CenterPointe fails again.

[PedroDaGr8]

http://wuky.org/post/centrepointe-developers-pull-out-long-stalled-project

We should just bill it as the largest useless pit in Kentucky.

[dan_bgblue]

daaaum that is a big hole. The track hoe at the bottom of it looks like a children's toy in a sand box

[CitizenBBN]

It's a huge hole, the entire city block.

Not a surprise. It was inevitable b/c the entire thing was based on a feasibility study that was laughable. So the numbers will NEVER work b/c you can't build something there big enough to make the math make sense. No hotel in Lexington will get $500 a night for a room, no office will rent for $20 a foot, and no restaurant can survive and pay $30 a foot.

The new developers only wanted to do it if the city agreed to lease a new city government building there for 2 or 3 times the market rate and rent it indefinitely. Without that subsidy it wouldn't work, which like I said was always true b/c it was always based on above market rates across the board.

Filling it in makes little sense and will cost millions. IMO the city needs to foreclose and put in the garage and then we build whatever we can on it and chalk the loss up to helping the city broadly by having better parking for all of the downtown core. It's not a plan I'd have supported when it was a block with lots of buildings on it, but with it nothing but a hole now we have limited option.

It's either fill it in, which seems a waste, or build the garage to the planned specs and then go from there. Maybe the city gets their government building on it and we add other things and just mitigate as much of the loss as possible, but we're looking at that scenario no matter what.

Option 3 is leaving it for a decade and hoping the economy goes bat crap crazy and someone comes in and does it. Option 4 is to line it with rubber and fill it with water and put boats on it.

I will say today on the radio on WVLK I heard the funniest and most clever suggestion of all:

buy a dozen old Corvettes, put them at the bottom of it and charge admission to view them. (You have to know about the Corvette museum and the sink hole and their exhibit to get this, but if you know it that is flat hysterical.)

[dan_bgblue]

I read today that there was a clause in the contract with the developers that if they failed to work on the property for a consecutive 60 days that they would have to cease work, fill the hole, and level the property. Article said the city commission had been monitoring the property and the work had stopped over 60 days ago

[CitizenBBN]

I read today that there was a clause in the contract with the developers that if they failed to work on the property for a consecutive 60 days that they would have to cease work, fill the hole, and level the property. Article said the city commission had been monitoring the property and the work had stopped over 60 days ago

That's correct, and if they don't the city has the right to enter the property, do the work and bill Dudley.

The problem is they may or may not ever see that money, and even then all they're doing is filling in a hole that is in fact ready for a nice underground garage that would in fact help the area.

I'd like to see the numbers on doing the garage. Maybe it's just utterly cost prohibitive, but I have to think making the hole is a at least a big part of the total cost, and that part is done and doesn't have to be repaid. I'd need more access but I'd work on whether they could build the garage, use part of the site for the new city building and sell off or lease the rest.

Remember if they have that garage and move the city building they then sell the current building AND the garage and cut down on leasing they now do on other parking. It could work.