SHE WON'T GO!
When Mayor Jim Gray took office, he told everyone he was going to start a dialogue with the developers of CentrePointe, Woodford and Dudley Webb. Mayor Gray felt he could take an active role in helping them and the city bring to fruition a project that has marred Lexington for three years.
FOUR QUESTIONS FOR THE DEVELOPERS
Woodford Webb: I think that the block will always be known to a certain extent as CentrePointe. With that said, we have heard that question raised and would consider other names. A few that we are considering include: “The Block” “Joe’s Paddock + Pawn” “Limestone Tower” “Main + Lime” “The Dud” “The Kentucky Spiral” “Whiskey Square” and “Town Branch Tower”. In other words, who knows?
WW: We expressed that potential to Studio Gang but they assure us they are asking for “contemporary interpretations” of what was there and in the end what would be created is a look that would appear to be a series of buildings that look like they were constructed at different times and with different themes so that it doesn’t look like one long stretch of a new building. This concept sounds pretty promising.
WW: As I said on Newsmakers, “we hope to be able to start tomorrow” and that continues as a “hope.” We are working on the financing side on a daily basis. The current economic recession and its realities still exist. Financing for this project is difficult but not necessarily impossible. With that being said, I doubt you will see any work done on the site before the end of the summer.
WW: That is certainly a possibility but it continues to be our hope to construct everything at one time. We want to be able to hide the parking below grade so that we won’t have to have an ugly unsightly parking garage that is visible if at all possible.
There’s more on the plan and some of the intrigue still swirling around at ACE Weekly.
The next public meeting is on July 14th, when Studio Gang returns to town with further updates.
The Webbs, and Woodford especially, are doing good things at the moment and if the last meeting was any indication, the confluence of energy and good vibrations may be infectious. It would be nice to have something down there that fits with the scale not only of the city but of the economics and this latest move certainly seems closer to that than anything we’ve seen or than many thought possible.
So kudos to the Webbs and to Jim Gray and to Studio Gang.
Local architects looking to get in on the design components that may be farmed out can check out Gang’s RFQ here and you can peruse (or re-peruse) most of the slides from Jeanne Gang’s presentation here.
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