Community Ventures Corporation broke ground this week on its long-planned mixed-use development along Midland Avenue and Third Street in Lexington's East End, which will be known as the MET.
The $22 million project includes construction of a three-story, 75,000-square-foot building designed by EOP Architects, which will feature street-level retail and office space. The upper floors will also feature 44 apartments, including a mix of 30 percent affordable housing and 70 percent market-rate units.
The team is still finalizing its agreements with retail partners, said Kevin Smith, president and CEO of Community Ventures Corp., but the tenant mix is expected to include a long-sought downtown grocery for the once-bustling downtown commercial corridor. The existing Community Ventures building on the corner of Third and Midland will be retrofitted and expanded to connect with the new construction, Smith said, with plans in the works for a possible restaurant on the first floor.
For Smith, who once lived in Lexington’s Bell Court neighborhood, just a short walk from the new development, bringing this project together just across Midland Avenue, at a nexus point for multiple neighborhoods and local improvement efforts, has been “surreal,” he said.
“The ball is rolling. I don’t think we could stop it, even if we wanted to,” Smith said. “With everything that is aligning, this seems to be the right time for the East End. … I’m very thrilled about what it’s going to do, not only for this neighborhood, but for the whole area.”
The new development marks a major step in CVC’s continuing effort to reinvigorate a substantial amount of the Third Street commercial corridor and the west side of Lexington’s Midland Avenue, long seen as an underperforming gateway to the city’s downtown area.
But beyond the goal of creating a vibrant, mixed-use development near downtown, CVC’s nonprofit mission in this pursuit is to inject Lexington’s East End community with renewed energy and investment in a way that benefits its residents, while celebrating its culture, its character and its historical contributions to Lexington.
“We sat with neighborhood associations, community leaders, business owners, and homeowners, to talk about their vision for the future of the East End. That shared community vision is the one that we aspire to today, and the one that the MET has been designed around." — Kevin Smith, president and CEO of Community Ventures Corp.
“We sat with neighborhood associations, community leaders, business owners, and homeowners, to talk about their vision for the future of the East End. That shared community vision is the one that we aspire to today, and the one that the MET has been designed around,” Smith said. “That vision will keep existing residents here, with new housing opportunities, new job opportunities, and will give them access to basic services, like a grocery store and health care facility.”
The project has also been developed to embrace the city’s Town Branch Commons project, currently being developed along Midland Avenue, with a design plan that provides easy transitions for the community between public and private spaces. The building has also been designed with attractive fronts on multiple sides to invite neighborhood engagement from every angle, Smith said.
To fund the project, the group has secured $10.5 million in new market tax credits to spur private investment, and $14 million in financing has been provided through a consortium of community banks, along with a national lender. Community Venture Corp. is still working to raise roughly $5 million more, Smith said.
The construction will be headed up by D.W. Wilburn, with emphasis on encouraging small and minority business participation in the construction work, Smith said.
Announcements naming the project’s major commercial tenants are expected to be released in the next few months, Smith said.