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Lexington’s seemingly snake-bit CentrePointe development is back to square one, just one day after consultants hired by the city to help find viable options for a new city hall released a report that listed the downtown project among its top three choices.
“Our interest in this project has always been about providing a significant boost to Lexington by building a world-class mixed-use development,"an attorney for developers Matt Collins and Bridgeton Holdings wrote Wednesday to Mayor Jim Gray. The letter characterizes the city's stance as abandoning the larger project, saying: "You have informed us today that you no longer have interest in the broader project. ... Therefore, we will no longer pursue this particular project,”
Gray for his part said the project wasn’t in the best interests of taxpayers.
“The proposal simply asked too much from taxpayers. While everyone wants to see progress, it shouldn’t come at a premium to citizens,” Gray said in a statement. “The developers were unwilling to consider the boundaries Council felt were necessary to continue negotiations.”
Earlier Wednesday, Mason Miller, who represents the city on CentrePointe, had sent a letter to the new developers seeking changes to a plan that would have had the city renting space for a new city hall as the main tenant. In his letter to developers Collins and Bridgeton Holdings, Miller calls their plans “uneconomic” and said it would double the city’s costs versus other options.
“Specifically, based on the work of the expert consultants hired by the City, your clients’ proposal would have cost the City in excess of $5.5 million per year, whereas other options were less than half of that cost annually,” Miller wrote.
The reply was swift: Collins and Bridgeton Holdings are out.
Just one day earlier the City Council heard from consultants Jones Lang LaSalle, which is hired last year for $198,000 to conduct a study
of city-owned and private properties to gauge where a new city hall could be built.
The consultants’ report listed five options, including CentrePointe, but noted various problems with the project. Bridgeton Holdings, led by CEO Atit Jariwala, and a chief investor, Collins, announced in August they had taken over the moribund CentrePointe site from original developers the Webb Cos. Miller during a recent work council meeting noted that the Webb Cos. retain ownership of the site.