The meeting underway if we could. The first item on the agenda is public comment on items that are on the agenda today. Does anyone wish to address the council on items that are on the agenda? All right, seeing none, we'll move ahead to the docket approval. And I call to the council's attention that our clerk has reminded me that we do have one item, a zone change under item 13 of the ordinances that we need to address whether we wish to have a public hearing or not. So with that bit of information, is there a motion with regard to the docket? Mayor, I move to put that on without a public hearing. Have a motion that item 13 be left on the docket without a public hearing. And I have a second by Council Member Lane. Any discussion? Those in favor, please say aye. Opposed, no. Motion is approved. We now need a motion to approve the docket. Council Member Beard has moved the adoption of the docket. Okay. I have a second from Council Member Lane. And I think Council Member Gorton has an amendment. Yes, Mayor, I have a motion. I move to place on the docket for the March 6, 2008, Council meeting a resolution authorizing and directing the Mayor to execute a temporary construction easement over a portion of the property located at 200 Clinton Road, this is Clinton Park, from the Urban County Government to Columbia Gas for the sum of $4,500. So moved. Second. I have a motion by Council Member Gorton and a second by Council Member McCord to add a resolution to the docket authorizing the approval of a construction easement at 200 Clinton Road. Any discussion? Those in favor of amending the docket by adding that item, please let it be known by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed? Say no. Motion carries. And Council Member Myers, I understood you had a couple of agenda items for the docket today. Is that correct? I did. Thank you, Mayor. I move to place on the docket for Thursday, March 6, our first reading, a resolution approving the issuance of Lexington-Fayette-Urban County Government Industrial Revenue Bonds for North Eastern Christian Church in an amount not to exceed $8.5 million. So moved. I have a motion by Council Member Myers and a second by Council Member McCord to place on the docket a resolution authorizing the issuance of Industrial Revenue Bonds for North East Christian Church. Any discussion? Those in favor, please. Council Member DeCant. Yes. Do we know what this money is going to be used for? Council Member Myers. Yes, we'll actually have Ian Koffler with Peck Safer describe what the project is used for. Councilman, the project is going to be used for a multi-use portion of the church facility. The total financing at the site was over $15 million, and we have designated which areas of the building. There's a purely community center wing to the building, and that's what the tax exam proceeds will be used for. When you say community center, who in the community will be using this? The building is actually currently used by several community organizations, Lexington Schools. It's used as a voting site, used by several groups as a public meeting space, Alcoholics Anonymous, I believe Girl Scouts. It is open to the general public for use. Okay. Thank you. As I recall from the meeting, there was a pretty comprehensive list of community-based services being provided access. Yes, sir. There are no limitations as to which groups can use those facilities. They are truly open to the public, and the IRB application is more extensive than the short list which I provided. Could you do me a favor, please, and state the address of the church? Yes, sir. It is ... I just had one member that asked for it. I can get that from you later. Yes, sir. It's 990 Starshoot Parkway. Thank you. Any further discussion? Mayor, I would just like to say, I know this has probably gone before committee, but I have not been on the committee. I would like, in the future, to have information on these things before they are brought before us. I mean, it is a large amount of money. I realize we are not obligating the city to anything, but I would feel much more comfortable if I had had some information which has been referred to today that I could have looked at before I am asked for my vote. I will be sure to distribute that information tomorrow morning to everyone here. Any further discussion on the amendment? Council Member Blevins. Thank you, Mayor. Anthony, has this been through the IRB board and approved by the IRB on board? Okay. We didn't get that information either. Could you tell us what the vote was and so forth? It was unanimous. I can also provide a copy of the minutes from that meeting for everybody here if you'd like to see that. Okay. All right. That's fine. Thanks. Any further discussion? Yes. Mayor? I have a question. For the record, is it northeastern or northeast? It's actually northeast. Okay. The motion said northeastern, and I read it wrong into the record. So, if I could amend the motion to say northeast Christian Church? That's correct. Very well. Any further discussion? Those in favor, then, of approving an amendment to the docket to place on the docket a resolution authorizing the issuance of industrial revenue bonds for northeast Christian Church, let it be known by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. I have one more. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mayor. I move to place on the docket for Thursday, March 6th, for first reading an ordinance approving the issuance of Lexington State-Irving County Government of Industrial Revenue Bonds for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Lexington in the amount not to exceed $5 million. So moved. Is there a second? Second. I have a second by Council Member Ellinger. Any further discussion? Council Member DeCant. I would, again, like to know what this is going to be used for. I think it's important with the industrial revenue bonds that are used by churches that we know exactly what the uses are, and I have not gotten any information on this. I'm Ken Sagan. I'm with Law Firm Steitz & Harbison. We represent the diocese. These revenue bond proceeds will be used for financing improvements at St. Peter and St. Paul middle and elementary schools. There will be an addition of a new gymnasium, cafeteria, and offices at the middle school. There will also be renovation of classrooms at both schools. The money, none of these funds will be used for religious space in any way. These are strictly for school premises. The improvements on the gymnasium and the other improvements, those school buildings, are currently used by various community organizations such as scouting and other organizations, basketball leagues, and those sorts of things. So the diocese, the improvements to these two schools is a third part of a three-part improvement process that was approved a couple years ago. They built a new school at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. They improved the school at Mary Queen of the Holy Rosary. This project was on the list at that time, but we did not close the bonds on this project because it was not ready to move forward. So that's why we're coming back and asking for this third piece. Is this a school on Bar Street? Yes, Bar Street and Short Street. Oh, I see. All right. You have the middle school. Pardon me? One is on Short Street. One is the primary. Yes. One is a middle school and one is an elementary school. Right. Okay. Thank you. Any further discussion? I don't have anybody on my list. Okay. Council Member Blevins and Council Member Beard. Anthony, can you confirm that this has been reviewed by the IRB Board and approved? And what the vote was, please? This has been reviewed by the IRB Board. It was a unanimous decision in favor of the project. And, again, minutes can be furnished to you upon request. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Mayor. I do believe this was approved once before. And just because of timing issues as far as the issuance of the bonds were concerned, am I not correct? That's correct. The other two projects moved forward. This was the third project. The diocese was not ready to move forward on this one at that time. Okay. I just wanted everybody else to know that. Thank you. Any further discussion? I just want everybody to know the names are not coming up on my screen here, so bear with me just a little bit. Seeing no further discussion, those in favor of amending the docket by adding a resolution authorizing the issuance of industrial revenue bonds for the Catholic Diocese of Lexington, let it be known by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. No. The motion carries. Any further motions? All right. We're now ready to vote on the docket as amended. Any discussion on that? Then those in favor of approving the docket as amended, please let it be known by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. The motion carries. Thank you. That takes us down to the approval of the summary for February 26th. Is there a motion? I have a motion by Councilmember Myers and a second by Councilmember Ellinger to approve the summary for February 26th. Any discussion? Seeing none, we'll proceed to vote. Those in favor of approving the summary, let it be known by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. The motion carries. Item four on the docket is budget amendments. Is there a motion? Councilmember Beard moves and Councilmember Myers seconds. Motion to approve the budget amendments. Any discussion? Those then in favor of approving the budget amendments, please let it be known by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. The motion carries. We're now down to items of new business. Councilmember DeCamps moves approval. I have a second from Councilmember Blevins. Was it? Any discussion? Councilmember Stennett. Thank you, Mayor. Charlie, are you in? Yes. On item C, I've got a question on this contract. I see, you know, ten days ago this council approved sewer fee increases and this is the first opportunity to spend some of those increases. I just have a couple of questions on the logistics of when we will receive the money to award this contract. I know they don't go into effect until May. So when does this company expect to receive payment for the work they're going to do? Well, this will be a lump sum, but it will be billed on a month-to-month basis. So the existing fund balance will be able to cash flow those payments as we proceed because this is a four-year endeavor. Okay. So we have existing funds. Yes. What about budgeted 409? Have you requested that be included in there as well, I assume? What this would be moved to is this would be moved to the 4003 fund, which is the open construction fund within sanitary sewers. Okay. And so once that lump sum is moved there, there are no further budget requests. Was this contract put out to bid? Yes, it was. And how many bidders do we have, engineering firms? Seven, I believe, six or seven. There was a committee that included Jerry Souther that the Vice Mayor had appointed, Anthony Wright, Commissioner Kelly, Commissioner Taylor and myself, and we actually shortlisted down to four firms and had a separate interview with four firms, and this was the recommended firm. And I assume this was done with anticipation of this council passing the fee increase several months ago? Or when did you have the bid for this? It was advertised in December, and so we opened it in December, but obviously they were kind of going on on parallel tracks. Very good. Thank you, Charlie. That's all, Mayor. Thank you. Mayor? Council Member Lane. Just a small note here. Instead of a comma, there's a decimal in that $2 million number. Can we correct that? It's on line number five in the description. Thank you. We'll make that change. Any further discussion of the new business items? And those in favor of approving the new business items, please let it be known by saying aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. That takes us down now to our presentations, and I don't see Council Member Stevens here to talk about the Budget and Finance Committee. Is anyone else prepared to make that report? Well, we'll skip over that, and perhaps he will arrive. All right. Is anybody? Okay. We'll just defer that to next week's work session. That brings us down now to Item B, which is a presentation on the Blue Grass Business Development Partnership, and I'll ask Bob Quick and Pamela Troutner to come to the podium. You'll have 15 minutes. Mr. Quick? Thank you, Mayor and Council, and we'll jump right into this. If we do have time to permit, we'll be wide open to taking questions, or as we prefer, if you'd like, we'd be more than happy to