CentrePointe “Fill in the Hole” event picking up steam on social media

Hundreds are expected to “fill in the hole” Saturday afternoon at CentrePoint, if tweets, likes and posts are any indication.

More than 1,000 people were interested in Facebook event called “Fill in the Hole,” which urged residents to bring a bucket and dirt to the site of the downtown CentrePointe development to “start to fill in the hole, since no one else seems to know what to do with it.”

The page’s creator, Rick Fromm, said the event is real and will happen at 1 p.m. Saturday.

“I’ve been a resident of Lexington for 45 years and I’ve seen a lot of change in those 45 years,” Fromm said. “And I’ve never seen downtown Lexington in such disarray and such a mess.”

Fromm said the event initially was tongue-in-cheek, but now he wants to show the city that people aren’t going to be “passive” or complacent about the lack of development. The CentrePointe development isn’t owned by the city, and sidewalks aren’t in place around the area.

“We don’t want to do anything that would jeopardize anyone’s safety,” he said. “We just want to make a statement.”

He said volunteers will meet at 1 p.m. in Phoenix Park at 100 East Main Street to sign a petition to request a formal investigation into how “this disaster happened.”

Calls tocity officials were not immediately returned Thursday afternoon.

This story was originally published February 18, 2016 at 6:28 PM with the headline "CentrePointe “Fill in the Hole” event picking up steam on social media."