A rendering of the new facade currently under construction on the Helix Garage attached to the County Clerk's office in downtown Lexington.Lexington, KY - The Main Street entrance of the public parking garage at the Martin Luther King Boulevard viaduct will soon sport a new steel facade aimed at adding visual appeal to downtown and increasing awareness of available parking.
The Lexington Fayette-County Parking Authority has begun construction on the new entrance, which will feature square and rectangular perforated steel elements of varying sizes arranged in a geometric manner. The facade will be back-lit with an extension of the programmable lighting system that was installed last year on the helix ramp at the rear of the garage, which has been renamed Helix on Main.
As with previous improvements to the city’s public garages, the construction project has been self-funded by the Parking Authority through the use of collected parking fees and does not use any tax dollars, said Gary Means, executive director of the Parking Authority.
The construction work at the garage was initiated because of structural and safety concerns at the facility. After those had been addressed, Means said that he and the Parking Authority’s board of commissioners decided that leaving it at that would have been a missed opportunity.
“We are adding public art and giving a long stretch of Main Street a whole new look and new life,” Means said. “It becomes a marketing element for us, and I think it will benefit other businesses.”
The design was created by local architectural firm Pohl Rosa Pohl and chosen by a selection committee that included Jim Clark, the executive director of LexArts, Means said.
Means said the garage’s 280 spaces are valuable to downtown, but it does often have available capacity of 100 spaces or more, particularly at night.
The installation is expected to be finished in time for the July 4 downtown celebration, Means said, and the facility will remain open for parking 24 hours per day and seven days per week during construction.