sit down with you at any time to go through any of these numbers and reports. We have with us today various Commerce Lexington Staff Board members and others from the Blue Grass Business Development Partnership Team, and if they would all stand. This is the team that carries out the different objectives that we have set forth with our partnership with you all. I would point out that Anne McBrayer, the current Chair of Commerce Lexington, is here, and also Scott Davis, who is the Chair of the Board of the Lexington Partnership, who you will hear from shortly. Whitford Webb, Rick Chrisman are also the Board members with us today. The numbers and data that we're presenting represent an update for the second quarter of this fiscal year, October through December. This is a snapshot of the quarter, and we'll present key highlights and then turn it over to Scott Davis for more details on the Lexington Partnership for Workforce Development. You can tell I know I've got just a little bit of time, so if I start to race too much, tell me and I'll slow down. Here's a chart of our scorecard. The metrics and an existing visit program review was hand-delivered early last week. Hopefully you all had a chance to review it. If you don't have that, we do have extra copies we can present to you today. Key points, we are nearly at goal on job creation. As you can see, we're at 730 jobs created, which is our goal, and we're now at 651 total jobs, which is 90% of our goal, and we are only at the midpoint of the year. I can remember Councilman James at one of the meetings, we talked about sometimes we can be way up and sometimes we can be way down, and this happens to be one which is good for the economy where we're way up. One key announcement is Big Ass Fans expansion to the Bluegrass Business Park. Big Ass Fans is planning to add 83 new jobs at an average wage of $61,000 per year. They currently employ over 100 professionals whose wage level is $63,000 per year. High-tech manufacturing at its best, and we're planning a groundbreaking, as we speak right now, to acknowledge that and their addition into our business park. And then although the funding received, if you look at that second column from the left, appears to lag, it will be reported in the third quarter numbers, and we're going ahead and delivering, we'll be delivering that information at the next meeting, but that number is $64 million that our high-tech firms have received in grants. So, again, a number that shocked us, but I want to tell you it's a great number, and this is exactly where we put a lot of our time and effort into, so I think that's paying off through our partnership. These are the announced projects, although some did not add jobs, as you can see. They did announce capital investment improvements, which ultimately adds to our tax base. And also I would point out in the binder that we gave to you, we have all of our existing business visits, and in that we have a breakdown of what the company does, in case you're looking at one and you're not sure what they are or what they do, because many of these are smaller companies, but nonetheless they're very impressive. And we have a mix of everything, Mayor, but the equine side, which just so happens was lagging in this report here, but we have the health care or the high-tech in a very significant way, and manufacturing. During the second quarter overall, 536 jobs were announced by companies that we assisted. The average wage of all jobs is $35,500. The manufacturing jobs are $61,000 per job. The high-tech and headquarters are over $75,000 per job, and the distribution over $25,000. I'll just let you absorb that chart and the information on it. The estimated payroll tax generated when these companies have completed their projects will be $428,000. That's payroll tax that comes back to the city. We took a team to Chicago back in November in an effort to recruit alumni back to the area. Economic development consultants were invited as well, and in the picture we have Bob Ades, one of the consultants. Check out the blue suede shoes there in the middle. And, yes, she actually did wear blue suede shoes and was the head of the party. But we had a good turnout of individuals. Over 100 people attended the event and networked with alumni and friends. We have followed up with personal contacts in the month of November and December, and letters have also been sent by myself, the mayor, and Dr. Todd in mid-February. It was well-received and helped us solidify our town and gown relationship. And I can tell you, people were just really taken back. We enjoy these types of interactions and connectivity. And we have a project, I think, at one point later that you're going to hear about where those connectivities, one that happened many years back, oftentimes do produce results years later. Our staff is scheduled to participate next week in another joint venture in Indianapolis. They call it Speed Networking, and there will be a reception with that as well. These are our second quarter highlights. Again, as I pointed out, they're all in the binder we presented, along with our existing business calls and outcomes from those calls. And if you have any questions later here, we can answer those. Or if you want to sit down personally and go through them, we can do that too. At this point, I'd like to introduce Scott Davis, our 2008 chair of the Lexington Partnership for Workforce Development, to present about the partnership. Thanks, Scott. Thank you, Bob. Partnership for Workforce Development, what is it? Our vision is communities that learn together prosper together. Our mission is the Partnership for Workforce Development acts as a catalyst, developing partnerships among business, nonprofits, education, government, communities, to ensure students and workers know of the opportunities to enhance their knowledge and skills to understand today's business demands. As you'll see in the slide, our focus areas are, number one, connecting teachers and students to real-life experiences. Number two, highlight available workforce development resources and best practices. Number three, better coordinate business interaction with education and leverage resources that are already available. Number four, communications campaign on technical and applied education, career opportunities, and advocacy. And just to interject something here about my personal business, I'm a co-owner of Davis Employment Mechanical. We have 62 employees. Only 13 of those 62 have Fayette County addresses. And of those 13, only three who are gray-collar or manufacturing or construction trade types people have Fayette County addresses. These are high-paying jobs, $35,000 to $65,000 a year plus benefits, and our community is not taking advantage of that. The companies and organizations represented on the LPEWD Board of Directors, the partnership was founded in 98 and has been fortunate to have strong and supportive board members, as you see behind me. This slide shows the companies and organizations represented on our board for 2008. As you can see, we have a diverse group from private, public, and education sectors, a true collaboration in our community. I also want to point out that the partnership is one of the organizations that merged together to form Commerce Lexington, a merger that has been beneficial on many levels. Some of our programs, the Bluegrass Works Summit, next Tuesday marks the third annual Bluegrass Works Summit on March 11th at Georgetown College. With the theme of Shift Happens, Drive It, I've been practicing that, by the way, you can be sure that we have a great lineup of speakers and sessions. We are excited that our keynote speaker is Libby Sartain, the Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer of Yahoo!. She will be talking about thriving and driving cultural changes at Yahoo!. The summit started as a way to highlight the best practices in human resource and workforce development, as well as to focus on our tremendous breadth of education and training resources. The summit also brings together many of these entities, which often compete in the marketplace, to help plan the summit. Number two, the Entrepreneur and Business Leadership Institute. This summer is our sixth annual Entrepreneur Leadership Institute. I would like to thank Sullivan University for being a major supporter of the institute. Sullivan opens its doors and provides the classroom facilities, computer labs, transportation, and help in covering some expenses associated with marketing. Without Sullivan's support, the Entrepreneur Institute would not be at the level it is. As you can see on the screen, it is open to Fayette County high school juniors and seniors who want to learn about what it takes to be an entrepreneur. They get to meet successful entrepreneurs and what they've learned as they develop a business concept and plan. Number three, the Lexington Teacher Institute. I'm sorry, Lexmark Institute, Teachers Institute. At the end of July, the partnership will be conducting its 10th Teacher Professional Development Program, which last year became known as the Lexmark Teacher Institute. Last summer, 61 teachers from Fayette County Public Schools participated. This is up from our previous year programs, which were on the average of 20 to 25 teachers. This year, we will be hoping to increase the number of teachers to 75 to 80. They will come from Fayette, Jesuit, and Scott counties. The goal of the institute is to provide a local grassroots effort to actually take recommendations from a large body of research and help facilitate touch, high touch, high impact collaborations with business and education by, A, having people work directly with educators to demonstrate real-life scenarios and relevance to the curriculum, and B, giving teachers the opportunity to tour companies to see behind the scenes how business works and what students must be prepared to do. Last year, my company had a site visit to Bronze Station High School where we showed the teachers geometry, algebra, and applied math in helping us install plumbing, heating, and air conditioning at that school. The Business and Education Network. This is ready to launch in the next few weeks. The Business and Education Network, BIN, was an idea from a leadership Lexington class as a way to better coordinate business with Fayette County Public Schools. The workforce partnership is now leading the BIN effort and is working closely with Fayette County Schools and the United E-Way to implement this program. This is an example of some of the website. Partnership collaborations. In closing, I refer you back to the workforce partnership's mission of being a catalyst and working with existing resources. We see ourselves as the incubator or seed organization to bring workforce issues to the forefront in our community. This slide shows a few of our partners. Connections and collaborative efforts among the workforce partnership, businesses, education providers, are the foundation to our successful initiatives and program. Leveraging this outside involvement is a key to our efforts. Mayor Newberry and Council Members, we appreciate all your support and look forward to working with you. I'll leave you with some pictures of last year's Entrepreneur Leadership Institute and the Lexmark Teacher Institute. This concludes my prepared remarks, and if you have any questions, Bob and Pamela and I will try to answer them for you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Davis. Any questions from the Council? Seeing none, thank you very much. We appreciate the update and all the efforts that you've made. All right. That gets us down to the presentation on downtown development, and I'll turn the floor over to Harold Tate with the Downtown Development Authority. All right. Good afternoon. I'm Harold Tate with the Downtown Development Authority. And we're here to talk to you today about a potential project for the downtown area that is very exciting that we feel, and there will be a series of us who will be part of this discussion. And so what I'd like to do is start it off with introducing Whitford Webb, who will give an introduction for you all as well. Thank you. Good afternoon. Ladies and gentlemen of the Council, Mayor Newberry and Vice Mayor Gray. Excuse me just a moment. Can I get you to reset the clock, Chris? Thank you. For 15 minutes, please. Thank you. Go right ahead, Mr. Webb. My name is Whitford Webb, and I'm the president of the Webb Companies, a commercial real estate management and development firm. We've developed 13 projects in downtown Lexington alone, totaling approximately 2 million square feet. Since the early 1970s, we've