra personnel, seating and other items. One big part of that expense would be a temporary 25,000-seat stadium, which would be the site for the games' opening and closing ceremonies, as well as a venue for some of the competitions. The facility would be disassembled afterward.

"It would be a temporary structure, but it wouldn't look temporary," Nicholson said.

The cost of putting on the games would be covered by ticket sales, TV contracts and sponsorships. According to Nicholson, the Lexington games would have seven to 10 major sponsors, plus other sponsorships.

While the FEI would retain television rights to broadcast the Lexington games live in Europe, the Horse Park and the U.S. Equestrian Federation probably would receive North American television rights. Nicholson said he expects that they would contract with some U.S. sports cable channel for live coverage, and possibly with a mainstream network for regular summaries.

Meanwhile, park officials plan millions of dollars of improvements under a separate budget to get the Horse Park ready for the games, which are scheduled for Sept. 20 to Oct. 3, 2010. These include:

• A permanent indoor arena for equestrian events, expected to cost about $35 million.

• Improvements to the roads that run through the 1,200-acre park, which would cost between $4 million and $5 million.

• A 250-room resort hotel near the horse park's entrance on Ironworks Pike.

Nicholson said the hotel is expected to cost nearly $30 million; it is being developed privately. Koll Development Co. of Dallas has been awarded a contract to build it, and construction is planned to start in June.

Both the indoor arena and road resurfacing work will be financed through state bonds. While those projects will provide additional enhancement for the World Equestrian Games, they are necessary to upgrade the Horse Park even if the equestrian games aren't held here, Nicholson said.

The World Equestrian Games have been held four times since being unveiled in Stockholm in 1990. The fifth edition is set for Aachen, Germany, next year. According to FEI's Web site, Aachen officials expect 500,000 visitors -- they say they already have received 200,000 ticket orders -- and the games are predicted to generate an economic benefit of 230 million euros (about $275 million U.S. dollars) for Germany.

But the games have had some rough spots before.

"The 1994 games in the Netherlands were an absolute disaster, with budget difficulties, organizational problems, lack of accommodations for some riders and grooms," said Daniel Bell, research director for the Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles and author of the Encyclopedia of International Games.

The 1998 equestrian games, scheduled for Ireland, had to be switched to Rome when the Irish government decided in 1997 not to provide money to help organizers prepare. However, the Rome games reportedly were successful. Although the event was in strong form by 2002, a lack of permanent stabling for the games in Spain that year forced some competitors' horses to be stabled in tents, which flooded when it rained.

The British considered bidding for the 2010 games, but decided not to proceed because of the costs involved and because England already was scheduled to hold some major international events.

"These games are sort of like the Olympics, some do well and some don't, and it's very fluid," Bell said.

The key to pulling off a major international event like the World Equestrian Games is having "an enormously strong personality" to ramrod things, Bell said.

"For Kentucky that would be someone who is really passionate about the state, the horse park, and Lexington, and who has the skills to motive people and work with people from 50 different countries," he said.

Lexington has three leaders on board: Nicholson and U.S. Equestrian Federation CEO John Long (they will jointly present Lexington's bid in Bahrain), plus Host, who says he'll continue working to help the games, even though he no longer works for the state.

Ken Troske, director of the Univer