‘A slap in the face’ Church blasts Lexington’s proposal to solve parking woes
Main Street Baptist Church, Lexington city leaders and Town Branch Park are at odds over parking for the historic Black church that will be lost due to the construction of the expanded Central Bank Center and the park.
The dispute goes back more than three decades.
Church leaders say the city must guarantee 250 parking spaces for its services. If the city doesn’t, the church will likely be forced to move, just as the city is grappling with increased gentrification downtown.
City leaders counter they are trying to to accommodate a verbal agreement made in 1985 but can’t, under law, spend public dollars for private use, further complicating possible solutions to Main Street Baptist Church’s parking problems.
In a letter sent to the church on Monday, the city proposed a possible solution that includes 250 parking spaces in the Central Bank Center garage when the center does not need them. The city would also provide shuttles for ancillary parking if needed. More permanent parking would also be available through a land swap with the Town Branch Park. If the church doesn’t OK a permanent agreement, then the shuttle service and permanent parking through the land swap are off the table, the letter to the church said.
The city ultimatum angered many on the council.
Lexington-Fayette Urban County Councilman Richard Moloney said the city should have never sent an ultimatum.
“I thought they were negotiating,” Moloney said during Tuesday’s council work session. “This letter basically says, ‘Take this now, or you will get nothing.’”
“It’s a sad day for our city,” he said.
Councilman James Brown said he, too, was disappointed with how the city handled the discussion.
“Somebody needs to communicate with the church that the door is not closed,” Brown said.
The city has been working on the problem for a while, city officials said Tuesday.
“There are a lot of challenges,” said David Barberie, a lawyer for the city. “Any tangible benefit that we provide must serve a public purpose.”
Barberie said the letter was also sent because the offer wasn’t previously in writing and “people leave meetings with different interpretations of what happened.”
The construction schedule of the park and Central Bank Center is also forcing the city to come up with a long-term, viable solution.
A long, complex history
Main Street — one of the city’s oldest Black churches after its founding in 1862 — is often referred to as the “mother church” by other Black churches in Lexington and the surrounding area.
Main Street Baptist was set to purchase a building behind its Main Street property for parking in 1985. City officials purchased it instead for the convention center and Rupp Arena, now known as Central Bank Center.
Then-Mayor Scotty Baesler promised church leaders they could use the new surface parking lot behind Rupp Arena for its members. That oral agreement has been honored by officials with the Lexington Center Corporation, which runs the Central Bank Center, for 36 years. It was never put in writing.
The current expansion of the convention center and Rupp Arena meant that the surface parking lot could no longer be used. Plans call for the proposed Town Branch Park to eventually go over that parking lot.
In 2018, Main Street Baptist and the city came to a temporary agreement to allow the church to park on a section of the now torn down Jefferson Street bridge by Main Street. The entrance to that bridge separated the church’s two properties.
In return, Lexington Center Corporation also promised that when the Central Bank Center expansion was completed, the church could use parking spaces in its new garage on Sundays and other days if Central Bank Center did not need those parking spaces for its events. The church has also been able to use some of the surface parking that has not been removed during the expansion of the Central Bank Center.
University of Kentucky basketball games will resume this fall. Moreover, Town Branch Park, a proposed privately-funded 10-acre park between the convention center and Oliver Lewis Way bridge, will likely start construction in April or May, when the convention center expansion is completed.
The temporary agreement inked in 2018 will expire on March 31, 2022, further prompting the two sides to resolve the long-simmering parking dispute.
“We need to move forward on this,” Barberie said.
Proposal includes garage parking, shuttle service as needed
Under the proposal the city offered Monday, Main Street Baptist Church would be allowed to use 250 spaces in the Central Bank Center parking garage, behind Main Street Baptist Church, if there are no events at Rupp Arena.
In addition, Town Branch Park is willing, through a series of land swaps, to provide land for additional parking, giving the church a total of 49 spaces close to its buildings.
Barberie said the church and Central Bank Center currently have a similar agreement with the surface lot the church uses — the church can use the spaces if the center doesn’t need them.
“Currently, the SEC does not play any games on Sunday,” Barberie said, referring to the Southeastern Conference.