been a steadfast believer in this community. Over the last 35 years, we've developed well over a billion dollars in projects throughout the United States, and we have the knowledge and expertise to complete this very important project that you're going to see today. We live here, we work here, and we care about Lexington. With that said, we are here today to introduce to you what we feel is the most significant infill and redevelopment project ever to be proposed in central Kentucky. Specifically, we plan to construct a unique four-star hotel with adjoining office, residential, and retail spaces comprising 40 floors and over a million square feet of total space. The anticipated investment in this key centrally located block is $250 million. But most importantly, this is an exciting mixed-use project that we know will bring considerable jobs, vibrancy, convention traffic, and economic opportunity to downtown Lexington. Obviously, this project was not conceived overnight. Years of experience both in our successful projects and the ones that were challenging, lots of study, planning, and due diligence have helped us understand what is important to our downtown community. And, of course, quality design and construction will be at the forefront. For example, our plans are to have below-grade parking, underground parking, which is very expensive, and we plan to build a LEED-certified building, a green building, which will make a momentous statement for Lexington just as the world stage is getting ready for the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games in 2010. Unfortunately, though, 2010 is really just around the corner, and this project can only be completed on time if we act fast, and we are ready. But the support and assistance of this council is absolutely essential. Here's why. We are proposing that the project be included under the state of Kentucky's signature TIF program, Tax Increment Financing. This would represent the first TIF project for Lexington, Kentucky. Louisville has five TIF projects underway. Northern Kentucky has two. Lexington has zero. The time is now for Lexington, or we will be left behind, and the clock is ticking. Please understand that without local and state cooperation in approving this TIF plan, this project simply will not work. The web companies envision a thriving and energetic downtown and have been committed to this dream for over 30 years. The target date may be 2010. However, our vision for Lexington goes well beyond these three important weeks. This project will not only bring vigor to the Lexington skyline, but also to pedestrian interest with its retail and shopping elements. More hotel rooms in downtown Lexington will bring more potential year-round convention business. More convention business will bring more bodies to our sidewalks and in our downtown stores and restaurants. More bodies mean more dollars and more energy and opportunity for the downtown community. And at this point, I have the pleasure to present to you my uncle, Dudley Webb of the web companies, who will unveil the details of this newest innovation for downtown Lexington, CenterPoint. Thank you. Good afternoon. Please bear with me. I've had a cold for the last week and it finally caught up with me, but I'll try to make it through this part of the presentation. The history of this project dates back to about three years ago on one of the chamber trips when we talked about other ideas for downtown that would help us fulfill the objective of keeping downtown viable on a continuing basis. At that point in time, we came back, basically did our homework in terms of what we thought could be, and during the time since have worked very hard to get this project to fruition. Okay. Here's basically the rendering of the project. As Woodford said, it's mixed use. This is the hotel component here, the low rise, which is the first 14 floors. The hotel restaurant is in this area, ballrooms atop. This is the motor court fronting off of Vine Street. Then over on the right side, we have a specialty restaurant here that hopefully is already committed, and we have office space here in the amount of 83,000 square feet that would be overlooking Phoenix Park. The reason for this was we were concerned about the streetscape that surrounds the perimeter of the block. The consultants that the city retained basically came in and told us that they were concerned that there were interruptions in the middle of blocks for parking garages, that the streets weren't that user-friendly, and that the buildings did not meet the street well. Our entire focus has been more recently to try to figure out how to make that work, and we feel like we've done so with this project. If you picture this wrapping on around, and this rendering is a little dark, it would be like Victorian Square with the awnings and so forth, with individual storefronts all down through there. Basically, that would front onto the main street frontage, and the same thing would be true down the upper street frontage as well. Note that the project does cover the entire block, and that the buildings do go out and meet the sidewalks so that we don't have the setback issues that we normally would have in other buildings downtown. On the top, we have 77 condominium units. They're basically all three units. In other words, you would see both north and south from each of the units, and we did five per floor versus normally where you'd have long corridors and so forth that a lot of the tenants or owners would not like. So consequently, we focused on trying to go for height in this instance. As Woodford said, the height of this project is about 240 feet, which is about four or five feet shorter than the top of the financial center. The reason for the difference is hotel rooms take eight to nine feet of ceiling height, office space takes 13 to 14 feet of ceiling height, and so consequently, we make up the difference. In terms of the project scale, we tried to keep it appropriate. The consultants told us that basically the 60-foot heights of the buildings downtown would be better, and so consequently, all around the block, the buildings meet the street at the 60-foot level. Atop here, we have an outdoor cafe that was also planned that would have joined the pool for the hotel, the outdoor pool for the hotel, and create kind of a tiki-type restaurant and outdoor situation for the guests of the hotel and the owners of the condominiums. Then around, again, the streetscape, we had to deal with the issues of how we preserve the streetscape, and so consequently, the entrance to the hotel is running on the motor court and on the reverse side in the middle of the block, if you picture that. Then in addition, we also had to solve the problem about parking garages disrupting the block, and so consequently, we went down through three levels of subterranean parking levels. One of the issues that came up were that we were able to get 615 parking spaces in the block under the development, but we needed 1,100. So consequently, we tried to address other issues that came up. Charlie, can you have another slide? Yeah, if you don't mind. He's walking you through the various elevations, showing the rooms and the condo styles. Then we tried to figure out where we could do adjacent parking, and so Charlie Barnhart and I walked the site one day, and we came up with the idea, perhaps, of expanding out the Phoenix Garage here and just extending out the limestone and perhaps creating spaces there as well in addition to a retail space at ground level. So consequently, if you go to the next slide, Charlie, underground we've elected to try to scoot out all the way to Main Street and do two levels of underground parking, and then when we get up to the park level, we would totally restore the park with fountains, sculpture, and all the things that we would want in that park down there. If you recall, I think it was built and billed as a temporary park, and so consequently we weren't hesitant about coming up and asking you perhaps to let us improve it on a permanent basis. Now, again, that's the subterranean levels of the parking, going up to the second level, if you would. And there's the, well, that's the second level underground, and then 3, 4, and 5, this is the park area that's retained out here. About a third of Phoenix Park would be sacrificed for this development. Along this wall here is where we're talking about putting a jumbotron that I've checked, and hopefully we can get one of the jumbotrons from the 2009 World Cup, and they'll ship it here for our use here as well, and we can leave it on a permanent basis and use it for Friday night movies or whatever entertainment venues that we might want from time to time. So consequently, this would all be done as part of the improvements of this package. As Woodford said, it's $250 million. We think somewhere around $75 to $80 million of which would be covered by the public infrastructure portion that could be done by TIF bonds. The rest of it would be done by the private sector. We sought out and have obtained one of the top three hotel chains in the world to operate this hotel. They are asking us to delay that announcement, of course, until we get TIF approval, and then at which time they can come forward and we can sign the franchise agreement. Now, another situation that we have here was that we were looking for a co-developer. I know everybody wanted this thing to be world-class, so we sought out two interior design firms and two outside design firms, one being Sherman Carter locally and then a company called CMMI out of Atlanta. They did the Park Heights in Chicago, which is world-renowned, and they've done projects all over the world. So consequently, we feel like we've designed and delivered a package that will be signature in nature. Then the second concerns obviously were that we have an interior design team that was effective as well, and we've done that. So consequently, the exterior of the building, we saw this rendering for the first time this morning. Exterior design selections have not been made, but consequently, they will be in good taste and in keeping with the taste of the community. So this is our addition of what we think could be, obviously subject to the TIF financing, and as Woodford said, Louisville's had four or five and Northern Kentucky two. We've had zero, so we think it's our time. Larry, do you want to talk about the TIF? Thank you, Dudley. Mr. Mayor and members of the Council, in a couple of minutes, let me kind of summarize kind of where we are with the TIF process of this. I know I have talked to many of you, and we've talked about TIF financing here for several months here. This is the first project that really is coming to you all and coming to Lexington under the TIF legislation passed by the 07 legislature, which would permit Lexington to participate in what's called a super TIF, to obtain the state component of the increment as well. As Dudley said, approximately 80 to 90 million of this project would be eligible for TIF, and it is, as Woodford said, it is terribly important. In fact, but for the TIF, this project will not go. They talked about the subterranean parking and so forth. That is terribly expensive to put in, but it accomplishes the goals that need to be done. The TIF process is one that we will have a request to you in the next, probably within the next two weeks, with significant detail. You will need to have a public hearing, which we would hope you could schedule in April. We need to, then there is a 30-day, once the hearing is held, you cannot act for 30 days. We are trying in order to meet the schedule to have the hotel open and available for the World Equestrian Games. We need to start in the ground early this fall, August, September. Time is short. This is admittedly a very aggressive schedule, but that's where we are. This is a, so you'll have much more to come on the TIF. As I said, this is a very impressive project, probably the largest project from a private developer in Fayette County that I'm aware of. It will be, I think, the largest and certainly maybe the first LEED-certified project in Fayette County, which is a significant element dealing with the environmental elements and the utilization of the building to get that certification. It will create 2,500 jobs per year for two years during the construction period. The payroll will be approximately $140 million of that $250 million. Mr. Turner, you have just less than a minute. Thank you. Upon completion and implementation, there will be an estimated about 919 jobs created by this project. So we will be giving you all of that detail relative to the economic