Jim Gray

Hide your wife, hide your kids, because nobody’s safe outside the pedways

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February 20, 2012
By David M. F. Schankula

Last week the Webbs’ released their new CentrePointe design. Or, not really new but refashioned — it’s a Studio Gang design stripped of some of its power but better than what the Webbs kept coming up with on their own.

One part of Beverly Fortune’s really fantastic article we didn’t get around to mentioning on Thursday — because it deserves more than passing mention — was Dudley Webb’s pedway vision:

Several members took issue with a pedway shown connecting the hotel to the Financial Center parking garage. It would be possible for people to walk from the CentrePointe hotel all the way to the Lexington Center via pedways.

Board member Kevin Atkins asked whether that worked against the current push to get more people walking downtown. Last summer the city completed a multi-million-dollar, three-year project to build new sidewalks on Main Street, Vine Street and South Limestone.

Dudley Webb said that when women had to walk from the Lexington Center to the CentrePointe hotel at night, they would feel safer walking in pedways.

There are two points to discuss here.

The first is Dudley’s idea that pedways are good design.

The second is his hilarious (or, if you want to be angry — craaazy) views on safety.

Let’s start with the design element.

We here at B&P have long advocated for MORE PEDWAYS. Like the cowbell is to music, so too is the pedway to our urban-county fabric. Time and again, we have called for pedways in our time, even going so far as to google bomb Lexington, effectively turning us into the Pedway Capital of the World (regardless of the fact Louisville is now looking to build a significantly longer track — a classic example of that sad city’s Lexington-envy). As written in these pages in 2010, the Webbs are building a pedway to heaven:

Sure, “CentrePointe” does not yet exist and its current business plan – a hotel twice as expensive as the competition achieving occupancy rates well above the city’s current average – makes absolutely no sense. And the fifty million dollar condos aren’t exactly a hot commodity.

But Jim Newberry and the Family Webb know something the rest of us do not. They have a secret weapon.

It is the power of the Pedway.

As we have detailed over and over, the CentrePointe project as a whole is laughable: high on ego, short on funding, mindless in design, lacking in brains, etc.

But its Pedway system… oh, the CentrePointe Pedway system is genius. We hope this thing gets built some magical day in the future just because of the heavenly Pedways it offers the well-healed citizens of this fair city.

You see, even if the CentrePointe monstrosity sits essentially empty and serves no purpose for the vast majority of Lexington’s citizens – it will still have the Pedways!

Like Festival Market, Victorian Square, the Big Blue Building, the “World Trade Center” and the “Radisson” hotel before it, if there is one thing the Webb Company knows how to do… it’s build Pedways.

Images courtesy of Clarke.

So we are not opposed to the pedways. Webbs idea to build a pedway from his latest CentrePointe project to his parking garage is fine with us — it’s brilliant. We personally advocated this to Woodford Webb last summer when the Webbs brought in Jeanne Gang and listened to her bizarre pedwayless plans. In fact, we want the Webbs to go even further. To build another pedway from the parking garage at Park Plaza and the Public Library above Phoenix Park and across Limestone into the CentrePointe blocke. This would allow one to walk on air from the center of downtown all the way to its western end. This is genius.

Now, some would say that Jeanne Gang is a “genius.” But she said pedways were bad design. So did the Rupp Area master planner. And so did the Court House Area Design Review Board.

But what do they know?

Dudley Webb knows pedways.

And he knows that not only are they good design, they are a public safety imperative.

There is a lot of violence on Lexington’s downtown streets with people being attacked at all hours of the day by murky forces of evil.

Our streets are not safe. Our women are not safe.

Dudley Webb said that when women had to walk from the Lexington Center to the CentrePointe hotel at night, they would feel safer walking in pedways.

This is true.

It is true even though every single woman I have spoken with finds it offensive. And it is true even if every single person I have spoken with thinks it’s stupid or totally disconnected from reality.

The thing about the downtown Lexington pedway track is that much of what it connects are well-designed Webb family structures.

Should Webb’s latest pedway stand (and it should!) it would stretch above McCarthy’s, into the Big Blue Building parking lot, through the building, across Mill into the World Trade Center to the Radisson (or whatever) across to Festival Market and over Broadway to Victorian Square then all the way down to the empty condos and across to the Lexington Center at which point it circles back through to Kentucky Central (or whatever) and back into the Radisson.

This is about the safest route any woman would want to take late at night.

Put another way: Any woman who wouldn’t take this route is taking her fate into her own hands. Or feet.

The streets are dangerous. Anyone who has ever walked from one place to another in downtown Lexington and gotten there quickly, directly and without incident understands this.

The pedways hold many advantages.

