Pensacola Park’s bid to become historic district moves forward. 4 properties removed.
Pensacola Park could soon become the sixteenth Lexington neighborhood to be granted a historic district designation.
The Urban County Planning Commission voted Thursday to approve an H-1 overlay, commonly called a historic designation, for the south Lexington neighborhood off Nicholasville Road. The historic district includes homes on Goodrich Avenue, Lackawanna Road, Norfolk, Penmoken Park, Pensacola Drive, Rosemont Garden, Suburban Court and Wabash Drive.
The original district also included odd addresses from 1733 to 1915 Nicholasville Road. The commission ultimately voted to remove 1733, 1737, 1739 Nicholasville Road. All three of those properties are rooming houses and are at the far northern edge of the proposed district. It also removed 1915 Nicholasville Road, which is a commercial building on the far south end of the proposed district.
The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council must still sign off on the H-1 designation. The council can not add the Nicholasville Road properties that were removed by the commission back into the historic district. It can only vote the H-1 designation up or down.
The inclusion of the Nicholasville Road properties in the historic district has long been the most controversial and contentious part of Pensacola Park’s application. Some of those property owners did not want to be included in the district.
In February, the council voted at first to exclude some the Nicholasville Road properties from a moratorium on any demolitions in the proposed Pensacola Park historic district while the neighborhood’s application for an H-1 overlay was pending. But after an outcry from the neighborhood, the council ultimately reversed and voted to include the Nicholasville Road properties in the moratorium.
Neighbors pushed for the historic designation after the planning commission approved a zone change in December for eight townhouses on the corner of Nicholasville Road and Penmoken Park. The developer now plans to build four single-family houses instead of townhouses.
Historic preservation and planning staff recommended approval of Pensacola Park’s historic designation during Thursday’s meeting.
The neighborhood’s homes date from 1919 to 1944 and are largely architectural styles that were popular between World War I and World II. Those homes include intact or not altered Craftsman, bungalow, Tudor revival and American foursquare homes.
“The historic houses maintain their character-defining styles and forms,” a report from planning staff noted. “There are very few incidents of adverse character altering changes to structures or sites within the boundaries of the proposed district.”
Pensacola Park also has clear boundaries, the study of the neighborhood noted.
One property that was part of the original application — 1915 Nicholasville, a one-story commercial building that houses the El Toro restaurant and T Mobile, should not be included in the historic district, planning staff said. It was not originally part of the Pensacola Park neighborhood. It was built in 1998 and is not representative of the architectural style of the area, staff said.
Lawyers who represented rooming or boarding houses at 1733, 1737 and 1739 Nicholasville Road argued those properties should be excluded. 1739 Nicholasville Road is Greystone Lodge. 1733 and 1737 Nicholasville Road are owned by Arcadia Rentals.
Jacob Walbourn, a lawyer for Arcadia, argued the rooming houses are a different zone — high-density residential — than the rest of the neighborhood. And those properties have been rooming or boarding houses since at least the 1970s. Those three properties are at the far northern end of the proposed historic overlay.
“These properties are different,” Walbourn said.
More than a dozen people from the Pensacola Park neighborhood spoke in favor of keeping all the properties in the historic district.
The city’s Historic Preservation Commission and the Fayette County Neighborhood Council unanimously supported the designation.
Craig Potts, director of the Kentucky Heritage Council, also supported the application in a letter to the planning commission.
Candice Wallace told the commission the neighborhood has spent more than a year and countless hours pursuing the historic designation. Architects and professors in the neighborhood have volunteered more than 400 hours. They created a nonprofit organization so it could get grant money to pursue the historic designation, she said.
“This is not something that our neighborhood took lightly,” Wallace said.
Kevin Katlick said he recently purchased a home on Penmoken Park. It was the neighborhood’s charm that drew him to the area.
“I wanted an old bungalow,” Katlick said. “The neighborhood is a very cohesive... We have diversity. “
Others said the neighborhood is at risk for possible development because it fronts Nicholasville Road. Without a historic designation, the reasonably priced middle-class neighborhood could disappear.
Mareth Birmingham Gillespie has lived on Penmoken Park for 37 years. “We are not and have never been opposed to development,” Gillespie said. But without the historic designation, the neighborhood fears development that could radically change the overall character of the largely pre-1950s homes.
Properties within historic districts have design and other guidelines that properties outside historic districts do not. It is more difficult but not impossible to get a demolition permit inside a historic district. Other neighborhoods that have an H-1 overlay include Bell Court, Ashland Park and Gratz Park.
It’s not clear when the Urban County Council will vote on the Pensacola Park H-1 designation.
This story was originally published October 25, 2019 at 11:06 AM.