There don’t appear to be any Sunday morning events in 2022 for Rupp and the convention center.
“Please note that at the present time, there have been no Sunday conflicts identified for the calendar year 2022. However, we anticipate that all parties will need to meet on a regular basis beginning in April 2022” to review the Rupp and convention center calendar and identify any impact on parking, according to the letter sent by the city lawyers to Main Street Baptist Church.
If the church needs more parking and there is not parking available in the Central Bank Center garage, the city proposed that congregants can park at the nearby Manchester Music Hall parking lot and a shuttle will be provided. No agreement has been put in place yet between the parties and Manchester Music Hall, but Manchester Music Hall has been open to allowing the church to use its parking lot, according to Allison Lankford, executive director of the Town Branch Park.
How the shuttle will be paid for has not yet been worked out, city officials said.
“It can’t be the city because we can’t use public dollars for a private entity,” Barberie said.
However, leaders of Main Street Baptist Church have asked that the 250 spaces in the 500-space Central Bank garage be permanently dedicated for its use. The Main Street Baptist Church also wanted to take control of the Jefferson Street bridge. In exchange, the church would give the city land it owns on the side of the Jefferson Street bridge. That land could become the new park entrance.
But the problem is that church land is in a historic district. Tearing down the building would take Board of Adjustment approval, which is not guaranteed, city leaders have said. Church officials have countered they would deed land that is not in the historic district on the other side of the Jefferson Street viaduct.
But Central Bank Center staff and the city have said they can’t guarantee parking due to the public financing involved and Central Bank Center’s major tenant — the University of Kentucky men’s basketball program, which has a contract with the center that includes guaranteed parking for patrons.
Revenues from the garage help pay off the $300 million Central Bank Center expansion. Moreover, tax-exempt bonds were used to finance the construction. Central Bank Center can’t change the use of the garage after those bonds were issued, city officials have said.
The city is getting an opinion from its bond lawyer on that issue, said Glenda George, a lawyer for the city of Lexington.
In addition, during the park’s construction, the church may still be able to use parking on the former Jefferson Street viaduct, which it currently uses.
The letter sent to church leaders said if a deal is not inked soon on the proposal, the church will be able to use the 250 spots in the Central Bank garage. But the city will not provide the additional overflow parking and the shuttle service to and from the church. Nor would it get additional parking through a land swap with Town Branch Park, which would create 42 spaces on that property.
“We are operating in good faith,” said Tyler Scott, chief of staff for Mayor Linda Gorton. “We inherited a very complicated situation. We think we can make something work. We could miss some serious deadlines here and we could cause some opportunities to be lost” if a deal isn’t inked soon.
Church blasts proposed plan
Main Street Baptist Church Rev. Victor Scholar said during Tuesday’s work session they want to acquire the Jefferson Street viaduct in exchange for their land so its two properties can be contiguous. Its two properties are separated by the viaduct.
“We have elderly, disabled and children operating between two buildings,” Scholar said. One building is used for Sunday school and another is used for chapel. Scholar said they need the guaranteed 250 spaces or the church can’t grow.
Scholar said the city should have control over the entrances to the park and Lexington Center Corporation. The mayor appoints the Lexington Center board but does not have control over the bonds and laws prohibiting tax dollars from being spent for a private entity’s use, Barberie has said. The park is private.
Scholar said it was only Tuesday that the city said the Jefferson Street viaduct would be open for parts of the construction of the park. The city and park’s story keeps changing.
“I have not been asked to come back to the table,” Scholar said. “We know time is running out.”
Scholar said all of the favor had been given to the park yet “we are supposed to come to the table and negotiate,” Scholar said. “It’s a slap in the face and so condescending,” Scholar said of the offer that did not include 250 guaranteed parking spots and the acquisition of the Jefferson Street viaduct.
Ralph Hill, a member of the congregation, said the city has put the park and Central Bank Center ahead of the church’s needs. The church’s needs have been known for decades.
“Our problem has not been with this body, the council,” Hill said on Tuesday. “Our deliberations and negotiations with the mayor’s office has been fruitless. “
This story was originally published August 31, 2021 at 5:20 PM.