1) The pedways are isolated. People don’t use them, they are generally deserted. Assuming that no criminal elements are there, you are unlikely to come across any witnesses or anyone who might hear you scream.

2) The places the pedways connect are isolated. There is very little foot traffic in the parking garages late at night. It’s a good place for someone to hide in a car, or between them, and there’s few passersby to contend with. The long empty hallways inside the empty buildings the pedways connect are winding and contain many blind corners. There is safety in not knowing what is hiding around the bend. You cannot find this safety on the open street level where, for the most part, you can see both in front and around you.

3) No one will hear you scream. On the street, people make noise and they holler at each other and cars drive by and people wave and laugh and sometimes some jackass vomits or two meat heads hit each other while large groups of people remain in total safety in the places around them. Inside the pedways, none of this awfulness can happen. That means you — man or lady, it doesn’t matter — can get good and sauced and wander all throughout the Lexington pedway system singing your brains out. You can scream songs at the top of your lungs crossing over Main or Broadway, and no one will hear you. You can chant and drum and, because there is no one around, no one will stop you or come to your harmonic aid.

Let us sing.

There’s a Dudley who’s sure
All that glitters is gold
And he’s buying a Pedway to heaven

When he gets there he knows
If the hotels are all closed
With a word he can get what he paid for

Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh
And he’s buying a Pedway to heaven…

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Webbs’ latest CentrePointe architects, EOP, release more design details

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February 16, 2012
By David M. F. Schankula

Following the news of the most recent CentrePointe design (H-L, B&P), the architects at EOP have released more details and a couple new images. Here’s the glass shard building, an Urban Active:

And here’s what they have to say about the project as a whole:

EOP’s design builds on the master plan presented by SGA and includes a 28-story tower consisting of a Marriott hotel on the lower floors and condominiums, pied-a-terres and two-story penthouses on the upper floors; an elevated expansive outdoor public space with sculpture garden, terrace and pool; an 8-story wedged office building with a Saul Good restaurant; a 3-story signature building for Jeff Ruby’s Steakhouse and Urban Active Fitness; plenty of underground parking; and 3- and 4-story buildings along Main Street designed by other local architecture firms. The Main Street buildings will be a mixture of two-story townhouses and one-story flats above street level retail in varying heights and materials.

So again, it’s like the Gang plan without Gang and replacing the Tower of Tubes with what one might imagine is the somewhat uninspired demands of Marriott for their promised hotel (which is not truly terrible like the Webbs’ initial forays). The plan maintains Gang’s vision of a non-monolithic monstrosity, the same ten story office structure and the three story restaurant/gym, along with the refashioned Main Street. Which looks like this:

They’ll be back soon, they pledge, for a public meeting to present the whole plan to the people, and will be joined by the local design firms working on those Main Street structures.

[For more reactions to this latest Webb attempt, visit the Kaintuckeean.]

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CentrePointe is back with a brand new invention!

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February 16, 2012
By David M. F. Schankula

Well that only took four months.

Back in October when Dudley and fam fired the worldclass architect they’d hired to reinvent their dead block they said they’d have a new plan in three weeks.

The Herald reported at the time:

Webb hired Lexington firm EOP Architects to incorporate Gang’s ideas into a design for the block. EOP already was involved with the project as one of Gang’s guest firms.

“We are excited to be able to take a great vision in terms of the master plan and move forward with it,” EOP’s Rick Ekhoff said Thursday. He said he hoped to make the EOP plan public in two to three weeks.

We last checked in six weeks later. EOP and the Webbs had remained silent, no new designs, no word, no action. Just a four year old “Coming Soon” sign.

But seasons change. And the CentrePointe rises again! At least on paper:

The view from Vine, between Upper and Mill.

The Webbs hung out with the Court House Area Design Review Board yesterday for a ‘preliminary review’ of  a “project bounded by Main Street, Vine Street, Upper Street and Limestone Street.”

The current plans which have not yet met the same fate as all previous plans are basically a rip off of the Gang principle. At its base, that is a good thing.

The hotel and million dollar condos appears to be about 25 stories tall and occupies just the south west corner of the block — as had the Gang design. Where the Gang hotel was iconic, pleasant to the eye, the Webbs’ latest effort is frankly better than anything they’ve come up with before without losing that classic “generic” Webb touch. It looks a little like they took one of the cheapo skyscrapers that have gone up in Manhattan in the past six years and lopped off the top. It’s kind of stubby.

But it’s still far better than the pre-Gang designs. And it does a better job (how could it not?) of keeping the street open.

Same view, street level.

