Lexington, KY – Nicholasville-based bio-tech company Alltech has confirmed it is one of two companies that submitted a proposal to the Lexington Center to buy the naming rights of the city’s convention center.
Business Lexington
“Not only do we host the city’s largest annual conference – the Alltech International Symposium - in the Lexington Convention Center, but we see this as an opportunity to invest in the growth and vitality of our local community,” Alltech spokeswoman Susanna Elliott said in an email statement to .
Alltech has been in the naming rights business before, spending $10 million to put its name on the World Equestrian Games held in Lexington in 2010. The company also put its name on an arena built at the Kentucky Horse Park, site of the 2010 games, and will once again be the naming sponsor of the games in France next year.
Elliott said Alltech would not disclose the provisions of their proposal for the convention center at this time.
Who the company is squaring off against for the right to put their name on the convention center may not be known until September when the Lexington Center Board meets to go over a formal recommendation from a subcommittee, according to Brenna Angel, Mayor Jim Gray’s deputy director of communications.
Angel said the Rupp District Subcommittee of the Lexington Center Board will meet in a closed session on Aug. 19, “to conduct interviews with one or both of the respondents.”
“The names of those respondents will not be released until a firm has been selected and a contract has been negotiated,” Angel said.
When the full Lexington Center board meets a week from Thursday, Angel said, it will go over a preliminary update on the plan to finance the proposed overhaul of the convention center, Rupp Arena and adjacent property. But a final report on the finances needed won’t come until later in the year, beyond the 30- to 45-day window, board chair Brent Rice said during a press conference in early July announcing the selection of architectural firm NBBJ to design and Hunt Construction Group to manage the design and building of the new convention center and remodeled Rupp Arena.
“We want to make sure the financial plan is in line with the design and the construction costs, so we’re going to link those together with the potential revenue streams and the construction costs to have a complete financial plan so (we know) that is really how much is it going to cost and how are we going to pay for it,” Angel said.
With the change, Angel said the financial plan can be expected in mid to late fall.
“Brent Rice has said it will be ‘bulletproof,’ and in order for it to be bulletproof we figured we needed to step back on that timeline a little bit,” Angel said.