CentrePointe developers frustrated with city’s handling of project criticism
Many of the major players spoke Thursday evening at the Urban County Council meeting. CentrePointe is a downtown hotel and business project that is now 7-years old. Currently, it’s just a hole in the ground where a parking garage is being built.
The city claims there wasn’t any work done on the site for 60-consecutive days, so it sent a letter to the developers on Tuesday saying the lack of work means the developers are now required, by agreement, to fill in that hole.
"Let me be clear. The city and the developer have an agreement. The city’s responsibility is to monitor that agreement for compliance. The city has done that. The city’s position is that the developer is not in compliance. And a notification letter to that effect was sent to the developer," said Lexington Mayor Jim Gray at the Urban County Council meeting.
The developers sent a letter to the city in response on Wednesday, saying they could prove work had been done on the site in those 60-days. At the Urban County Council meeting, developer Dudley Webb of the Webb Companies, expressed frustration at the city’s sending of the letter.
"We were having a good week with our efforts to get this deal done until Tuesday’s email and obviously, it was a little bit disheartening to read the breaking news in the Herald-Leader, that this letter existed, rather than getting that or a phone call of warning there was an issue about that. I don’t think that’s the way you do business," said Dudley Webb.
The Wednesday letter from the Webb Companies asked the city to rescind its demand for the parking garage hole to be filled. It also said it appeared that one prime tenant was going to withdraw from the project solely as a result of the city’s demand to fill-in the hole and its "erroneous public comments."
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