From the ground, you see the austere hotel entrance (because that’s what fancy people want out of a hotel entrance, that’s why they’re paying significantly higher rates to stay here than to stay at the Hilton down the street) and in the background a fun four story glass shard structure.

This Vine street view would be a huge change to the nature of Vine. Before it was a stretch of broken sidewalk stretching in front of an empty field, this part of Vine was a stretch of broken sidewalk stretching in front of buildings that, basically, did not open to Vine. There were some trees and shade, but it was largely a beige place not inviting foot traffic nor offering a driver anything to circle back around and possibly stop for.

With the CentrePointe designs pre-Gang, the Hotel/Condo monstrosity devoured the entire block, did nothing for the public street level. It’s a bit different here and again, they’d love to take the credit, but this is Jeanne Gang’s work, not the Webbs.

The Tour de France passes the block at Vine and Limestone at dawn. Or is that dusk? It’s been raining.

 

And just as Gang prescribed, the plan hangs on to the 10 story office building at Main and Lime and the squatter glass shard building at Vine and Lime, which may host a rooftop garden, possibly with bar/restaurant, and restaurant inside. And along Main Street… three and four story retail. Again… Gang.

The biggest change here is the hotel itself.

Studio Gang’s CentrePointe, from the Vine Street canyon.

Other than that, the Webbs have done what Gang told them to. And even with the hotel, they’ve done some of what Studio Gang told them to do and for the first time, the Webbs have put forward a plan of their own (if you want to give them credit for this plan like it’s their own, which obviously it is not) that doesn’t allow the hotel to dominate the entire block (or all of downtown).

B.Fortune writes:

The block is included in the Courthouse Area Design Review Zone, in which all new buildings and exterior changes to existing structures must be approved by the Design Review Board.

Board members on Wednesday were tactful in their remarks, but they said they wanted to see changes in parts of the plan Ekhoff presented.

Several members said there needed to be more pedestrian access through the block, at ground level, so people could walk from Main Street to Vine Street.

Buildings facing Upper Street needed more windows instead of solid brick walls, they said. One board member said it now looks like the project has “turned its back on Upper Street.”

There’s a fabulous discussion about pedways — in which Dudley promises to protect the city of Lexington — but we’ll cover that in a separate post.

The Board pushed the Webbs to promise a public meeting on the project and they ecstatically agreed. Or at least, they said they would hold a public meeting.

And in terms of progress and prospects:

Board member Harry Richert asked whether the entire project, with all the buildings, could be built in phases. Webb said it would be too expensive. It will be built at one time, he said.

Webb said three businesses — Jeff Ruby’s Steakhouse out of Cincinnati, Saul Good Restaurant and Pub, and Urban Active gym — have committed to take space on the block. J. W. Marriott will take the hotel space.

That would leave a floor wide gym empty above the Big Blue Building’s parking garage (Urban InActive, I suppose) but other than that it saul good. Right?

I’ve reached out to J.W. Marriott for comment on their continued commitment to making Lexington the next location for their brand.

I recently had the chance to visit the J.W. Marriott in Grand Rapids. It was a pretty place. There were these lights. It had big windows looking over a rollicking river.

Anyway… we’ll have more later, including a closer look at the crime fighting pedways and perhaps a rumination upon the Courthouse Area Design Review Board.

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California’s Marriage Ban ruled Unconstitutional; Jim Gray joins Mayors for the Freedom to Marry

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February 7, 2012
By David M. F. Schankula

“We stand for the freedom to marry because it enhances the economic competitiveness of our communities, improves the lives of families that call our cities home, and is simply the right thing to do.”

That’s from the official statement of the Mayors for the Freedom To Marry coalition, a group founded just two weeks ago by 80 mayors.

Jim Gray and seven other Mayors just joined the group’s call for equal rights, bringing the total to 116. Chaired by the Mayors of NYC, Boston, Houston, San Diego and Los Angeles, they represent a wide group of cities from across the country:

We are a diverse group of mayors—from cities in Kansas, Indiana and West Virginia, to the four largest cities in America. Our cities are culturally, racially and geographically diverse, but we share one important value: a common commitment to fairness.

Meanwhile… today in Los Angeles, a three judge panel in Federal Appeals Court ruled California’s Prop 8 voter approved ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional:

The three-judge panel issued its ruling Tuesday morning in San Francisco, upholding a decision by Judge Vaughn R. Walker, who had been the chief judge of the Federal District Court of the Northern District of California but has since retired. Like Judge Walker, the panel found that Proposition 8 – passed by California voters in November 2008 by a margin of 52 percent to 48 percent — violated the equal protection rights of two same-sex couples that brought he suit. The proposition placed a specific prohibition in the State Constitution against marriage between two people of the same sex.

