Hey, we've got a question here from Paul Oliva on Facebook. He's asking about the history of the Centre Pointe project, or as some people called it back in the day, the centre pit, and he wants to know why it was so controversial locally.

Oh wow, Paul, that's going back to two thousand eight. The Centre Pointe project, which is now called City Center down on the block between Main and Vine, was this massive two hundred fifty million dollar development that the Webb Companies wanted to build. It was originally planned as a thirty-five story high-rise that would have been the tallest building in Lexington, and it finally opened as a twelve-story mixed-use building in twenty twenty. But man, the controversy was real.

What made people so upset about it?

Well, there were two big things. First, they had to demolish Morton's Row, which was the city's second-oldest historic commercial district, along with a popular local bar called The Dame. Morton's Row was built in eighteen twenty-six and people felt like they were losing a piece of Lexington's history. The Dame was basically the only music venue in town where local bands could play.

And the second issue?

The city approved Tax Increment Financing for the project, and a lot of people didn't understand how TIF works. They thought taxpayer money was being used without public input, but TIF actually uses the increased property tax from the new development to fund local infrastructure improvements. The whole thing was supposed to be done by twenty ten for the World Equestrian Games, but construction didn't really start until late twenty thirteen, and even then it was just blasting for the foundation. Six years had passed with just an empty block downtown.

No wonder people called it the centre pit instead of Centre Pointe.

Exactly. By twenty fifteen, residents were so frustrated with this hole in the middle of downtown that city officials had to threaten to make the developers fill it in if no work happened for sixty days. The project went through multiple design changes and financing issues over nearly a decade before it finally got built.

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