impact and so forth as a part of the TIF application, the TIF process. So we are very pleased to present it to you today and very pleased to bring it to Lexington and very excited about it. And if we can answer any questions, we'll be happy to. Thank you very much. Any member of the Council have questions? Okay. Council Member Stenick. Thank you, Mayor. I just have a couple of questions just for more information out there. One, Darby, you said the time frame going forward is the next presentation is in April in regards to the TIF. That's what kind of backing into it. Backing into it, that's kind of what we're going to need to have. We hope that could work. So the earliest this project can get underway construction-wise would be this fall, I assume? That's correct. Have any of these units been marketed yet, the condos and that sort of thing? Have you all got into that yet? The condos have not been marketed yet. The retail, the office space and the retail space is being marketed and with significant success. We're not ready to make any announcements yet. Obviously, the hotel will be a four-star hotel. We can't make that announcement as to who that is yet, but that will be unique and new to Lexington with a 15,000-square-foot spa associated with the hotel. So it's a product that Lexington, we've got wonderful hotels and facilities in this community, but this will be at a different level than what we have. What kind of background work has been done to see if the city, the size of Lexington and our downtown could support this type of project, both on the residential sales and on the commercial hotel? You will see that in the TIF report. That's part of the economic impact analysis, feasibility and economic impact analysis that we're required to do. And we will have that report to you in the request for TIF financing. Thank you. That's my next question. Also, have you spoken to any of the residents or other tenants around that area, such as the library and the folks at Park Plaza, things like that, to see? There have been discussions. Let me lift Harold. Okay, good. There have been discussion with neighbors and as well with the tenants in the block itself. We didn't want to continue too far until we knew we had a project. When will you continue those discussions? Once the TIF is brought to this council? Well, this morning at the press conference we indicated if anybody had any questions, they could call our office, and they have been. So the conversations are getting now. Good. Well, what about one of the biggest users of this area, the farmer's market? What will be their fate? Will they still be incorporated there on the Vine Street side? We are working with them as we speak to look at another location within that area, so we're not talking about it. It probably won't be on that block. It will be within that block somewhere. I know there's been some public discussion, too, about the entertainment that could be lost once this development occurs. Where are we at in our downtown master plan in trying to find a segment of our downtown where we can reestablish those entertainment venues? The master plan did not create a, quote, entertainment district because they felt the downtown was small enough that we had enough area within our downtown to make all of it an entertainment area. Once again, this morning after our announcement, I've received three phone calls already from tenants and from property owners who are interested in helping us find locations for those existing people. So, like I said, progress is beginning as we speak. Okay. And I have one last question. For Darby, where is the parking at in the structure itself? I assume it's inside so it's not visible from the… Right. The parking actually will be three levels underneath this whole site. Okay. That's 615 spaces. And then on the slide that Charlie showed you over on the Phoenix Park, there will be two levels of subterranean parking there, and then a ground level, a retail level, then parking coming out of the library, current library parking lot, if you can visualize that, to use those speed ramps to get more efficiency. Then the front two-thirds of the park would be rebuilt at street level. And if you can visualize how that would line up with Courthouse Park, with Jumbotron and so forth at that end, library on one side, hotel, restaurant, office, the streetscape on Lyme running all the way down that park to the federal courthouse at Bar Street really creates an exciting space, utilization of that space, and tends to integrate that space together. But the parking for the majority of it is all underground so that we eliminate dealing with, for the most part, dealing with parking structures above ground that we've had some difficulty in dealing with downtown today. Very good. Thank you. Council Member Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you very much, Mr. Woodford and Mr. Dudley, Webb and Harold and Darby. I have several questions. Harold, I wanted to go back to what you just said about the neighborhoods. What neighborhoods will you be, once this is on the move, what neighborhoods do you intend to meet with or discuss this with? Our immediate concern will be the adjacent blocks surrounding the project itself. During the public hearing process, that will allow other neighborhoods to come down and discuss with you all and with us issues that they may have as well. So in terms of setting up exact meetings with neighborhoods, that has not been done yet. But that's in the plan. Yes. It's beautiful. If I weren't out of towner, I'd like to stay here when I visit. I had a couple questions that relate to the downtown master plan and to the TIF. What is the status? I've been reading that the state may tinker with the TIF. Do you know what the status of that is right now? That was House Bill 512. We've been working with the Kentucky League of Cities and with various representatives in Frankfort. Some modifications were made last week, and they did take into consideration all of our concerns, and they were addressed. So at this time, what we have that came out of the House is agreeable to what we're looking at doing. So they did work with us, and we worked with them and accomplished what we wanted to do. So you're confident that Lexington will be able to move forward with TIFs? Yes, ma'am. Darby just walked up behind you. Do you want to say something on the House? Vance, I don't want to mitigate that answer, because that is correct. House Bill 512 came out of committee, modified, which would, without limiting or hurting Lexington, it don't believe it is through the House yet, and it would then have to go on to the Senate, where it may or may not survive. But if it does go through in the form it is, it will be fine. So if it doesn't survive? We're fine. Okay. How does this fit into – I don't think we've seen a footprint of a TIF district for this, have we? This was not included in the one – excuse me, the one we saw for Rupp Arena, was it? No, no. So what is the footprint for this? Well, essentially this block. Just the one block? Just the one block. That will be part of the process you will have to go through in the TIF approval process is to approve a district, which we'll present to you in that request. So in all the list of reasons that you can do a TIF, which we've seen before, is this – does this fall under blighted property? It will fall under a number of those elements. Also, it will be this block and probably the Phoenix block to incorporate that public infrastructure in that as well, the Phoenix garage part of that block – or Phoenix Park, excuse me. But, yeah, this block will not have any difficulty in meeting the requirements of the TIF statute for the signature TIF. Now, since you mentioned Phoenix Park, how – I saw the schematic. How much square footage of the park would be gone after the parking is put in? Let me put it back up there for you. I think it's the next – no, there's one more right there. If you'll – it's about a third. What you see here is the current parking lot, and this is the curve of the library right here. And so everything past to the back of the library, to the south of the library, there would be a structure. Everything in front of that line would be restored to the park. So it's probably – so essentially a third of the park would be consumed by this. Two-thirds would be restored. So it basically would park-wise become a very small neighborhood-type park? Well, not really. Okay, help me. As I indicated, it would become, with the jumbotron and with the elements of public art and so forth, and with the extension of the courthouse, the parks in front of the courthouse, this becomes really a very inviting public square. But the Phoenix Park itself would become a very small space. It would be smaller than it was. Well, I think it's – I mean, I do think it could become very useful in terms of a public space. It's not every day that we close Main Street for it to do that. And I was just thinking of Phoenix Park itself and what's in there. There are some memorials and different things, and it would certainly change the workings of all of that. Well, we intend to replace – the memorial is intended to be replaced, particularly the – The ones in the back there? Mm-hmm. The Vietnam Memorial, all of those. Yeah, we'll have to look at how those can be integrated into where, but it's intended not to put back those elements that are there now. We'll have to make some of those decisions as we get into the final design of that. Okay. Harold, I wanted to ask you a couple of questions related to the downtown master plan. Do I understand – I think I do understand that the front door is on Vine Street. Is that right? There's a door on Vine and also on Main on both. Where's the front door? On Vine? The main entrance? I would say the main entrance would probably be on Vine Street. Okay. This is looking from Vine Street. Mm-hmm. Is the page in our booklet after this photo, is that page, the next page, still looking from Vine, or is there a page in here looking from Main? That one? Yes. This is Vine Street and then a cross section that would help go through looking on Limestone. Okay. We're speeding right through. I'm curious about what we would – if I were a pedestrian, a neighbor, walking down Main Street, what would I see? And what levels? This is Vine Street, Lime, Main, and Upper Street. This is the motor court that they were talking about right here, so there's an entrance here. This is an inlet as well off of Main Street where there's an entrance here as well. So you have entrances on both sides, but like I said, I would say the main entrance would be here off of Vine Street. Okay. Is the Main Street facade the 40 stories, or is there a lower street level space before we get to the 40 stories? Do you know what I'm asking? Right here is just – On Main Street? This is a wall that would be about 40 stories high. Okay. And there would be the four levels in there with that, with all of this – 40 feet. 40 feet, yeah. Sorry. That'll cause an alarm, won't it? And then with all that on the first floor, except for the two lobby areas being retail space. So there is a shorter – Scale on the street. A shorter scale on Main Street as well as Vine. And Lime and Main. And the tower is set back here away from the street. What was the thinking, and maybe you're not the person, it might be someone else on the team. What was the thinking in facing this toward Vine Street? We wrestled with it. The site dictated a lot with the subterranean parking, the sloping. And if you recall, the two levels of speed ramps that come in just about have to come in off of Vine. And so, consequently, you wanted the motor court to face the direction where the parking and where the public was coming from. The second concerns were that the convention facilities are all on Vine Street. So, consequently, the hotel wanted to front on that corner. And one other thing I forgot to mention, I'll take a freebie here. There is an associate in this project. It's J.H. Anderson Holdings. John is a former alum of UK that came back here, visited Harold, and interested in doing a project here. He's one of the foremost hotel developers in the world. And among his projects are the Fort Lauderdale Marriott $350 million project. He's done projects internationally as well. He is the major developer of new JW Marriotts in the country. Without telling you who the hotel is, you can use your own imagination. So, consequently, I didn't announce that. But that's for your information purposes. Well, since you're here, I have another question that I think goes back to something you said. And maybe you didn't say it, but I