The Freedom to Marry Mayors (because we should all be free to marry Mayors) just released this statement:

“As Mayors for the Freedom to Marry, we know how important marriage is to our neighborhoods, our cities, and our nation.  When committed couples are able to pledge their love to one another and share in the responsibilities and protections of marriage, our communities flourish and our cities are more competitive. Today’s decision by the 9th Circuit reaffirms that the American Dream is possible for everyone and brings us one step closer to ending marriage discrimination once and for all.  We look forward to a day when all of our citizens will be able to share fairly and equally in the freedom to marry.”

The Prop 8 battle will go to the Supreme Court and you… well, if you aren’t lucky enough to live in Lexington, you can tell your Mayor to get on board. Just go to the Freedom to Marry site, download this statement (PDF) and take it to your Mayor.

We’re looking at you, Louisville.

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Rupp Funding, UK’s Response & UK Housing

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February 6, 2012
By David M. F. Schankula

The Big Sunday editorial heaped praise on Mayor Gray and the Rupp Area Task Force, then called for realistic numbers in the financing phase:

However, in the next step, estimates and ideas must give way to hard numbers.

Here again, history produces a credibility gap. Painful examples of big ideas drowning out bad numbers are close at hand.

Just down the street from Rupp some of Lexington’s most historic buildings were destroyed because of promises of a huge hotel development financed by a mysterious foreign investor. Instead there’s a block of grassland.

The CentrePointe debacle also included a financial feasibilty plan that contained projections that defied reality.

Down the road in Louisville The KFC Yum Center is struggling to pay its bills because a TIF is not producing the revenue that had been anticipated, leaving the city holding the bill.

Even in these tight times, there are worthy public investments. But both the state and Lexington have little to spare and UK President Eli Capilouto has rightly made it clear he’s going to argue in Frankfort for funding education before athletics.

On that last point, of President Capilouto’s decision to focus his energy on taking state money to sell student housing to a private corporation and not get behind the city’s plans for Rupp, Dan Rowland writes:

I understand and applaud Capilouto’s desire to contrast his aims symbolically with those of his predecessor, notable for the Wildcat Coal Lodge, and other distortions of UK priorities. But to insist repeatedly and forcefully that UK places all its priorities on its own campus and none on the fate of Lexington is a symbolic statement of its own kind — and one that is badly mistaken.

Lexington has a visionary mayor and the best council I can remember. The task force working on the Rupp Arena plan has functioned smoothly, creating a strong consensus around the plans approved Jan. 31. The plan itself is outstanding, the best example of downtown planning by far that I have seen in over 30 years of sitting on downtown planning committees. These opportunities do not come around every day, and UK needs to be on board.

I am one of the most unlikely people to support a renovation of Rupp.

When my wife and I moved to Lexington in 1974, I was appalled by the plan to create a 16-acre parking lot for Rupp.

Continue reading Rowland’s piece here…

Now, while Rowland and the Ed. Board applaud Capilouto for his campus privatization plan (or, make a show of applauding him), one of the paper’s most excellent reporters takes a closer look at deal, prospects, realities and more:

U of L officials, along with those at other schools that have used EdR, call the process largely positive. But UK’s proposed deal is so much bigger and more sweeping — managing all student housing and spending as much as $500 million to replace most of the school’s 6,000 existing beds and add 3,000 more — that it largely covers uncharted territory.

….Although the EdR Web site now features a picture of all its employees in blue UK T-shirts holding Wildcat banners, a contract between the company and UK is not supposed to be approved by the UK Board of Trustees until Feb. 21.

UK officials say going this route gets them out of the costly and complicated business of construction, allowing them more time and money to focus on instruction. Modern and expanded student housing will help recruitment and allow more students to live on campus, which usually helps retention and graduation rates. In addition, UK says, it won’t have to put up any capital in the deal.

But until the details are made public, it’s hard to judge how good a deal it will be for UK and its constituents, said Lou Marcoccia, a vice-president at Syracuse University, who has worked successfully with EdR on much smaller projects.

“The question is, how can EdR put up the capital and operate it and make a profit, and why couldn’t UK do the same thing?” Marcoccia said, referring to UK’s proposal to turn over all its housing stock to EdR. “If it’s such a good idea, why isn’t everyone doing it?”

The piece goes on to examine a number of smaller deals at campuses around the country, looking at financials, and the struggle for transparency as UK works with the private company — Read It.

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Rupp Area Task Force Final Meeting

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January 31, 2012
By David M. F. Schankula

The big show started with this video from Bullhorn Marketing:

You can read the executive summary here (PDF) and Beverly Fortune’s rundown here.

All in all, it was a rehash of where we’ve already been, with Bates and crew again going through the plan as it exists.

