Tom Eblen: If CentrePointe developer wants to cast blame, he should look in a mirror

Cry me a river, or in this case a pond.

Once again, Dudley Webb is blaming everyone but himself for the problems at his CentrePointe development, which after eight years of controversy is nothing more than a giant hole in the ground.

Eighteen months after Webb finished digging and erected two tower cranes, he sent workers back there last Wednesday, claiming he was finally beginning construction of the underground garage.

Only time will tell if this is real work or just another stalling tactic to try to get city officials off his back. As usual, Webb released no details of his financing plan, or evidence that he has one.

What he did release was a whiny, six-page statement blaming everyone else. City officials have treated other developers better than him. The city should be giving him more financial incentives, like Louisville has done for other developers. The city’s lawyer has been unfair. The press and public have been misinformed and critical.

Boohoo. Turn on the pumps before the pit starts to fill.

Webb’s statement focused on his version of events since 2014, which he claims show the city’s bad faith and lack of trust. What he conveniently left out are six years of CentrePointe history that explain why Mayor Jim Gray, the Urban County Council, the press and the public have little faith or trust in him.

Webb’s statement came three weeks after another development group, which had worked since August to take over the project from him, backed out after it was unable to persuade city officials to lease CentrePointe office space for a new city hall. Gray and council members said the deal wasn’t in the taxpayers’ best interests.

Webb’s statement also came two days after the 21c Museum Hotel opened across the street in a beautifully restored historic building.

“While our project was being treated this way,” Webb complained, “the City appears to have given every accommodation to a neighboring and competing private project to induce it to happen, including tens of millions of dollars in public money.”

Webb overstates the public money 21c has received. The only direct city assistance was a $1 million, 10-year loan and tax-increment financing similar to what CenterPoine received. Every developer, including Webb, seeks as much government assistance as possible, because urban redevelopment is costly. But projects and developers have different strengths and weaknesses.

It is easy to understand why city officials might look upon 21C more favorably than CentrePointe. The developers of 21c came to the table with a first-class architectural plan to save and reuse a downtown landmark, plus a proven business model that in other cities has become a travel destination and cultural asset. And they haven’t spent eight years jerking Lexington around.

The major piece of public assistance 21c received was $15.7 million in state and federal historic tax credits to help renovate the old First National Building. It was Lexington’s first skyscraper, built in 1913 and designed by one of America’s best architectural firms of the era, McKim, Mead & White.

The irony here is that Webb could have gotten millions in historic tax credits, too. But there’s a catch: Those incentives go to developers who save and reuse old buildings, not tear them down.

The CentrePit block once had 14 old buildings, several of which were significant. Preservationists and architects begged Webb in 2008 to incorporate the best of those buildings into his development to give it more human scale and local flavor.

But Webb insisted on quickly demolishing the entire block, then revealed he didn’t have the money to build anything to replace it. The previous city administration should never have overridden historic preservation rules to let him do that.

While touring 21c last week, I was impressed by how well the Louisville-based developer has adapted the old bank building into a luxury hotel and contemporary art museum. Much of the tower’s original architectural detail and irreplaceable craftsmanship has been preserved and highlighted. It is brilliant.

Historic tax credits help make such renovations possible. But they wouldn’t be done if they didn’t make long-term business sense, too. The 21c concept is built around unique art and design, and most properties are in renovated historic buildings.

In the eight years CentrePointe has been stalled, several historic buildings have been renovated in Lexington for new uses, including the restaurants Shakespeare & Co. and Dudley’s on Short Street.

Think about how William “Lord” Morton’s circa 1826 store building, architect Herman Rowe’s 1901 structure that last housed the Dame nightclub or the 1880s building that for years was Levas’ Restaurant could have been renovated as part of CentrePointe or reused on their own had they not been demolished.

That didn’t fit Webb’s development plan. Neither did good contemporary architecture. Under pressure from city officials to improve his uninspired design, he hired top-notch architects and then discarded most of their good ideas.

Webb had bad timing in launching CentrePointe at the dawn of the Great Recession, and bad luck in having Lexington transition from a city administration that took his every promise at face value to one more savvy about downtown development.

But it is long past time that Webb stopped blaming everyone else. He needs to look in the mirror and ask himself two questions: Does my CentrePointe plan still make sense (if it ever did)? And why won’t others trust me with their money to build it?

This story was originally published March 4, 2016 at 2:12 PM with the headline "Tom Eblen: If CentrePointe developer wants to cast blame, he should look in a mirror."