Planning commission OKs a Lexington student housing complex for nearly 1,000 residents
A new student housing complex with beds for nearly 1,000 residents is one step closer to being built in a growing area near downtown.
The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Planning Commission voted 7-2 to approve a zone change allowing Georgia-based Landmark Properties to build a 326 unit, 974 bedroom student apartment complex in the Davis Park neighborhood along South Broadway, Oliver Lewis Way and Chair Avenue.
The units will be spread across two buildings connected by an overhead pedestrian bridge, one six stories and one five stories. A parking garage with 575 spaces will be built near the railroad tracks at the edge of the property.
The properties being rezoned currently are home to several warehouses, although longtime Lexington staple Country Boy Brewing also runs its Lexington location in the area. They will be displaced by the development.
The Urban County Council will take an initial vote on the zone change in late June or early July.
Landmark Properties wants to change the properties’ current industrial zone to a corridor node zone. The corridor node zone was created in 2024 when Lexington adopted a major zoning reform package geared at increasing the city’s density.
It’s meant to allow high-density development along major roadways with public transit access to encourage more transit-use, walking and biking among residents as opposed to driving. In the urban planning field, developments like ones the corridor node is meant to support are called transit-oriented developments.
If approved by the council, this project would be the first in the city to successfully be granted the corridor node zone.
A student housing project in 2024 at the edge of the historically Black Pralltown neighborhood, near the University of Kentucky campus, was rejected as it sought the zone — although a scaled back version of that same project was approved in February 2026 with a neighborhood business zone label.
The two commission members who voted against the project, Robin Michler and Molly Davis, say the proposal does not do enough to create a walkable or transit-friendly environment along South Broadway or Oliver Lewis, which is what the zone is meant to achieve.
“Speaking as someone who’s part of a body that is looking to activate our corridors and see more activity (instead of) these development pods along our corridors that are all internal movement, I really don’t think this meets the spirit of this zone,” Michler said.
All the street-facing entrances to the buildings would be along Chair Avenue. The building nearest to Oliver Lewis treats the road more or less as a backyard with no doors on that side of the building or sidewalk connections to the road.
That’s because all the space between the building and Oliver Lewis is right-of-way owned by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. Due to state road regulations, the developer has very little control over how that area is landscaped.
While developers are allowed to build sidewalk connections within publicly-owned right-of-way, there is a steep grade change in the space between the building and Oliver Lewis Way that would make it an unappealing walking option for a pedestrian, the developers argued before the commission.
A similarly steep grade change descends down Chair Avenue from South Broadway. The building nearest to South Broadway will feature a landscaped greenspace, as it would be too costly to construct a building that directly abuts the road.
While the properties being used for the development run alongside Scott Street, the developers are leaving a large space separating the buildings from that street undeveloped. Eventually, Scott Street will be widened alongside the properties and will connect via a new bridge overtop South Broadway to UK’s campus.
The former Davis Bottom neighborhood, a working class neighborhood which covered all the land between the Cincinnati Railroad and the other side of Oliver Lewis Law, was completely bulldozed in the 1990s to make way for the construction of Oliver Lewis Way and the Scott Street connection to campus.
The Scott Street widening and bridge are still in the design phase and will not be constructed for some time.
Now, the renamed Davis Park neighborhood consists of affordable housing apartments, houses on land owned by the Lexington Community Land Trust, a workforce and community center and a new city park. It will eventually be the home of the Lexington Children’s Museum’s new building.
The area across South Broadway from Davis Park is also expected to see major growth. UK announced that it intends to turn its properties on the corner of South Broadway and Bolivar Street into a performing arts district.