[Read about the previous meetings here, see images of the redesign concepts here and here]

The Highlights come from the Executive Summary. There was little new information outside of it (though there were some new images, it seemed.) and almost all the new information comes in the financials (or, very preliminary financials) that come toward the end.

Here we go:

Transformation of the Lexington Center itself, including Rupp Arena, the Lexington Convention Center, the Civic Center Shoppes and immediate environs, is estimated as a $250 to $300mm project that catalyzes all other investment. This important project will require a mix of local, state and private funding for construction. Possible major funding sources include new revenue from premium seating, advertising, sponsorship, concert/event promotions, concessions and parking associated with proposed plans. It will also likely need local and state funding to create a new economic engine. Private fundraising and federal grants and tax credits should be fully explored. The plan also anticipates the establishment of a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) District to support needed infrastructure and civic facilities.

So the school, the arts place, the sports fields and everything else is outside that funding figure and goal (including Town Branch/Commons/Central Park). No surprise there.

Three year funding and design schedule:

2012: Organization, Business Plan, Survey/Environmental
2013: Concept Design/Engineering, Pre-Construction Estimation & Schedule
2014: Completion of Schematic Design, Confirmation of Construction Funding

If Beshear’s $3.5 Mil and Lex’s $1.5 Mil come through, they get spent like this:

If that $5 mil works out and the $250 to $300 Mil in overall funding for Arena, Convention and Shops is secured (or however much it turns out to be after schematic design alters cost and timeline) by 2014, then…

The construction schedule anticipates an approximate 3 ½-year construction period:
Site Work/Lexington Convention Center Construction (Spring, 2014 – Fall, 2016)
Rupp Arena, Town Branch Park Construction (Spring, 2015 – Summer, 2017)

New Rupp comes by 2017 at this most ambitious pace.

Here’re the 14 avenues of funding they will investigate:

There was quite a bit of talk about TIF financing and it is spread throughout the document. It would be the third Tax Increment area in Lexington joining the Distillery District and the Webb’s failed hotel project (which, if government actually functions, should be forced to go back through the TIF approval process since it’s now a different project… or a non-project).

TIF districts, especially for arenas, have come under increased scrutiny as the Yum! Center Arena district in Louisville is losing money, not generating what was projected (see here, here, here). It will be fascinating to see how the Rupp folks plan to accommodate for more realistic TIF projections.

As the Courier reported:

The taxing district “will become self-sufficient again when the economy recovers, but this is way too much risk for Louisville to have taken from the beginning,” said John Vrooman, a sports economist at Vanderbilt University. “This volatility should have been anticipated before the debt was issued.”

He said in an email that tax-increment financing is “very risky” for financing sports arenas and should not exceed 10 percent of the total debt. The tax plan makes up 35 percent of the KFC Yum! Center’s annual debt.

Also… it’s worth noting that the timeline proposed in this plan, which they admit is a best case, predicts a completed Rupp by 2017, while the University of Kentucky’s lease with the Lexington Center, re-upped in 2001, runs through the 2017-8 season. It’s unlikely UK would try to move at this point (but who knows what lurks in the hearts of the UK powerclass), but the projected timeline may not be purely coincidental.

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Final Rupp Area Task Force Meeting, 1.31.12 @ 10AM

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January 30, 2012
By David M. F. Schankula

Happening tomorrow:

Final Rupp District Task Force Meeting
January 31, 2012
10am-noon
Hilton-Downtown, Grand Ballroom
369 W. Vine St. – Lexington, KY. 40507 [map]

This is the final meeting. There should be a final report and, most importantly, the Finance Committee’s “Development Plan.” Cause, you know, it’s gonna take money. A whole lot of spending money.

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The State of Our Merged Government is Merged

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January 25, 2012
By David M. F. Schankula

Tuesday was a big day. It started at the Lexington convention center in a half-full ballroom — which isn’t entirely true because all of the dining tables were full and most of the arranged chairs, just that there was an entire half of the room that was filled only with carpet. Judging by the incessant scraping of silver against faux china, lunch was good.

And so was the Mayor’s speech. His State of the Merged Government address was straightforward, no big frills and no great surprises, but clear and to the point.

The festivities (such as they were) got under way with the Lexington Forum giving its Spirit Award to Alan Stein. The Moustachioed one got a great applause and right off the bat acknowledged his wife, who was sitting at a table with Dorsey Ridley, our (for now) imposed State Senator. “Lexington is so great,” Alan quipped, “it takes two Senators to represent us.”