think you did. You talked about this would be similar to Victorian Square. And I'm trying to understand that. Does that mean every retail won't have an entrance? Every retail space could have an entrance. That was what I was pointing out. Could have an entrance. You notice as you walk down the street, they have various doors at each location pretty much. So we could have that flexibility. If you had a major anchor that came in here, you know, it would be a different situation. But, consequently, we're trying to preserve the streetscape. And our interest so far has been from smaller retailers, which is great. Well, I think that is wonderful. And I think it's really important to a lot of people who've worked on the downtown master plan and who live in the area that there not just be an entrance on each street. And then you have to go into an indoor mall, so to speak. I think people are very interested in individual retails with their own entrances. And we were concerned about that as well. The criticism I've heard of many of the buildings downtown is they're looking toward the inside. They're thinking only of the inside. And this one we wanted to invite the pedestrians in. If you notice up here, there's a dot across there. That is a large portcouche that comes out and would be over top of that drop-off there. So this gave us a presence both on Main Street as well as Vine. And the architects felt that was very important. And then at ground level, also the main hotel lobbies in this area and the private condo entrance would be here that would go up to the sky lobby on top. I think that will make it much more interactive with the public to be able to just, you know, shoot into a retail, whichever one you see that you like and want to go into. People are kind of funny about going into, you know, an indoor mall space. And I really applaud that. I think that's a good idea. We tried to incorporate the best of the ideas that we saw in places like Georgetown Park and D.C. and others where we're street sensitive. They use the awnings very effectively. You can do signage on the awnings or whatever. And so that's consequently what you're going to see around that perimeter. My last question is I read in here or maybe in the handout from the press conference, this will be, you're intending to make this a LEED-certified building? It's LEED-certified. It will be the largest and probably the only in the region of this size. Is there anything that could put the kibosh on that? No, there's a 15% premium associated with it, but you recover it in probably the first three to four years. So we think it's a good investment. The hotel company has told us basically that they think it's a great investment because many of the Fortune 500 companies today are requiring their employees to stay in LEED-certified hotels. So consequently it's an intelligent decision, I think. I think that's a great decision. And Lexington, as you know, is moving more and more toward that and toward green projects. I want to add to that. We've had preliminary meetings with Commissioner Taylor and those will be continuing and also with Charlie Martin in terms of what this LEED will do in terms of creating the first true urban green project in Lexington. Okay. Thank you very much. Council Member DePant. Thank you very much. I certainly want to commend all those who have been involved to bring a big investment into our downtown. We certainly need some sort of development on this block. I haven't seen anything until I saw it today, and I haven't seen this until it was just brought to me now. So when I got the first rendering from this morning, the first thing I did was go back to this, which I think is an important document, which was the Air St. Grosse Downtown Lexington Master Plan, which was prepared for you all for the Lexington Downtown Authority. And it says in there that the overriding aim is to create a safe, attractive, and efficient pedestrian environment that serves all age groups. And it also says think of each property in relation to the entire downtown system. In this study, we also saw some conceptual drawings. I realized that they were conceptual drawings of this block on Main Street with four-story buildings with businesses having a really true relationship to the street and pedestrians. And I think, without a doubt, it's very important that we don't have some entrance into some so that each store stands alone like you're walking down Main Street and not walking into some sort of pseudo mall that we might have downtown. So there are a lot of questions that I have because I haven't been involved in it. The proposed development on Vine Street, which was in the Downtown Master Plan, showed, again, a conceptual building plan emphasizing a relationship to the street and pedestrians. Why? Because it's people, you know, people coming and going, which is, you know, the vital element in keeping this city alive is people. It's not just a 40-floor tower in isolation. It's got to be people or we're going to build something that stands alone without relationship to the rest of the city. And I think this is really important, but it's got to be a vibrant situation for a good cross-section of our citizens. And I think that's very important. You know, I believe from what I have looked at, and I will admit right from the get-go that I've just seen this information, but, you know, maybe I want to look at it and study it a little more for what is best for the whole downtown and not just this piece of land with a 40-story tower on it. You know, I'm more interested in really looking at detail of the Main Street elevation, not only the Main Street elevation, but the Limestone and Upper Street elevations. Those are streets which have been active over a number of years. And the last thing I want to see is what I see down on Main Street is a lot of concrete wall. And we've made a mistake, and if we haven't learned from these mistakes, then I think we're shortchanging ourselves. Of course, my first opinion is that the plan is out of scale to the majority of our downtown. You know, again, as I said before, I want to be sure that it's sensitive to the streetscape, to the street, and it has great respect for the users of the street. You know, this is giving us a chance, I think, in Lexington to really be creative. We need to take our time so that we leave something for Lexington 30, 40, 50 years from now not a project that is going to be ready by 2010. I think that's the most ridiculous thing I've heard. I can't believe we'd have it anyway. And while we're talking, I mean, you know, we've got 16 days. All of us that are going to live here, my children, my grandchildren are going to be here a lot longer. So to rush up on something to say that we need something by 2010, to me, doesn't make sense. This is the center of our downtown. And, you know, I believe this project, we just simply can't perpetuate some of the mistakes that we made in the two blocks west of this location. And I think there were a lot of big mistakes made. Let's, you know, really be smart about what we leave to future generations. This project is a landmark project right in the center of our downtown. And I want to be sure, and there are a lot of people in this city, want to be sure that it's right and as right as we can get it. And I'm not convinced at this point that it is as right as we can get it. And design-wise and use-wise, and so I'm open for more of a learning curve. But at this point, from the material that I have gotten in this short period of time, those are my reactions. And I think we need, it's just so important. This is the most important thing we've done downtown. Let's get it right. Let's don't ten years from now say, oh, God, they would have done that in the 80s. They wouldn't have done this in 2007. This is way out of scale. We should have thought of this. You know, I just think that it's been kept under wraps, I know. And I've asked many times to look at this. I haven't had the opportunity to look at it until today. And those are my first observations. And I think we just need to be really careful about what we provide for the future of this city. Thank you. Could I comment just one quickly? I apologize to you for being tardy with getting these drawings to you. But the rendering that you're looking at came this morning from the architects. They have literally been working almost 24-7 on this thing to get it there and get it right. Those of you who have been around for a while and read the newspaper have read where we were two years late in assembling the land. We had a holdout owner in the middle of the property, so consequently we couldn't move forward without that. And we finally came to terms with them. There's been a lot of conversation about the entertainment district. We're supportive of it. We think we need it. This hotel will feed off of it. But also, is this the right location for that entertainment district? That's a difficult situation because of what we've encountered in the 90 days we've owned these properties down there is that many are ready to fall down. Number two is that most of the tenants in the block are there on 90-day termination notices, so they're not long-term. And in all probability, with the money that's been spent in the block on the land assembly, you can't afford to keep entertainment venues there for very long at the rates that they can afford to pay. By the same token, that's not to say that Harold isn't very dedicated. We're very dedicated. We're very sensitive about finding ways to take care of the entertainment venues that are there. We want them to stay, and we welcome that. One of the options that we didn't talk about here was in the block next door in the Phoenix block is the ground level. There's 15,000 square feet of entertainment there as well. That's the first floor retail space. And so consequently, that will help alleviate part of the conditions you're talking about. In terms of tweaking, fine-tuning, we're fine. In terms of the 2010 games, it would be nice to have it ready, but if it's not, we can understand that as well. It's just that if we want that opportunity, we can deliver. In terms of refining the uses, however, we've done a lot of study on that. We've hired consultants. Office space, 85,000 square feet of office space is not much. It's less than a year's supply. 77 condominium units is not a whole lot. That's, you know, maybe a two-year supply. And these are high-end. They're, you know, very visible, very high-profile units, and we've had lots of inquiries on them as well. We haven't negotiated any terms because we don't know what the sales prices will be. But in any event, there's been a lot of homework around this. We invite more comment, more approval. I apologize to the council for being late in getting these plans here, but you've gotten them literally as we've gotten them. But we wanted to get it out there for two reasons. One is because of the uncertainty of the TIF. And secondly is in the hopes that we might get something ready by the games and have that site ready, particularly the Phoenix Park thing, we're going to do that because that's a great venue to host those games. I was in Sydney, Australia in the 2000 Olympics. Saw the same thing, three blocks, jumbotron, 50,000 people out there every day watching the venues from that location. So that's my comment. Harold, you said that there was going to be, you were going to have a public hearing on, what are we going to have a public hearing on? Part of the language, state language, requires a public hearing from the local government to buy into the TIF itself. So there will be a public hearing that will be held to get input and for us to get information to all of you all about the TIF itself. At the public hearing, will we be talking specifically about the project itself and taking sort of comments on it? I would say so, yes. I mean, I think that's important. I think there are a lot of people who want to have an opportunity. I realize it's a privately, I mean, public-private, but without the private involvement in this, it wouldn't happen. But there is a good part of public participation. And I would hope that we could hear from some other people on this. I don't want to, you know, be a stumbling block. I don't think anybody does. But I think that we should move, especially at this point, slowly. And as I said, this is a huge project for the city. And what we do is going to determine, I think, a lot about the future of Lexington. I think the purpose of today was an introduction, so you all can start thinking about your questions that you want to ask to all of us. Is that all? Council Member DeCamp? All