City grants building permit extension for CentrePointe
A building permit for CentrePointe has been extended until mid-April so work can continue on the site, Lexington officials said Wednesday.
“The company has been granted a building permit extension up through April 14 to allow work to continue on the garage,” said Susan Straub, a spokeswoman for the city.
Straub’s comments came on the same day that a series of extensions on an April 2015 order to fill in the site was set to expire. The city issued the 2015 order after they said no work had occurred on the site for 60 days, a charge the developers the Webb Cos. denied. That order was set aside a number of times when a group of new investors announced in August 2015 they were interested in taking over the development. When the new investors announced in February they were backing out of the project, the Webb Cos., the original developers, announced that work had resumed at the site.
Straub said the December 2013 agreement gave the city the option of asking that the site be filled in.
“The contract allows us to demand that the company fill in the hole,” Straub said. “But it does not require us to do so.”
Hunt Construction, which is building the underground parking garage, said in an email shared with the Herald-Leader that concrete was to be poured at the site starting Wednesday. The site is privately owned.
Dudley Webb of the Webb Cos. said Tuesday the project is moving forward. Webb has not said how the underground garage will be paid for. The proposed development is supposed to include a hotel, apartment building and extended-stay hotel, an office tower and restaurant and retail space. Excavation began on the three-story underground parking garage in late 2014. Tower cranes have sat on the site for more than a year.
“It appears that we are now in unison and moving forward to bring this project to fruition,” Webb said on Tuesday.
Beth Musgrave: 859-231-3205, @HLCityhall
This story was originally published March 30, 2016 at 6:03 PM with the headline "City grants building permit extension for CentrePointe."