By Danny Mayer
The last several weeks have provided an excellent example of how city leaders direct city needs inward to the downtown core. With UK now realizing that private business cannot profit greatly enough to construct a new basketball coliseum alongside Rupp Arena (last year’s ingenious plan), CEO Lee Todd has thrown the ball back to City Government to get the job done.
Mayor Gray has not (yet) supported construction of a new building. Instead he has called for a study of Rupp Arena that will cover costs and design potential for the arena’s renovation or the construction of a new basketball coliseum. His comments have also consistently noted the importance of developing a “sports/arts/cultural area,” which would sprawl west from the arena toward the (not yet thriving) Distillery District, which is currently seeking city and state funds in the form of TIF financing. Such a complex, with Rupp as its anchor, would be a win for Lexington’s economic future, suggested Gray.
Not long after Gray’s Rupp comments, a thoughtful piece authored by a Lexingtonian studying design at an Ivy League school appeared in the Lexington Herald-Leader. The article repeated Gray’s assertion that a Rupp sports/arts/cultural hub would be a net benefit for all Lexingtonians. The author provided specific plans that showed how public funds, leveraged with private money, could create such an area through a Rupp renovation. Funds could pay to better connect the Distillery District nearby on Manchester; money could be generated to construct an amphitheater and market area in Rupp’s west-parking lot; the city could partner with the Triangle Park foundation (themselves wealthy, private business leaders with interests in the area) to re-design Triangle Park into a world-class park.
No specific figures were given, but the author acknowledged that great amounts of public and private money would be needed, not to mention the intellectual labor inputs needed to change zoning laws and coordinate the sprawling amount of partnerships imagined. Elsewhere the Herald-Leader has enthusiastically wondered whether “Lexington can capitalize on Wildcat fans’ arena envy, sparked by Louisville’s KFC Yum Center” (“Mayor outlines sensible approaches,” Jan 27).
Left unacknowledged by Gray and both H-L editorials is the fact that Rupp is already located next to a sports/arts/cultural area called Victorian Square (the 1980s urban project to save the city). In addition, within the past year Lexington leaders have invested great sums of money to create an arts/culture/community district much closer to Rupp than the nearby Distillery District: Cheapside. For those who’ve forgotten about last year’s urban project to save the city, Cheapside is located less than a quarter mile away from Rupp and has already received several million dollars in site design. It has also been hailed (before the Rupp arts/sports district talk) as a central city gathering place, a home for the farmer’s market and Thursday Night Live, a place to go for good food and drinks.
With all sides acknowledging that city hall has limited funds, with the mayor looking to cut costs in the operation of city government to balance budget shortfalls, the new Gray administration’s big-ticket, potentially big-vision item proposal has focused thus far on developing an arts/drinking/cultural district, what, 3-5 blocks from Jim Newberry’s arts/drinking/cultural district? It may be a win for downtown, but it certainly does not seem like a good investment for city residents. They can be expected to foot the bill, go in greater civic debt, for yet another downtown project catering to urban creative class leisure, a project that will, by fact of its central downtown location, prove significantly more costly than construction/design projects located anywhere else in town.
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