right. Council Member McCord. Thank you, Mayor. Darby, can I ask you just a couple questions to start out with? First off, thank you all so much for coming down and presenting this to us. And thank you for your vision and your willingness to take risk, especially in our downtown, which, you know, being a third-generation Lexingtonian, I've watched downtown dies, surge, and then die again. And now there's a lot of infusion of capital and energy, and we want to see this not only surge but sustain. A couple of questions. You mentioned earlier today in the press conference, the last time our skyline changed or there was a change to our downtown, how many years ago roughly was that? The last building of significant size was built in 1987. That was the financial center. There's actually a very good website that I mentioned this morning, too. It's called skyscraperpage.com. And it has skyscrapers in every city, but type in Lexington and it will give you pictures of all the buildings that are multilevel and give you, in most cases, pretty good factual information about when they were built, et cetera, et cetera. And so that point isn't lost on me, that we haven't done anything in downtown in 20-some years, and we wonder why it's dying and, you know, why folks don't want to come downtown and so forth. Speak to me just a little bit about Vine Street itself. Do you know how many retail establishments are on the length of Vine Street currently? One, I think. It's a loaded question. There's one, and it's the Mexican restaurant. Arguably the busiest street we have in Lexington has one retail establishment on it. It's also super wide. It is a monstrous street, not only the street width, but also the sidewalk width. And the fact that we have one retail establishment in that is, again, speaks to we're not doing good things when it comes to downtown. Speak to me just a little bit about the block currently, in its current state. You talked earlier in the press conference about the way you all figured the TIF and you kind of take a baseline, take a snapshot today and what the increase is. How many jobs, roughly, are included in that block of all the different things? Actually, our study has that information as to what the current base is. I don't have that at my fingertips. It's minuscule. I mean, it's less than 50, I think, at this point. I think that's the point here is, you know, we have a revenue stream that is now starting to really flag in Lexington because we don't have high-paying jobs. We have a situation here where we have a block with arguably 50 or less jobs. And over the course of construction and sustainability, you're talking hundreds and hundreds of jobs, almost 1,000 jobs. Again, until we change the tax structure, that has tremendous impact. It doesn't need to be lost on this body. One question I hear all the time is, but wait a minute, why would we need office space in downtown? I mean, we've got all these open spaces and open for rent. How many prime office space is out there in downtown Lexington, a very high-end, good use that's available? Well, that's much less than the total number. I don't have a number at my fingertips, but it's much less of a number. And as Dudley said, 80,000 square feet of office is really not that much office space. And frankly, we hope to, in the very near future, be able to say that half of that office space is taken care of from the get-go. And I think your point about corporations wanting to have their employees stay in LEED-certified buildings, I would say that it is a draw as well to that 80,000 square feet to be in a LEED-certified building, to have prime office space in Lexington. I know that, I'm sorry, go ahead. I was going to say, there's no question that the quality of this building, the LEED certification, all of the energies that flow from a development of this type will fill that office space very handily, because it will have high-profile, high-energy and be in a prime location for businesses that want that. And I think that's the thing. A lot of people will see an empty office building, but you don't realize there is no parking for that. It's not high-end type things. It's got a tremendous age on it and so forth. And so, again, you don't have the best product to offer, and so therefore the market dictates that they don't want to necessarily go there. But you've got something that meets that need. And I don't know, Dudley, if you're the right person to answer this question or not, but as you've taken over this block and own the properties, you had mentioned some of them are in disrepair and falling down and so forth like that. Do you see that across the block, that there's just an age that has really kind of reached a limit? Yes, definitely. The first week, I think, we owned the properties. I think we got notices from the building inspector. So it was very obvious that there were problems there. And one of the things about it, we can talk about the historic natures of downtown and so forth and so on, and nobody is more committed to preservation than we are. We paid our dues with 17 historic buildings we saved from the wrecking ball down at Victorian Square, and we felt those were worthy of preservation. In that block, unfortunately, with the decrepit condition they've fallen into, for example, we bought the Rite Aid building, and Rite Aid is still in there, and we went up there and most of that roof structure was rotted away, we found, and that's going to have to be totally replaced, and Rite Aid is moving out very soon. So consequently, the block is vacating. It's just a question of what we do with it from here. And remembering two objectives. One is that this group charged us to go up, not out. And that's a part of what we're doing here. And number two is to make the most creative uses of the space for downtown, and we think those 77 units up top are going to be the greatest catalyst for other development because we need people here 24-7, and that's our challenge. It's interesting you mention that. You're talking about preservation. A lot of folks, after we didn't move the Urban Service Foundry, so many folks in this community have said, hey, we don't want to tear up the farms. We don't want to pave over that. That's our signature. That's our brand. And here is, as Councilmember DeCamp said, arguably the most significant infill project that we've seen, and maybe since the last 20 years. But what you are gaining from a project like that is you take a lot of pressure off of going out further. But it's interesting. I wanted just to read something that caught my eye as this was coming down the pike. There's a Planning Commission study that was done by this government, and it mentions that we need to try and correct, through the following proposals, we need to try and correct the many obsolete and dead buildings that should be rehabilitated and demolished in our community and replaced by thriving new structures. That was done in 1967. That is a study that was done by this government in 1967 about our downtown. And, you know, here we sit. And, again, I want to thank you, first off, for taking the risk, for going after the only TIF that we've gone after. Again, Louisville and Northern Kentucky have their share. We don't have any. You know, it is time to be a little more assertive. You know, it's one of those things where we do need to do it right, and we do need to do it the very, very best. But I think that to this point, the things that you have put into this and, you know, have brought to the table really are admirable, and you need to be commended for that and not necessarily have your wrist slapped at every turn in the media and everywhere else, because, you know, a quarter-billion-dollar investment into our downtown is a significant deal. The last thing I wanted to mention was the park. You know, nobody is more committed to parks and recreation than I am. And as we look at losing a third of Phoenix Park, I ask, oftentimes, what is it that we're losing? And to what do we gain? And not only do you gain the screen and the opportunity for downtown entertainment, if you were to do that, you gain retail, certainly, and parking and so forth. But there is a missing element, and that is the Vine Street Linear Park. As we've talked over the course of three or four years and in the downtown master plan, we've looked at what can we do with our Vine Street and incorporating green space into it. And this is an opportunity for us to build that into the equation, at least the discussion. I mean, Congressman Chandler has been working very diligently on finding the study money to do it, and so we may lose a third of a very small portion that may be somewhat unused a lot of the time and gain quite a bit more. So, again, I want to thank you for this, and I appreciate your answer to my questions. One of the things I'd point out, too, is that right now, as Councilman DeCamp talked about, we have the flexibility of incorporating changes, whether it be biking trails or whatever that we're trying to do downtown, to get them into the plan. And a part of this, I think we have $4 million earmarked in the budget for art, sculpture, and park renovations down there. And as Darby said, this Phoenix Park will come up to the standard that it should have been. Now, to remind you, this was done as a temporary park. It was funded by the private sector as a temporary park in 1985 to dress it up for the Final Four. So now is the time to make it right. We respect the veteran monuments that are down there. They will be better than ever if and when they're disturbed or put back, and we just think it's an ideal time to dress this whole area up. Now, I realize a few people are going to be inconvenienced, and we may lose what some may consider historic buildings of significance, although I don't. The Rosenberg was about the only parcel in there that is of historic significance, and, unfortunately, it, too, would probably not survive the wrecking ball from the buildings next door. So, consequently, these are all things that have to be taken into account when we make intelligent compromises. The last thing I would say is this project is not about the webs. I heard about this all day today. Well, they're at it again or whatever, and, consequently, this project, it's been, as we said, 20 years since anybody tackled this. I've come out of retirement to help Woodford put this thing together. That's my interest. I live here, too. My family lives here, and that will be their home forever, I hope. And, consequently, we all have a vested interest, and we want the best that Lexington can be. Thank you. Council Member James. Thank you, Mayor. I will just ask questions. I'm not sure to whom they're addressed, but whoever is appropriate can step forward. Thank you for the introduction to council of this project. I think all of us from our constituents regarding what's going on after reading the newspaper, so I appreciate you coming forward to council and discussing this, and thank you for the press conference this morning. A couple of questions. Public comment, the public hearing process. Harold, you mentioned that this is something that's required for the TIF. Will the public comment and those things heard at that time, will it change the plan, or is everything pretty much set at this moment? When you say the plan, do you mean that plan? Yes. Yeah. Will it change anything, depending on what's heard? It could. I think it's safe to say that a plan is a process that continues on, even through construction in some periods. So I think there will be a situation that the architect will listen to comments from you, probably myself and others, in terms of how to incorporate. Because I can tell you right now, this is not a final plan. I mean, working on the projects that I've worked on, you're constantly rethinking the design and how it can work better. So if public sentiment and public comment is it's too tall, it's too overpowering for downtown Lexington, then the developers and the design will then downscale, potentially. I can't say that, but, I mean, it is comment that can be heard. Okay. The 15,000 square feet of retail space, I think someone commented about that. Is it 15,000? 