The crowd was in Kathy’s corner at that moment but when Alan urged everyone in the room to stand up to the disenfranchisement of Lexington, the clapping grew a bit quieter and there were certainly some suits (everyone eating lunch was in suits) who busied themselves with their buttered rolls.

After that it was Mayor Gray, met by a standing ovation. He, too, urged support for, as he put it, “OUR senator, Kathy Stein.” That was as pointed as the Mayor has been on the subject, and much later he welcomed Ridley and said we needed his help. Which is true, but Ridley — who is anti-gay, anti-women’s rights, and pro-coal – might need our help. But that’s a different story.

Gray moved on to Eli Capilouto, president of UK, thanking him for laying out the school’s true mission. As best I can gather, Capilouto’s mission for the school is continuing to raise tuition, give lip service to staff and faculty salaries, and bilk students for even more by privatizing housing. Which again, is another story. But the Lexington Forum applauded.

Gray and Fischer and Beshear went to the Detroit Auto Show. Kentucky’s in a good position because the whole show was about environmentally friendly and hybrid automobiles. We certainly have our share of the auto-industry, so hopefully that’s all true. More applause!

Then it was on to the meat of the speech. The Mayor started out with a quiet slap at the previous administration over health care costs, and then gave the city employees a lot of credit (which may well not be enough for them) for the hit and sacrifices they have made, saying they must be at the front lines of our thanks when the economy recovers. (And I guess if it doesn’t recover, we’ll all be so screwed nothing will matter.)

The Mayor talked about negotiations with the firefighters and corrections workers (the HL has more on the latter here), and said they were still working with the police.

The police and fire pension systems are paid by Lexington taxpayers but the rules are determined by the State Legislature. Gray pleaded with them in the speech to give the power back to the city. The Herald, again, has more:

The police and fire pension system, with its mounting unfunded liability, poses a looming financial problem for the city, Mayor Jim Gray said Tuesday, and he asked Lexington’s legislative delegation to “please step up and help fix our system.”

Lexington is the only city in Kentucky that has its own pension system for police and fire, although the legislature sets the rules that the pension system must follow. All other fire and police departments are covered by the state’s pension fund.

Lexington’s fund was set up during the 1970s when legislation was approved to create the Lexington-Fayette County’s merged government, the first in the state. “Lexington taxpayers have to pay for it,” Gray said of the pensions.

Mayor Gray saved the big headlines — if you judge headline quality by its relevance to Kentucky basketball — for the end, unveiling new designs for Rupp:

The first depicts a new inside for Rupp, with more seats (800 to 1000) and a lot of video boards (the giant one at the top, the purple strips) and the second… who knows. It’s a concourse of the future.

Again, the Herald has more but the Mayor’s point here was that in the possibility of activating the 46 acres of the Rupp district, Lexington can use extraordinary design to create economic growth.

Gray gave an overview of the Rupp process, largely an abreviated rehash of what we’ve already covered here based on the previous public meetings: Free Rupp by turning it transluscent and making it inviting from the outside, stripping away the convention and retail boxing it in, promoting retail and arts around it and — as the Fayette school board just approved exploration of — bringing a public arts school into the heart of downtown.

Gray wrapped up by calling back to Henry Clay who envisioned Lexington as a great city and worked to create it as such, and then told us, “This is our moment, this is our time.”

And then he was done. A standing ovation.

Overall, it was a strong performance as far as Mayoral “State of the Merged Government” addresses go. There were no surprises for anyone who’s followed the city’s machinations over the past year, but Gray delivered it all — as he usually does in these settings — swiftly, without flourish and mostly to the point. He isn’t an orator, but he isn’t Mitch Daniels either, he’s not just reading a pseudo-academic text. Mayor Gray had his points, hit them and within them, one can see the big challenges of heading up a government drowning in debt. He’s more engaging than Newberry (an understatement) and, frankly, comes across as more in charge of the complexities than any one else on the city scene (no offense, Don). Who will challenge him in 2014? To be victorious, that person’s gonna have to go crazy, play to the basest of bases, or Rupp will fail and the statewide UK base that doesn’t understand the cost is likely borne by the city will call all their cousins and the vote will disintegrate.

Right now, it seems like Gray is, all things considered and any number of huge obstacles to overcome, in control.

The best part of the whole morning, though, came afterward in Victorian Square. The stores that were open were empty, the storefronts that are empty were still for lease and the building which is for sale for $12.5 Million was rocking — its empty hallways echoing a tinny song from the 1980s speaker system:

Badfinger’s “Come and Get It,” written by Paul McCartney for the totally amazing must-watch film, starring Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr, The Magic Christian.

Regardless of who you are or what you think about Rupp Arena, Victorian Square, the state of America or the state of our Merged Government, it was a pretty beautiful moment.

