Since 2015, a whopping $2.5 billion worth of development projects have been announced, launched or completed in Lexington’s downtown, stretching from Manchester Street to Midland Avenue.
With major public and private initiatives such as City Center, the Convention Center renovation and Town Branch Commons set to come to fruition in the city’s core in the next three years, it’s a good time to take stock of where the downtown community stands and where it is heading, according to Downtown Lexington Partnership (DLP) President and CEO Terry Sweeney. “In the next three years, downtown will be very different in a positive way than it is now, especially when we take into account all the positive momentum that we already have,” Sweeney said.
Dana Rogers
Street-level retail, such as the stores shown above at the Square, and the addition of premier restaurants are renewing energy in Lexington’s downtown economy.
Benchmarking downtown’s progress as it dives into this transformative time is one of Sweeney’s missions for the DLP, which formed 18 months ago from the merging of the Downtown Lexington Corporation and the Lexington Downtown Development Authority. In mid-June, The DLP and the Lexington Downtown Management District hosted the city’s first State of Downtown event, sponsored by Republic Bank at the Lexington Opera House, to update downtown stakeholders and community members on the multiple downtown projects taking shape and share data on several key economic and quality of life indicators for the city’s core.
The inaugural State of Downtown, which included a panel discussion with local leaders in development, real estate and finance, featured a report on the downtown’s growing customer base, commercial real estate market, mobility and transit use, and multiple quality of life measures, along with national data and comparative analysis of the emerging trends.
“People tend to look at all these projects singularly, as opposed to a comprehensive package of downtown. We want to help people connect those dots." — Terry Sweeney, president and CEO Downtown Lexington Partnership
“People tend to look at all these projects singularly, as opposed to a comprehensive package of downtown. We want to help people connect those dots,” Sweeney said. “Downtown is an important economic engine. We want to document that engine, along with the experience and the vibrancy of it, and [understand] how people are using our downtown.”
The biggest project coming online currently for the city, the highly anticipated City Center, is scheduled to complete construction in October, with Jeff Ruby’s Steakhouse having already opened its doors on the central downtown block in April. Street-level retail along Main Street, including Starbucks and Keeneland Mercantile, also opened in the spring.
Street-level vibrancy can be a good barometer for a healthy downtown economy, Sweeney said, and recently, only 5.2 percent of the downtown’s roughly 373,000 square feet of street-level had been listed as vacant. Sweeney said he expects City Center to improve the mix of available street-level retail and its overall walkability, creating new energy that could invigorate more businesses nearby.
‘[City Center] will help to connect a core part of downtown with the convention area, and the street-level vibrancy will ripple out from there,” Sweeney said. “It will become its own economic engine and an attractor for downtown that will change the dynamics in the area.”
Dana Rogers
At the same time, Town Branch Commons, the linear park and trail system that will carry the downtown link of Town Branch Trail, is wrapping up its preliminary work on underground sewer, water and utility lines along Midland Avenue and Vine Street this summer, said Brandi Peacher, the city’s director of project management. From there, the project will move to complete more necessary prep work along Manchester Street.
“Once all of this is completed, we will be looking to begin the trail construction later this year,” Peacher said.
But the Commons project encompasses more than just a trail, Peacher added, with new infrastructure required to lay the groundwork for multiple improvements, including planned bioswales to improve stormwater management along the length of the corridor. The Commons project is progressing on schedule and targeted for completion by the end of 2021, Peacher said.
“We have such an opportunity with this project to reestablish our public space and to really illustrate to our community and to our visitors the Bluegrass in our downtown core,” Peacher said. “It’s really exciting.”
When it comes online, the Commons will serve to connect initiatives such as the MET mixed-use development at Third Street and Midland Avenue, the City Center block, the expanded convention center and the planned Town Branch Park with 22 miles of trails throughout the scenic Bluegrass region, and it will serve to attract more people from surrounding areas to explore the downtown’s offerings, Sweeney said.
But even before the addition of the Commons, downtown is already ranked as Lexington’s most walkable neighborhood, with a walkability rating of 88, Sweeney noted, and the city’s downtown restaurants, retail, arts and entertainment have made it a regional draw.
Dana Rogers
Eighty percent of the residents of Fayette and its six contiguous counties visited downtown Lexington at least once in a six-month period, Sweeney said, and on average, those residents were making that trip more than 29 times in six months, or roughly once per week. In terms of the economic value associated with those downtown trips, the average
Bluegrass-based visitor spends $69.64 per trip, Sweeney added.
And the demand for downtown living is also strong. More than 24,000 residents currently call downtown their home, Sweeney said, with the sales price for residential real estate transactions in the city’s core, including both single-family homes and condominiums, averaging approximately $187,000.
“There’s great demand and interest to live downtown—to be close to, or only a short bike ride away from, the city’s best restaurants, shops, entertainment and cultural attractions, and park spaces,” Sweeney said.
The DLP’s effort to evaluate and discuss the downtown’s performance on key measures in the midst of its transitionary period will help it to assess the effectiveness of the new investments over time and determine how much they contribute to targeted objectives for the city’s core.
“We want to establish a process where overtime we are able to benchmark how downtown is doing, and the progress we are making toward creating a great downtown,” Sweeney said. “This is something that is done by down- towns across the country. ... The benchmarks won’t always paint a positive picture, but then you know what you have to work on.”
At the same time, the DLP continues to support and promote the city’s downtown merchant community, Sweeney said. The Downtown Lexington Partnership has also partnered with the Downtown Lexington Management District to manage the district’s programs and services under a contractual agreement. That district is scheduled to be up for renewal through the petition process next year, Sweeney said.
Sharing performance measures and the progress made on multiple downtown development initiatives will hopefully give the community a better appreciation for the downtown’s economic contributions and its growing appeal, Sweeney said.
“Many of the pieces are falling into place,” Sweeney said. “We want people to see that downtown Lexington is a vibrant, safe, growing, economically powerful urban core. It’s a center of employment, a hub of tourism and hospitality venues, and the region’s premiere destination for local cuisine, art, shopping and entertainment.”