23,000 square feet of retail at the ground level, and then 15,000 next door in the Phoenix Park. Okay. That 15,000 at the ground floor, you mentioned that in the context when someone was talking about the current establishments that exist and maybe being able to utilize that space, are you offering that for the eclectic mix that's currently downtown? So, you know, the kind of element that's there now that exists, are you offering that space? I don't think I said that, but what we offer to do is to help them to relocate, and we have numerous other buildings downtown as well, and we have numerous contacts that have buildings downtown. I just don't think that the hotel of significance we're talking about could be next door to the dame and live side by side in peace. I don't think that would work, but by the same token, that's not to say the dame doesn't have a place down there within a couple blocks of this location and continue to feed off of what's here. We want them to be here. We're not trying to displace them or run them off, and we're not anti-bans or anything like that. We want live band venues, but as to whether or not they could fit in the perimeter of this block, I don't think so at ground level. It just wouldn't work. So what steps can we take now in case this project moves forward? What steps can we take to offer what you say are your other available properties to give? Do they already have that list of other available properties to relocate to? Yeah. As I said earlier today, we are working with some of the property owners. Like I said, after the press conference, I had another phone call from another business who is interested in staying downtown, and then what we'll do, we're developing a matrix list that we can start matching spaces available with businesses that want to be within the downtown area, and we'll continue matching these people up and see what we can do to find a location that works for both sides. Harold, are you part of that entertainment task force? Do you meet with them? I think Diane from my office is a part of it. I was, but I have a conflict, so I can't attend, so Diane goes in my place. I just wondered if there had been any formal conversation between that task force and anyone that's dealing with this project at this point to talk about what they're coming up with as a potential maybe even downtown entertainment master plan and that kind of thing and what they have in mind of the areas that they're identifying as entertainment districts. Do you know if any conversation has existed? I know a conversation has been going on. I don't know if anything has been finalized on it, though. Okay. Thank you very much. And one-ways versus two-ways, we've heard a lot about that retailers, we can't fill ground-level spaces because we don't have two-way streets. Will that come into play as we try to look for people to fill the space there? A lot of that depends upon the type of retail, mainly grocery stores. Grocery stores aren't very excited about one-way traffic situations. Restaurants can tolerate it a little bit more, so a lot of that is going to depend upon the type of retail that would be interested in going into this building. Department stores usually aren't too excited about one-way streets, so it will put some limits, but like I said, there are, you look at North Limestone, we have, what, restaurants within a two- or three-block area, and they seem to be able to do quite well. I wondered if whoever is working on this plan is also advocating to the streetscape committee or other consultants that two-ways are going to be necessary on Vine Street or something different is going to have to happen on Vine Street. We've had numerous conversations with KKG about this project in terms of one-way versus two-way. I think that's just going to be something that will be addressed as a part of the plan, about the streetscape plan, as we move forward. So the developers of this project, they also have hired the KKG? No, that's through the streetscape study that the urban county government did last December, I guess it was. Okay. So they spoke specifically about this project? We didn't talk specifically about the project, but just that something will probably be occurring on this block. Okay. Is there any expectation to incorporate the Phoenix building? Is there any incorporation of? I think I'd heard at some meeting that this would really work and the linear park would really work if the Phoenix building was being able to be utilized. Do you know if that conversation has taken place or anything? I'm not aware of that conversation. Okay. Okay, my favorite question. Affordability. The condos, you mentioned upscale, high-end, any price range whatsoever that you know of right now? I don't think we're that far along yet. Is the developers willing to consider mixed use or any type of inclusionary zoning in this area, inclusionary housing to have some low to moderate income incorporated in the building? When we started the project, we looked at apartments and affordable housing as a component part of the project, but there were two competing projects still coming online we think that are going to satisfy that need, and it didn't make sense for us to go ahead and stick them in here. Do you know what projects those are? I've got some residents looking for some places. You would know, I think, already. I don't know what you're talking about. One atop the transit center, I think, and then the Trammell Crow project. Okay. Large, huge project. So you're not going to incorporate any affordability into this? We only have 77 units that we can sell in this one, and so, consequently, we made a marketing decision to stick with the higher end units that could absorb a half the part of the land costs that we're paying into this project. So that dictated that. Okay. And, Harold, maybe you can answer this. I'm not sure. But when we had the previous, the TIF press conference previously, I have that document, and it says something about criteria. I was learning a lot about TIF and have learned a lot since then. But it definitely says, let's see, tax increment financing allows the city to use additional tax revenues generated from redeveloping a defined area to fund the redevelopment projects within the area. The area cannot exceed three square miles and generally must be deteriorated, for example, exhibit a substantial loss of residential, commercial, or industrial activity. And someone mentioned earlier that it meets several of the criteria for TIF. Can you specify what criteria it actually meets? Thank you, Darby. Actually, we're not prepared to do that today, but that will be a part of the submittal that we will be giving you within the next few weeks for the request for the TIF approval of the TIF financing. That's a part of what we have to give you and establish for you is that. So we fully intend to do that. But if you read through that list, there are a number of criteria, and I don't have it in front of me. I'm really not prepared to give you those precisely this afternoon. Okay. But there are a number that it will meet. Okay. I look forward to getting those. And the previous TIF area encountered several blocks. I mean, it went all the way from, I mean, it was a massive number of blocks compared to one block. Is it wise for us to just consider a TIF for one block and basically one project? Well, you have to keep in mind what the TIF districts are supposed to do. That's the district out of which you will get the revenue. If you have another block adjacent to it that has not redeveloped yet or is doing fine but may want to redevelop in five or ten years, you really don't want to take that revenue from that block that you may want to do another TIF project on later on and incorporate it, have it pay for the other block. Okay? Okay. So there's some art in forming the district in terms of where the revenue goes. The reason the one that you, I think you're probably speaking of the Rupp Arena footprint, that was purposely made very broad for a study to determine what revenues came from where and what they could support. Okay. And it's very likely that that will not, the only thing I'm sure of is that will not remain whatever the Rupp Arena TIF district is. It will be refined as the study goes on to properly pull the revenues that ought to be pulled for either Rupp Arena or the Distillery District Project, the Manchester Street Project, and so forth. So you may actually end up having two or three TIF projects districts in what we've called the Rupp Arena district. Can you expand a TIF district once it's created? No. I mean, you can up to a certain point. But once the TIF bonds are sold and the agreements are entered into, you cannot because you have a fixed ecosystem, if you will, with the revenues generated within that district to pay for certain things done within that district. Okay. Have you spoken with the property owners in the surrounding area to see if they're looking to do redevelopment within the next few years? We have not, but just on the, I mean, I'll digress a minute. One of the things they did in Louisville under a different legislation with the arena district is they went, they took in almost six square miles of sales tax, of area around that arena, of sales tax to pay for it. There's a lot of concern in Louisville about that because that eliminated that resource from any redevelopment or any other projects within that area. The legislation that we're under actually has tightened that significantly in terms of how you have to identify the district and the revenues that come from it. Okay. So I think we're being, what we're trying to do is be good gatekeepers, if you will, or conservators of other opportunities by not trying to reach out and grab, so to speak, grab revenue from other properties that are not a part of this project. Okay. Directly. And so we can leave those revenues for other TIF projects that may or may not, that may come down the road. Okay. That could be advantageous as well. Okay. Thank you for your responses, and I look forward to more information on it. Thank you, Mayor. Vice Mayor Gray. Dudley, thanks a lot. Woodford, you as well. And it reminds me of y'all's presentation this morning, and today reminds me of something my father used to say. He said, think big, start small, move swiftly. And I think with the aspirational thinking and the imagination and the dreaming that y'all are representing today, my dad would probably change that and he would say, think big, start big, and move swiftly. But you already always have been dreamers, you, your brother Don, and today Woodford, and that has meant a lot to a community despite the criticisms that sometimes that you've experienced, and to your credit, you have admitted that, you know, things don't always go perfectly. Being in the building business myself, I understand that, and I really respect that, you know, a project in a downtown is an enormous undertaking, and particularly a signature project like this represents. And you mentioned that it's taken a couple of years just to consider the land and the implications of that. But I want to make a couple of points, and they tag along a little bit with what Councilmember DeCamp had to say and Councilmember James had to say. In the context of it, I'll have to acknowledge I live two blocks, and ever since I've lived in Lexington for 25 years, I've lived two blocks away from here. And I work down the street at the old Wolf Wild building, which we renovated a number of years, 10 years ago. And in the course of walking these streets and learning about the town, as you all have, being in the downtown, our first office, one of our first offices was in one of your buildings. But what you learn about the downtown is it's a small downtown. It's really modest by contrast with other cities. And that's why any intervention or any project like this is a very big deal. And that's why the word scale that you all used, scale of that intervention, is a very big deal. The way it relates to the streets, the way it invites people into our city. When we look, actually, and not me but others have said, we look at the Civic Center, you know, it was well-intended 30, 40 years ago. But is it welcoming today? Does it invite people to the streets? And as we go down the street in this direction, the real question is, is our downtown inviting people? Feet on the street. And how does anything that we put in our downtown, place in our downtown, that's going to be here for a very long time, affect that? Very dynamic. It's incredibly important. Because of the modesty and the size of this downtown and because people in this community feel so affectionately about it and so inspired about it, they're anxious, especially when it's a signature project like this project. And what I appreciate is after this morning's press conference, I had a chance to talk with Dudley, and I said, you know, it's been characterized as this is the imagination phase of the project. And now we're going into the persuasion phase of the project, recognizing that if that financing is available and you can actually secure it, it would be important, essential, I think you all described this morning, to the project. My hope is that when we recognize the significance of the scale of this project, the streets, the size of our downtown, the significance of the entertainment piece of this. I see Tom Martin in the back of the room. He's been working for six months on a task force that a lot of people dismissed. But remarkably for me, having been involved in more than two task forces, but infield redevelopment, this entertainment task force, and an outside government task force, minority recruiting and retention, that's been launched by Lexmark and by Toyota. And there is a common touchstone comment from all the young professionals in the focus groups that have been identified and spoken to, and that is this. We don't have places to go and to do things. We don't have entertainment district. We don't have that sort of thing. The only thing we've had has been in the block that we're talking about here. And I appreciate the way you've described it. You recognize it. One day you and I talked about it. You said, you know, you and Marla were standing out there, and you looked over there and said this is as close as we got to Sixth Street in Dallas. So as we connect these dots, thinking about the economic opportunity of this, I really hope that we will step up and recognize that we've got to address this other piece of it. If you're living 40 stories in the power, you want to come down to the street and have something to do, not a downtown that's dead, but a downtown that's alive and spirited and inviting. So after having said all that, I really, you know, it's difficult because it's a tough, you all have been aspirational in dreaming in this. But dealing with it effectively in a way that really lifts us up is what I've heard you all say, and I think we appreciate that. Thank you. