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Dudley Webb, the man most closely associated with the divisive CentrePointe development project in downtown Lexington, defended himself and his work in detail Thursday morning during an interview hosted by Lexington Forum.
“To date, we have spent $28 million. I don’t know what more we can do to demonstrate our good faith, our desire to deliver this project,” Webb told the crowd of 100. “It’s been very frustrating to go through this exercise when everybody takes pot shots at you. We did the best we could do.”
Webb was interviewed by former Lexington Herald-Leader reporter Beverly Fortune, who has written extensively about the CentrePointe project since its inception in 2008.
“It’s a $7 million hole, 34-feet through solid limestone,” Webb said. “Would we have ever started it if we didn’t think we could deliver it? Of course we wouldn’t.”
Webb last month ordered work to resume on the parking garage. He said his investment in the project so far is $32 million. Footings have been installed on the site. Webb said construction of walls will be the next visible sign of activity at the site.
He said the garage will take eight to 10 months to complete. Two hotels, an office building, condos, apartments and a restaurant will follow. Webb said two idle cranes that have been onsite for two years cost $35,000 a month to keep in place.
But despite repeated prodding from Fortune to “move on,” Webb largely stuck to comments similar to those he has made over the past two months about the stalled project, blaming media reports and city officials, in particular (though not always by name) Mason Miller, a special counsel hired by the city to handle CentrePointe matters.
Webb again blamed the city for not issuing bonds to help him start construction of the CentrePointe parking garage, the first piece of the puzzle for the mixed-use project. Webb said the city had signed a contract in 2008 promising to issue the bonds but in 2014 refused to do so. Webb said that 2014 was a pivotal year for the project following the Great Recession. He said the delay cost him potential office building tenants who no longer wanted to wait for construction to begin. The city in response repeatedly has pointed to the text and provisions of signed agreements between the parties.
Webb told the audience that very little new, major construction has occurred in the downtown area in the last 30 years, citing his development of the Financial Center as the most recent example. He also lauded another of his projects, the restoration of 17 historic buildings at Victorian Square.
Webb suggested the city was standing in the way of downtown growth.
“Lexington is its own worst enemy,” he said. “We succeed in spite of ourselves, and that’s got to stop.”
On CentrePointe, Webb touched on a range of issues new and old. At one point he weighed back in on the buildings demolished to make way for the site, calling them mostly “decrepit.” He insisted preservationists wanted them all saved where he believed only a couple may have been worth considering.
Fortune also asked about the mysterious foreign investor in CentrePointe who died suddenly and whose family declined to remain involved in the project. Webb again declined to identify him other than to say he was a “German national and Swiss citizen who ran a French company.”
Though the city’s failure to issue bonds is Webb’s key complain, as he has done elsewhere Webb emphasized that the project is private with no government money.
“It is coming from private equity, private investors and private banks,” he said.
However, he declined to identify sources of financing, saying no contracts had been signed. He said many buildings in the city were financed and built on speculation.
Noting a six-page letter Webb released in early March included a promise to “seek justice later,” Fortune asked Webb to explain his thinking.
“Am I going to sue the city? No. Council members? No. The mayor? No,” Webb said. “I’ll go to me grave wondering why they didn’t issue the (parking garage) bonds.”
He added: “You smile. You go on.”