Begun in 2016, the Central Bank expansion is expected to be complete by January. Portions of the facility, including Rupp Arena at the Central Bank Center, are already open and hosting events.
Although construction isn’t quite complete at Central Bank Center in downtown Lexington, the newly renovated and expanded facility is already having an impact on Lexington’s bottom line, said Central Bank Center President and CEO Bill Owens.
This spring the center hosted the Fayette County Schools and University of Kentucky graduation ceremonies. Over the past few months, it’s also hosted the Home and Garden Show, Disney on Ice, the Kentucky Future farmers of American State Convention and a reptile show.
On June 17, the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce held its 17th Annual Best Places to Work Awards dinner at the center.
Future events include the Southern Detailers Conference, which will attract some of the top auto detailers and detailing products vendors from around the world, and the 39th Annual Lutheran Women’s Missionary League Convention. The center will also host the Cirque Dreams Holidaze show on Dec. 2.
Concerts and shows rescheduled due to the pandemic are also upcoming, including performances by Jim Gaffigan, Jojo Siwa, Jason Aldean, Eric Church, Elton John and the Backstreet Boys.
“There is a lot of interest, not only in 2022 from concert tours but for the fourth quarter of 2021,” Owens said. “That’s not just from concerts but from a lot of other things as well, for this year. We expect our major public expositions like Lexington Comic and Toy Con, the Kentucky Sport and Recreation show, the Boat Show, Scarefest and others to return beginning in the fall.”
The renovation and expansion project, begun in 2016, is designed to place Lexington’s convention center on a competitive footing with facilities in other markets, Owens said.
When complete, Central Bank Center will encompass 756,000 square feet, including nearly 35,000 square feet of additional exhibit space — double that of the previous building — and an additional 7,300 square feet of ballroom space, which represents a 40 percent increase.
Additionally, Rupp Arena at the Central Bank Center will get an upgrade to its upper seating bowl, as well as nearly 50,000 square feet of club space, and expanded concourses.
Fees and costs of financing bring the total price tag up to about $275 million, Owens said, and the project is on track to be completed by January.
Even with forced shutdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the project is still on time and on budget, he said.
“The overall effect of the pandemic has been positive because it has allowed us to virtually erase a significant project delay that we experienced early in the project, and that was dealing with the infrastructure,” he said. “All of that infrastructure had to be rerouted to make available the site as it was designed. And it took longer to do that than what we originally anticipated and created a delay. [This past year] we’ve been able to pick up speed and virtually eliminate that delay by virtue of all of the events canceling.”
However, a significant decrease in realized revenue brought about by those cancelled events meant furloughing and eventually laying off a portion of its staff he said.
“We’ve had to address that with significant employee furloughs and eventually layoffs of a great many people, which is really sad and really unfortunate,” he said. “When everything shut down, effectively within about five weeks, we furloughed 84 percent of our full-time workforce which, at the time, was about 125 people.”
About half of those laid off were later able to return to work, he said. And, as pandemic-related restrictions are lifted and more events are scheduled, Lexington officials look forward to finally realizing the benefits of an expanded and updated downtown convention and event complex.
“The expanded Central Bank Center will strengthen Lexington as a convention and meeting destination by allowing us to pursue 90 percent of national meeting business,” said Mary Quinn Ramer, president of VisitLEX. “We are thrilled with the progress of the project and look forward to the fully finished Central Bank Center opening next spring.”