If you want it, here it is come and get it,
Mmmm, make your mind up fast
If you want it, anytime I can give it
But you better hurry cause it may not last
Did I hear you say that there must be a catch
Will you walk away from a fool and his money?

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Rupp Area Junk Bond Thoughts, for what they’re worth

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January 24, 2012
By David M. F. Schankula

A long story in the Courier Journal over the weekend examined the significant tax revenue shortfall at Louisville’s KFC Yum! Center:

The revenue needed to pay for the 15-month-old arena at Second and Main streets is falling short of expectations, putting the project at risk of failing to cover its debt and having its bonds relegated to “junk” status.

The main culprit is lagging revenue in a special taxing district that forms the foundation of the arena’s financing plan and is supposed to provide the Louisville Arena Authority with more than enough cash to pay its $349 million in bonds.

….The authority expected to have $26 million available — including $6.7 million from the taxing district — for its 2011 payment of $19.1 million. Instead, the district produced only $2.1 million in 2010, which goes toward the 2011 payment.

Coupled with lower-than-forecast income from arena operations, the authority expects to have only $14.6 million.

That’s the gist though there’s much more, including the projected $3M shortfall in 2012 that Jim Host says will be covered with money that was set aside for maintenance, and various other machinations to keep the city from being immediately on the hook.

Here in Lexington, the planned Rupp Area renovation — currently estimated at $260M for the arena and convention center — is quite a way from reality or funding. The city asked the state for $20M to help plan and design the re-do, Governor Beshear gave Lexington $3.5M and the city will throw in another $1.5M for a $5M starting fee.

(Coupled with Beshear’s projected outlays to President Capilouto to privatize student housing on the UK campus, it becomes clear Eli and Mitch’s big show of putting the emphasis on students and declaring themselves disinterested in state funding for the arena was at best a ploy to get the most money from the state and at worst was something of an F.U. to the city for not giving them the new Yum!-like arena they so desperately wanted.)

That $5 Million just for planning and design. A ton more money is going to have to come in and the Rupp Area task force is expected to come back with some thoughts on that financing situation soon. Meantime, conversations around the arena continue and one such is the possibility of selling the naming rights to the arena.

Naming rights bring in big money. They also mean you end up with terrible arena names. Rupp Arena isn’t going to be Rupp Arena or it would become The 5/3rd Toyota Prius Applebee’s Rupp Arena. Or something worse.

The Yum! Center got $75 Million in state funding and an awesomely cool name for a bonus pricetag… and you see how well they’re doing. Both WKYT and Jerry Tipton have looked at fan reaction to the prospect of selling the name of Rupp Arena and both found similarly disinterested fan bases. Tipton also brought us this alternative:

The Green Bay Packers are inviting fans to pay $250 for a share in a major renovation of Lambeau Field. It’s been suggested that Lexington might ask UK fans to buy an interest in the entertainment district. As an incentive, buyers could be eligible for a raffle of premium seating and parking for each home game.

The Packers, like UK, belong to the people, and Green Bay has done some overall interesting things to raise money for their team’s stadium expansions over the past several years. UK doesn’t seem similarly interested at the moment (they’re busy privatizing the student housing, remember).
The New York Times had a great article on college sports as big business this past Sunday:

In his recent book “Big-Time Sports in American Universities,” Dr. Clotfelter notes that between 1985 and 2010, average salaries at public universities rose 32 percent for full professors, 90 percent for presidents and 650 percent for football coaches.

The same trend is apparent in a 2010 Knight Commission report that found the 10 highest-spending athletic departments spent a median of $98 million in 2009, compared with $69 million just four years earlier. Spending on high-profile sports grew at double to triple the pace of that on academics. For example, Big Ten colleges, including Penn State, spent a median of $111,620 per athlete on athletics and $18,406 per student on academics.

Division I football and basketball, of course, bring in millions of dollars a year in ticket sales, booster donations and cable deals. Penn State football is a money-maker: 2010 Department of Education figures show the team spending $19.5 million and bringing in almost $73 million, which helps support 29 varsity sports. Still, only about half of big-time programs end up in the black; many others have to draw from student fees or the general fund to cover expenses. And the gap between top programs and wannabes is only growing with colleges locked into an arms race to attract the best coaches and build the most luxurious venues in hopes of luring top athletes, and donations from happy alumni.

It’s a long article and worth the read, even if these type of stories aren’t new. The explosion of money surrounding college sports has been happening for years and the deleterious effects that come with it should be no stranger to anyone involved in city planning or university sports. Sports teams both undergraduate and professional have routinely bilked taxpayers across the country, receiving new arenas at little cost to the teams and long term cost to their host communities.

