After a 40-year search, Lexington council approves $152M contract for new city hall
After 40 years of searching, Lexington’s government will soon have a new home.
The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council voted 8-7 Tuesday night to approve a $152.5 million contract with the Lexington Opportunity Fund to develop a new city hall building at 200 West Vine St.
Councilmembers James Brown, Chuck Ellinger, Hannah LeGris, Lisa Higgins-Hord, Joseph Hale, Whitney Elliott Baxter, Jennifer Reynolds and Hil Boone voted to approve the contact. While Vice Mayor Dan Wu and Councilmembers Tyler Morton, Shayla Lynch, Emma Curtis, Liz Sheehan, Amy Beasley and Dave Sevigny voted against the move.
Lexington has been holding private negotiations since April of this year to secure the downtown property once home to BB&T, now Truist. A final proposal with financing details was not made public until a Nov. 18 work session meeting, where council took the first procedural vote.
The city will pay the Lexington Opportunity Fund $30 million upfront as a down payment. That money comes from a capital project fund created by council several years ago with a new city hall in mind.
The existing building will be renovated, with a 10,000-square-foot addition to the front along Vine Street. All construction work will be managed by the opportunity fund. Under the terms approved Tuesday, the city will lease the building with a $3.5 million annual payment for 35 years, after which the city assumes ownership of the property.
The Lexington Opportunity Fund is overseen by the Webb and Greer companies, developers who built the long-delayed City Center project and are overseeing the currently delayed High Street development by Rupp Arena.
Several members of the public — many from renter advocacy organization KY Tenants — told the council during public comment a vote to approve the contract would mean neglecting the housing needs of Lexington residents.
“(The current city hall) is old, things probably leak and the occasional mold probably creeps in,” Blake Taylor with KY Tenants told the council. “Many people in … Lexington feel the same way about their own homes.”
Reynolds, who represents Lexington’s 11th District, said approving a new city hall was more than a want.
“We are not, in my opinion, at all saying we want a fancy new house. That is not what this is,” Reynolds said. “This is, ‘We need a new house. What is the new house going to look like?’ … Otherwise, we’re going to be staying in a house that is falling down around us. This city will continue to prioritize its residents, and that we want to look for ways to help solve the housing crisis,” Reynolds said.
Maintaining the current city hall building, the former Lafayette Hotel at 200 Main E. St., costs millions, Baxter, of the 9th District, noted. That money could be freed up for more community services under the new proposal.
“I cannot continue to approve budgets that keep putting a band-aid on this building and keep funding repairs that compete with services that we could provide to our community when we have been presented with a feasible solution,” Baxter said.
The current building has more than $55 million in deferred maintenance costs, according to Commissioner of General Services Chris Ford. In 2023, the city spent more than $2 million to repair its elevators. City officials also use the Phoenix building on Vine Street for office space and would continue to do so after the new government center is complete. The city has not said what they will do with the current city hall after the move to West Vine Street.
Funding for public services
Councilmembers who voted against the final contract Tuesday echoed many of the same concerns residents shared.
Curtis, the councilmember representing the 4th District, said changes to federal funding for safety net programs means Lexington needs to focus more on providing services.
“With recent moves by the Trump administration and by Congress to slash funding for many of the projects that I believe are what makes our government here work so well for so many people, I’m not comfortable committing this amount of money right now without having tangible commitments to filling those gaps,” Curtis said.
After the city hall vote, Baxter brought a motion to reserve more $2.8 million from the city’s unallocated fund balance to implement future recommendations from a new task force focused on addressing Lexington’s growing population of homeless residents.
Mayor Linda Gorton formed the task force this summer following study recommendations that the city build a new emergency homeless shelter. It held its first meeting Nov. 13 and will draft policy recommendations to be presented to the council next year.
The council unanimously approved Baxter’s motion to reserve the funds, but Sheehan, of the 5th District, said $2.8 million was not enough.
“If we are saying that housing and homelessness is the top priority, but then spending dramatically more on something else, that indicates what the true priority” of the city is, Sheehan said. “This doesn’t erase or meet the concerns raised by the public about what we should be prioritizing right now.”
The capital fund will have around $10 million left after the $30 million down payment for the new city government complex. The remainder can be used for any future capital projects, including a new shelter.
The city is required to set aside 0.3% of its general fund budget each year to support Lexington’s Office of Homelessness Prevention and Intervention. That typically comes out to about $1.47 million a year.
The $3.5 million annual lease payment for the new city hall represents roughly 0.6% of the general fund.
This story was originally published December 3, 2025 at 9:12 AM with the headline "After a 40-year search, Lexington council approves $152M contract for new city hall."
