New hotel in downtown Lexington?

[georgeglass]

From the Herald-leader posted tonight...see below

I thought this was potentially great news for downtown. I do have some major concerns for the hotel project: I would hate to see places like the Dame, Triple Crown Lounge, Busters, and Mia's that add a lot to downtown all be gone for the sake of one hotel. Lets hope this a mutli-use redevelopment and the farmers market gets a permanent home.

http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/14981518.htm

[LexKY]

From the Herald-leader posted tonight...see below

I thought this was potentially great news for downtown. I do have some major concerns for the hotel project: I would hate to see places like the Dame, Triple Crown Lounge, Busters, and Mia's that add a lot to downtown all be gone for the sake of one hotel. Lets hope this a mutli-use redevelopment and the farmers market gets a permanent home.

http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/14981518.htm

I am new to this forum, but live in Lexington and I am extremely interested in highrise and urban architecture and urban development and improvement. In response to your concerns, I would say that they are valid, but the bars you mention are all fairly successful and should be able to re-locate. I can think of several locations where each could move to. Also, that block is a terrible, awful thing to have in the middle of downtown. This block is as close to the geographic center of downtown as you can get and it is currently filled with poorly maintained buildings with no architectural significance and a huge, embarrasing parking lot. I personally think surface lots like this should be banned in the CBD. Anyway, I just hope that the structure is, like you said, mixed use, and that it is atleast 12 stories tall so we can add it to the Emporis website. Lexington has way too few "highrises" for a city of its size. I am glad to find a group of individuals that share the same interest in seeing Lexington become more urban and dense.

[seicer]

I am new to this forum, but live in Lexington and I am extremely interested in highrise and urban architecture and urban development and improvement. In response to your concerns, I would say that they are valid, but the bars you mention are all fairly successful and should be able to re-locate. I can think of several locations where each could move to. Also, that block is a terrible, awful thing to have in the middle of downtown. This block is as close to the geographic center of downtown as you can get and it is currently filled with poorly maintained buildings with no architectural significance and a huge, embarrasing parking lot. I personally think surface lots like this should be banned in the CBD. Anyway, I just hope that the structure is, like you said, mixed use, and that it is atleast 12 stories tall so we can add it to the Emporis website. Lexington has way too few "highrises" for a city of its size. I am glad to find a group of individuals that share the same interest in seeing Lexington become more urban and dense.

Welcome to the board

This is the block in question.

I would hate for some of these buildings to go, but as LexKY pointed out, some of the structures aren't in the best of shape. I would like to see them renovated, or at least some relocated to the hotel structure itself (ground floor).

I can see why a hotel would choose a developed block, as its only a few blocks from the Lexington Center. But couldn't that huge waste of land (parking lot) next to Rupp bordered by High, Maxwell, and Broadway be more suited?

[LexKY]

Welcome to the board

This is the block in question.

I would hate for some of these buildings to go, but as LexKY pointed out, some of the structures aren't in the best of shape. I would like to see them renovated, or at least some relocated to the hotel structure itself (ground floor).

I can see why a hotel would choose a developed block, as its only a few blocks from the Lexington Center. But couldn't that huge waste of land (parking lot) next to Rupp bordered by High, Maxwell, and Broadway be more suited?

No doubt. I agree that the huge surface lot used by Rupp Arena and the Convention Center is ridiculous. In thinking about this issue, it occurs to me that the Urban County Government owns most of the large, and insidiuous surface lots that make our downtown look slightly anemic. The city owns the parking over top of the Transit Center between Vine and High, they own the parking lot between vine and Main behind the government center and Kentucky theater and they own the massive surface lot that you mention. The city definitely needs to sell or lease this land to developers for some sort of mixed use.

As to the value of the existing buildings on the block where the new hotel is planned, I just have this to say. I work in a building in the adjacent block and I walk past the existing buildings every day. Not one of them has any historic or architectural value besides maybe the location of Triple Crown Lounge (which is supposed to remain per the article I read). The rest are dumps. Really the only value to that block, besides its location and development possibilities, is the few entertainment establishments that are tenants in the buildings. But, with all of the to-be developed mixed use structures downtown, I would think they should all easily find new space with landlord's happy to have tenants with proven businesses. Also, I wouldn't call that block "developed" since atleast 50% of it is a surface lot where the old Woolworths was torn down.

I just hope the hotel is one fitting of downtown and not some 4 story Wyndham or Comfort with its own big surface lot. That would be truly embarrassing.