Dear Editor:
The decision to use a six-month-old blog entry from the Internet to fill your editorial page in your October 16 edition was unfortunate. Quite frankly, we expected better from a newspaper that has traditionally been a voice of business, free enterprise and reason in this community.
This "Guest Commentary," as you called it, contained nothing more than the same old lies, distortions and insults about CentrePointe that obstructionists have been trying to sell to this community since our project was first announced. By lending him your editorial page, you gave credibility and exposure to the biased and inaccurate remarks of someone whose opinions and allegations have been fabricated in order to perpetuate a self-generated controversy. This gentleman may be a very competent businessman in his field, but obviously he knows little about commercial real estate development or the potential and viability of this project.
Some expressed concern early on that we would be displacing viable entertainment venues like "The Dame" and that this was too great a price to pay, even for a new $250MM mixed-use development for our downtown. Although we respected this reasoning, we did not agree with it. The dilapidated buildings on this privately owned block have since been cleared, these venues relocated with substantial relocation bonuses being paid to their owners, the block has since been dressed with grass and fences, and we are now ready to proceed with further improving our property just as we have every right to do.
Some may like our new design while others, such as Mr. Morris, have their own ideas as to what should be done there. It is nice that they have such ideas, but they must also not forget that the property does not belong to them. Their opinions, although important to them, really have no relevance here since these decisions have already been made, not based upon polls or what Mr. Morris thinks, but rather because CentrePointe is already a "world-class" design that meets the wants and needs of this community.
We have no apologies to make to anyone for these decisions or for our other development efforts. We have done nothing illegal, immoral or in violation of any rules, regulations, laws or any sense of fair play in this effort. This is private property. The funds involved are private funds. The project has met all regulatory and permitting requirements that apply and has even survived the dilatory legal challenges that were filed by certain obstructionists to try to stop it in the courts. Like it or not, that is all behind us, the project is now "shovel ready" and it will be developed in the regular course of events.
At this point, Mr. Morris and others should stop beating this "dead horse" and join us in trying to make our downtown the best that it can be. Certainly your affording him a podium from which to "effectively demonstrate the full extent of skepticism and concern to the uninitiated or uninvolved (in other words, to the majority of our citizens)" doesn't help. Admittedly, Mr. Morris has the right to "effectively demonstrate" whatever he wants to whomever he wants, but only if what he is writing or saying is true, which in this instance, it clearly was not. The good news is that most people here know better, are ready for this project to be constructed and could care less about what Mr. Morris thinks about it. Fortunately, the majority of our citizens still believe in the Constitution, the right to own property and that the owner has the right to use it as they see fit, within the law.
We realize that this is not the "fresh dialogue" about that project that you were looking for, but it is important that you understand that such postings by Mr. Morris are akin to the other ever-expanding blogs with libelous and slanderous statements that are being entered hourly on the Internet to harm others and attack everything from God to the Devil. It is truly unfortunate that the computer age has created a bulletin board for anyone who has nothing else to do but to post anything that they please on it, whether accurate or not. While responsible journalism is rapidly losing ground, hopefully you and your staff are bigger than that and will not perpetuate such unfounded assertions in the future without at least fact checking them for accuracy. Likewise, we trust that you will not also allow such to become the sources of your business news.
As to the complaint of Mr. Morris that CentrePointe has been shrouded in secrecy and the developers hostile to reasonable inquiry into the details of the project, nothing could be further from the truth, and if anything, we have been too transparent. From the outset, we welcomed such inquiry and discourse and disclosed every detail about the proposed project to our government and regulatory officials, the press, the historians, the preservationists, the entertainment buffs, the UK students and anyone else who was interested. That is, all but the identity of our financial partner, which we could not disclose because of the confidentiality provisions that we had agreed to in writing with him and his associates.
As anyone experienced in international finance will confirm, this is not an uncommon expectation of foreign investors who do business here. There is nothing new or sinister about wealthy internationals wanting to keep their identities and financial investments private, and we are sorry if Mr. Morris doesn't understand or accept that. As we told you and others before, this is the way it is, and until determined otherwise, our financial sources and their identities cannot and will not be disclosed, even to Mr. Morris, who for some reason feels that he is entitled to know everything about this private business arrangement.
Equally as troubling was another blatant misrepresentation that he wrote and you printed, which was that the public had granted our property some special status that should require us to be more forthright and more detailed about the project's timing, financing and business model, or else our special TIF status should be removed. None of this was true either and was evidently yet another attempt by him to either confuse or influence your readers about the city's then-pending TIF application that has since been approved by the state.
