City officials late Friday afternoon announced a new "agreement in principle" regarding CentrePointe, the controversial and chronically delayed development that has left a city block-size hole in the heart of downtown Lexington.
“The developers have reached an agreement in principle with a third party to develop the project," Mason Miller, an attorney representing the city, said in a statement. "We will follow up over the course of the following week with further details.”
It was not clear who the third party is, and officials with the Webb Companies, CentrePointe's developer, have said they cannot comment on the project.
"We're still in confidentiality agreements," developer Dudley Webb explained earlier in the week.
A 90-day agreement between the Webb Companies and the city ended at midnight Wednesday without official comment.
The Webb Companies proposed the condominium/hotel/office/retail complex back in 2008. The company knocked down several buildings to clear an entire city block, changed designed plans, claimed certain financing troubles were tied to the death of an unnamed European investor. Work seemed to stop after excavation for the project’s parking garage. And for more than a year now, two large cranes have stood mostly motionless in the fenced off construction site.
Earlier this summer, the city threatened to push Webb Companies to refill in the pit or foreclose on the property. Shortly after that move, company and city officials said the developers were working to strike a deal with private investors.