Which is not to say that the process necessarily ends in failure. The University of Kentucky Wildcats are certainly a boon for Lexington’s economy, between the games, the restaurants, the vendors, the parking, the t-shirts, and everything else. It’s a brand for the city, too, and, of course, the Rupp plan (like the Yum! one) isn’t just about the arena, it’s about the whole of downtown.

So getting it right is important. Can the Task Force do that? Can they find realistic financing models, real investors? Can they come up with a sound economic plan that won’t lose the city money? Obviously that’s their challenge and what nearly everyone is waiting for (…”nearly” because there are certain powerful people and some fans who seem to erroneously think that leaving the arena as is amounts to some colossal failure… but we’ll get to that later, if it comes to that).

Dan Dickson in BizLex recently looked at Oklahoma City and their model:

Oklahoma City is often remembered for the devastating 1995 act of domestic terrorism that resulted in the loss of 168 lives and destruction of its federal building. But now, Oklahoma City is getting noticed for how it is financing public projects.

It’s called MAPS (Metropolitan Area Projects) and is a limited-term, one-cent sales tax that began in April 2010 and ends in December 2017. This latest local voter-approved initiative is funding eight projects and is expected to raise about $777 million.

Among the eight public projects are a new downtown convention center to attract larger conventions and bring additional revenue into the local economy, a downtown rail-based streetcar system with six miles of track, a large downtown public park and several senior health-and-wellness centers.

Being funding with a limited term, one-cent sales tax, the Oklahoma City projects are expected to be built debt free.

There are drawbacks and obstacles to something like that happening here in Kentucky, which Dan goes into, but presumably these are the sorts of ideas the Rupp Area Task Force is considering alongside the naming rights, debt-based and other forms of financing.

Part of the idea in the Space Group plan for the Rupp Area is transforming the entire area into an economic engine, not just the arena in hopes the blocks surrounding may also spring up, but putting the two goals together. As Michael Speaks, dean of the UK School of Design, wrote in the Herald this weekend:

Bates has proposed a design-focused district, which other cities have used very successfully to attract new businesses and talent.

Such districts have helped cities burnish their image, and enhance their brands. Well-designed public spaces, buildings, parks and even infrastructure are now recognized as ways to add economic value.

In New York, redevelopment of the derelict High Line elevated railway into a new, elevated urban park has transformed the lower west side of Manhattan into an economic engine generating $2 billion in private investment.

In Miami, developers have even used world-renowned architects to design parking garages. From Seoul, South Korea, where designation as “world design capital” has transformed the city into one of the most spectacular in Asia, to the design-led redevelopment of Syracuse, great design has become not only a quality of life issue, but an economic engine.

It’s possible to avoid the classic arena-based failures of other cities. Step one is getting a decent plan, and step two is making sure it actually is a decent plan. Downtown Lexington has enough problems, it doesn’t need junk bonds added on, but refusing to look at the options is as silly as blindly doing the University’s bidding.

Maybe we could raise revenue by privatizing Eli Capilouto.

Or did that already happen?

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HL reviews Gray’s 1st Year; Predictable people take predictable shots

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January 9, 2012
By David M. F. Schankula

Ms. Fortune looks back on Mayor Gray’s first year, chatting with various observers:

In his first year as mayor, Gray’s main focus has ranged from a grand vision for Rupp Arena to putting the city’s financial house in order.

He dreams big while slogging through the tediousness of running the city.

Terry McBrayer, lawyer, lobbyist and former chairman of the Kentucky Democratic Party, said officeholders, whether mayor or president, normally have a three-to-six-month honeymoon. But Gray has been able to extend his, McBrayer said.

“Right now he has the support of a lot of folks out there,” McBrayer said.

Gray garners backing from “a fairly remarkable base that pulls from many different segments,” McBrayer said. “He continues to cultivate that base. I give him pretty high marks for that.”

It’s a long one, fair and balanced, so read on, covering the back and forth with the fire folks, the police and the city workers, as well as some absolutely ridiculous comments from failed Vice Mayor Mike Scanlon and the Southside Screamer, Doug Martin, who each – predictably – play the role of attack dogs for a certain segment of Lexington’s population.

If you believe Scanlon, Gray is responsible for every terrible thing that ever happened last year. Martin, on the other hand, stumbles in his attacks, basically denouncing Gray’s tenure a failure because Jim hasn’t joined Doug for a Hoveround tour of Doug’s district. Which doesn’t make a lot of sense.

One question I’d like to hear Scanlon, Martin or anyone else answer… with one year gone, who is positioning themselves to challenge Gray in 2014? Who in town is going to run for Mayor? Will they come from the Right? The Left?

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