As to the skepticism of Mr. Morris about our proposal for condominiums that are to be situated atop the project, this too is none of his concern. These again are business decisions to be made by the owners.
He next asserted that we have sustained a "loss of credibility" due to our "runaway optimism" about this project. To that, we can only say that the investors, consultants, the State's Economic Development Cabinet and our prospects all have reviewed our plans and staunchly believe this project will be built and will be successful and wonderful for Lexington. Admittedly, we thought we could get this project started soon after it was announced, but little did we know or could have foreseen the delays of the approval process or the filing of dilatory lawsuits to stop us that have since been thrown out.
Nor could we have foreseen the sudden and unexpected death of our financial partner followed by an abrupt plunge of the world's economy and credit markets into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. These things all happened after our project was announced and after most of the old buildings were already down. We had no control over these events and there is nothing that any of us can do about them now except to deal with them and move on. We certainly do not apologize for being optimistic. Developers have to be optimistic.
Simply stated, the reality that we now face is that, but for the funding to which our investor had previously committed, there are few financing sources out there today. For this reason, nearly all major real estate development projects in the world are now on hold, waiting for the credit markets to recover. This is true of the Museum Plaza project that was already under construction in Louisville, the World Trade Center project that was already under way in New York City and most all of the other significant projects that were planned or underway throughout the rest of the world. Why isn't Mr. Morris complaining about them or blogging about their developers?
As to his observation that real estate development is "contingent," of course it is, and anybody with any common sense knows that. If a developer doesn't believe in the market or isn't prepared to deal with such contingencies, he should never get into the real estate business in the first place. If we weren't capable of meeting and resolving such contingencies, speculative projects like our downtown Hilton, World Trade Center, Lexington Financial Center, The Woodlands, Merrill Lynch Plaza, First Federal Building, Victorian Square, 489 East Main Street, the Moore Drive area, Perimeter Center, Corporate Center, West Main Place, Leestown Distribution Center, Palomar Center, Lexington Green, Tates Creek Center, Tates Creek South, the Regency Center, Lexington Business Center, Melbourne Distribution Center and most of our other development projects in this city wouldn't be here today. The success of these projects speak for themselves. To the contrary, what has Mr. Morris done for Lexington that makes him an authority on real estate development or qualifies him to criticize the business model and decisions of folks like Marriott that have long been committed to this deal?
As to any other supposed "victimhood" that might have occurred here, it certainly didn't happen to us, since we came into this opportunity with our eyes open and knowing full well that controversy usually comes with the territory for local developers. To the contrary, if he is suggesting that the city is a victim here, then neither the LFUCG nor the state have bought into that argument either. In fact, both have recognized and agreed that our project is desirable, would create thousands of new jobs, substantially increase our tax base, grow tourism expenditures and sustain the Courthouse/Phoenix Park TIF project that we desperately need.
As to the suggestions from several that we should try to land either a Hard Rock CafĂ or a House of Blues as an entertainment venue for this project, I have done so, and contrary to what Mr. Morris and Dr. Kouns have said or believe, both are still interested and our discussions with their site consultants are continuing.
As to the suggestion of Mr. Morris that I may be the unluckiest man alive, the opposite is true here as well. I love this city, have lived a great life here, have a wonderful family here, have great partners, businesses, employees, tenants and friends here, and I love the people here. I also love what I do, particularly since I live in a country where we all have the right and the freedom to use our efforts and our property as we see fit, as long as we comply with the laws that apply. How much luckier can you be than to begin a real estate development career with a $3,000 down payment on a land contract for my first property and end up building as many projects as we have been fortunate enough to complete? We'll stack our buildings up against anybody else's in town, not only in quantity, quality and design, but also in total property taxes being paid by each, the number of locations generated for local businesses and the resulting jobs that were created for our local people.
As to his innuendo that I may be lying about all of this in an effort to exonerate myself, this isn't true either and time will confirm that. And exonerate myself from what? His personal attacks were not necessary, nor was his demand for what he calls a "clear accounting" from us as to the CentrePointe project. I can assure you that he won't be getting that one anytime soon either.
Finally, as to his question about where we are with this project, all we can tell him is that it is going to happen, and he will know about it when the contractor removes the grass and fencing and starts digging the hole. As you know, we have been at this for 37 years now, and we have never announced a major project that we didn't deliver. In the meantime though, we would still appreciate a little patience while we resolve our challenges and for your publication to keep on reporting the news rather than helping others like Mr. Morris, who are trying to create it at our expense.
Thanks for listening.