Third new, high-rise student apartment complex approved near UK’s campus
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- Planning Commission approved a zone change for a third student complex near UK.
- New project adds over 900 beds and replaces a dozen 1920s buildings on East Maxwell.
- Supporters cite housing need; critics raise concerns over density and historic loss.
A third high-rise apartment building geared toward University of Kentucky students could be coming to East Maxwell Street despite opposition from neighbors and preservationists who say the area is being overrun by student housing.
The Urban County Planning Commission on Thursday voted 8 to 2 to approve a zone change from a residential to a business zone for several properties on East Maxwell and Kalmia Avenue.
The zone change, for 251, 253, 255, 261, 263, 271 and 273 East Maxwell, and 256, 258, 262, 266, 268, 270 and 272 Kalmia, now goes to the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council for final approval.
The change would allow Chicago-based Core Spaces to build an eight-story, 332-unit building with multiple town houses at ground level, for a total of more than 900 beds. Plans show an interior parking garage with 436 parking spaces.
It would mark the third new, major student housing complex in the area of East Maxwell. The other two — one six stories, and the other eight — were approved earlier this year.
Core Spaces made changes to its proposed structure after receiving feedback from planning staff and neighbors. Those changes included adding more setbacks in the building to break up the mass.
On Rose Street, a portion of the building will be stepped down from eight stories to six stories. The developer also added more town houses to the Kalmia side of the building.
Entrances would be from Kalmia and Stone avenues, the plans show. The entrance to the parking garage would be near Kalmia and Rose.
Jeremy Young, a senior planner for the city, said staff had recommended approval of the zone change. The city’s comprehensive plan, which guides development, encourages more density in the city’s downtown and along major corridors.
More than a dozen buildings in the area would have to be razed to make room for the Core Spaces property. Core Spaces’ student properties are known as The HUB. The other two HUB apartments for UK students are at 500 S. Upper and 685 S. Limestone streets.
Branden Gross, a lawyer for Core Spaces, said the city and UK need more student housing. The proposed development would replace housing that is rented to about 80 people now and build a structure that would house more than 900. That will dramatically help the city address a shortage of housing and keep UK students from spilling into other neighborhoods.
“We are going to get 300 more units, closing our desperately needed rental gap,” Gross said.
Three apartments in three blocks on East Maxwell
Neighbors told the Urban County Planning Commission the area is already inundated with proposed high-rise student housing.
“Adding nearly 3,000 residents in three large, multi-story buildings on a secondary road like Maxwell Street, sandwiched between small single-family and small multi-family housing, is simply wrong,” Marc Mathews, president of the Historic South Hill Neighborhood Association, which includes parts of Maxwell Street, wrote in a letter to the planning commission. “The aesthetics that one experiences in driving down Maxwell Street will be forever changed to the detriment.”
The proposed HUB complex is near a six-story, under-construction student apartment complex from Stavroff Development. Next to that development is another recently approved student apartment complex. That building, eight stories and home to 825 bedrooms, is being built by Subtext, a St. Louis-based private student housing developer.
A dozen buildings on the block will be razed to make room for the Subtext building. Other historic buildings in the area have already been bulldozed to make room for the Stavroff development.
Most of the buildings Core Spaces wants to bulldoze were built in the 1920s, said Betty Kerr, director of Historic Preservation for the city.
Kerr said the block was part of a planned neighborhood of single-family homes and smaller apartment buildings. It was one of the first neighborhoods designed to mix students with city residents.
“Those structures have a relationship to each other,” Kerr said. “They are part of what gives Lexington its charm, its character and its stories.”
All the structures are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. However, it is not in a historic district.
Richard Schein, president of the board for the Blue Grass Trust for Historic Preservation, urged the commission not to approve the zone change and save the block from destruction.
“I find it ironic that (the HUB) will wipe out a neighborhood that many cities are now trying to build,” Schein said. Many cities are now encouraging different types of housing in the same block, which the block of East Maxwell has, he said.
Wendy McAllister has lived on Stone Avenue, near the property, for 30 years.
Although a traffic study showed the building would have some impacts on traffic on East Maxwell and East High Streets, it did not study the impact on Stone Avenue, she said.
McAllister said Stone Avenue will be used by people trying to get to the HUB and the nearby Stravroff development. That’s going to make an already traffic-logged Stone Avenue even more difficult to navigate, she said.
“You can’t back out of your driveway without feeling like you are going to hit somebody,” McAllister said.
A conflicted planning commission
Planning Commission member Robin Michler said he has voted for the two other zone changes on East Maxwell, but felt this zone change was different. The block of homes and apartments is the “missing middle” housing that the city is trying to encourage. Those apartments house more than just UK students. The new HUB would cater almost exclusively to UK students, Michler said.
Michler said he’s also concerned the city is allowing this type of zoning, a business zone, near Lexington neighborhoods. Those business zones do not have as strict requirements for open space or tree canopies, which means a lot less shade and green space in downtown Lexington, he said.
“We are doing that for the sake of density. I don’t know if this is really a long-term strategy that we want,” Michler said.
Other planning commission members said they were torn.
The city has encouraged more density along its major corridors. The city needs more housing. Providing housing in the city’s core, near UK’s campus, will help relieve pressures on housing in other parts of the city, some planning commission members said.
Michler and Planning Commission member Molly Davis voted against the zone change.
