Lexington, KY - Mayor Jim Gray announced today that he is shelving plans to renovate the city’s convention space and Rupp Arena. A release from Gray’s office states the original plans will be scrapped for now as “UK relayed the decision it had changed its mind about the lease.”
“We designed this arena based on what UK said they needed,” the mayor stated in the release. “But I understand timing and pacing are everything, especially with major projects like this. So we'll adjust and adapt.”
The University of Kentucky, through its spokesman Jay Blanton, refused comment on what prompted the change of heart and other aspects of the release from Gray, including the statement that the school would only commit to “perhaps 10-15 percent of the university’s original investment in the project under the lease.”
“We have no comment,” Blanton said via email.
The release also includes comment from Gov. Steve Beshear, who is sticking by the original plan.
“I think the original project is still what Lexington and the university need, and in time, I hope UK will be ready to move forward,” the governor stated in the release.
In lieu of the arena and convention center project, Gray states the city will move forward with plans for the adjacent space currently occupied by city-owned parking lots that the mayor has repeatedly called underutilized.
“The Town Branch Park and the 20-acre High Street parking lot present a lot of development opportunities to lift our economy and create jobs for our citizens, and enhance the arts and entertainment and mixed-use development in the city,” Gray said.
The mayor had previously tied activity inside the arena and convention center as integral to the success of those neighboring parcels, which he had hoped to inject with principles guiding 21st-century urban planning.
“I’ve learned after 850 projects in my construction career, never to fall in love with a project,” Gray said about his time in the construction business before being elected mayor. “We need to move on. And when the time is right, the plan is ready. It’s all about economic development and job growth.”
Announcing that work on the project is suspended, the release concludes, allows Lexington Center to get back to the business of scheduling conventions, meetings, concerts and events. The Lexington Convention and Visitors Bureau and Lexington Center are now scheduling events for 2015 and 2016, which had been anticipated to be times that the space would be under construction.