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Mayor. This is indeed a stupendous project, and I appreciate the fact that the council is going to be an important part of it. That this, as you said, TIF financing is going to be essential to a project that will bring jobs, that will bring retail, that will bring economic impact, all to an innovative green building. And so this is important. And as has been said, we can appreciate the fact that so many of you have worked so hard on this to bring forward a plan. I would say that for me, as a council member, and one who has lived in Lexington for many years and has watched what has happened to our downtown, the real question is going to be whether this project is going to bring transformation to downtown or is simply going to be continuation of a downtown where Lexington people don't go. So we've had the Civic Center, we've got Victorian Square, the Festival Market. We've built buildings in the last 30 years that are undistinguished, don't do much to lift the spirit or to make downtown a more inviting place. Yet we've seen in recent months this tremendous excitement about bringing us back to downtown. And we've got the downtown master plan. We've got the streetscape study and sidewalk study. And I'm going to want to, and I hope we all will, want to look at this plan, look at this project, in the context of those studies and in the context of what the vice mayor just said. Are we going to transform our downtown to a place where people want to be? That's going to be the major question. And I would add here just one thing to what Council Member DeCamp said earlier. I think that what we're doing here and what we're deciding here has to do not with 2010. And I'm not impressed by any argument that says we've got to move this forward so that it's ready for 2010. We're talking about 2015, 2020, 2030. This is major for downtown. It's going to set the pattern. It's going to set the future of our central core. It's going to mean an awful lot for the way we view our city in terms of transportation patterns and transportation modes. So I hope that we will all look at this project in terms of a long-term future for our community. This is, as one of our members would say, a big deal. I do have a couple of small questions. And, Harold, you referred to the farmer's market as sort of in the picture here in terms of what we're going to do with it. You said it would be somewhere nearby. Can you, I mean, since this is such an important institution to our community and to our downtown, can you be a little more specific about what's in the works? A couple of things we've looked at is, you know, continuing on Vine Street, maybe on the next block. We've looked around the old courthouse. We've looked in front of two new courthouses. So we're looking to see what we can do to keep it in the core of downtown. So those are the options that we're presenting to the farmers and that we'll be working with them to see what works best for them. You know, they need services. They need water. They need electricity. So we've got to make sure that any of those places that we suggest will provide those services for them. Well, I think we look forward to, you know, to working with you on that because it is so important. And then one question about the design of the booklet here. On page 12, there's a smoking area. What are we going to do about that? Can you hold it, Tom? Yeah. Can you hold the page? Mine's not numbered. I'm sorry. Page 12, sky lobby level. The numbers are teeny tiny at the bottom right here. Oh, I see. Yeah, I see. 12? Yeah. It's sort of as you're looking at that. It's in the bottom left of the drawing. The architects from Atlanta aren't familiar with the no smoking areas. That's up in the condo level. Those are the private areas. Oh, we've got to do this right. Yeah, you've got to. You point that out. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Mayor. Lord, we've been at this for a long time, haven't we? We've been at this for a long time, haven't we? Just one word, I guess, of comment about the ideas and thoughts, and they're all good to whatever extent. There's nothing that is a perfect, perfect, 100% perfect project. You might get 90% for $250 million. You might get 95% for $300 million. You might get 97.5% for $350 million, but you'll never get all the way to 100%. But you also won't have a project at the $300 or $350 million level at all, and we'll end up with what we have right now, continually, ad infinitum. I was curious, and maybe Darby can answer this, of the Louisville TIFs, what is the aggregate investment, both TIF and private and broad? Off the top of your head, I'm not – this is not – I mean, this is off the top of my head. I think it's somewhere in the neighborhood of the $600 million to $800 million range. Pardon me? Somewhere in the neighborhood of the $600 million to $800 million range. Possibly much greater. I mean, when you figure the arena project and you figure museum plaza, those two together are in the $600 million to $700 million range. Probably, as Jim said going up, he's got a better idea than that. You may well be within a billion dollars of TIF projects in Louisville. Well, you know, I kind of agree that it's time for us to be able to dip our toe into that pond somewhere along the line. That's all I had. Thank you very much. Council Member Plevitz. Thank you, Mayor. Mr. Webb and team, I want to thank you for having the courage to bring a vision like this, because it does take a lot of courage to put together the package, dare to dream a little bit. And it's fun. It's fun to see the architectural drawings for everybody in the community. So I want to thank you for trying. No matter where this goes, I know it took courage and effort to get just this far. And thank you for that. I'm frequently accused at home of practicing law and medicine without a license. So today I'm going to expand my skills in architecture. I wanted to ask, did you guys consider, for the parking solution, I know that's a big part of the headache for you, did you consider going the other direction west into the block where the parking garage is for the financial center and look at doing more or less the same exact thing but that direction? We did look at that. Unfortunately, the width is not there to get the bays in, the two-way bays that we need for the additional parking levels. There's only, what, Charlie, 60, 80 feet? That's okay. I've got my illegal architectural hat on here anyway. In my mind, I'm thinking, gosh, you know, for a TIF project like this that's truly transformative of the downtown, we could fix the problems that Dick was referring to earlier here by taking out that garage and doing essentially what you did on Ural's idea with the retail on the lowest level and then putting the parking either above or below it. I think that's brilliant and that's exactly what we ought to do. I just thought we could kill two birds with one stone if we went that direction. The other thing, putting on my illegal architect's hat here, is that one of the concerns that we may see is that the height of the proposed building in conjunction with the financial center might look a little awkward, but if we do something in that block in between them, it might give you the chance to step it or something architecturally appropriate. We're now beyond my capabilities, but I wanted to throw that out for consideration. The other question is for you, Harold. How does this affect the air rights development over here at the Phoenix thing? Because I think a major problem for them is also going to be parking, and we're going to consume a chunk of potential parking that's right near where they need to be, so I worry that this is going to have a very negative effect on the air rights project. I see them as two different types of projects, so I don't see any conflict there, but I do see a conflict in parking downtown. Parking downtown is starting to become an issue. We are seeing more offices located downtown. We're seeing more people coming downtown. We're seeing more residents downtown, and that's one reason why in the downtown master plan we had the creation of the parking authority so we could look at the situation that we have and come up with some solutions, and I think you'll see the parking authorities come back to you all with some solutions that they want to move forward with that we need to. We've got other issues just in terms of signage for people to know where to park. We still get a lot of complaints from people. They don't know where the parking garages are, so we're trying to look at this in a holistic approach. Okay. Mr. Webb, a couple quick questions about your subterranean parking. Now I'm wearing my engineering hat again. Have you guys gotten far enough along that you've done engineering on what's underneath there that this is even feasible from those two points of view? We've had experience in the two adjoining blocks, and we're assuming that the underlying stone will be pretty much the same. It's down about 30 feet, and that's where we are. We're trying to minimize any impact by drilling or anything like that down there. It gets really expensive. I just worry that, yeah, it's very expensive. I worry that there's God knows what's down there, including town branch and old sewer pipes. Those of you who were around, remember when we built the Radisson, for example, that hole filled up the water very quickly and became our own Lake Lexington right there for a while, but we pumped that out. You've not done the in-depth work yet, but you're assuming that it's— No, they're drilling next week. They're going in to do the core samples to figure out what we got. Same question, but from an economic feasibility point of view, we recently had an industrial revenue bond project over on South Broadway that was going to dare to dream with deep digging for their parking solution as well, and they ran the numbers and found it just wasn't going to work. Have you put a finer pencil to the economic side of this part as well? Yes. The subterranean garage spaces here are about $30,000 a space. If they were surfers, they'd be $12,000, but that's the price you pay, but it makes so much more sense to get 600 spaces under this complex versus rising above. There are projects all over the country where they've taken ground-level retail, put parking for four or five levels above them, holes in the windows and so forth, and a tower above that, and it doesn't look good. No, no, I agree. We've got to tackle it this way. Okay, and then the last question for you, and it's probably time for this to happen. This is going to severely challenge our infrastructure downtown in every way, electricity, water, and sanitary sewage. Have you guys done any looks there yet to see if are we even close to supporting this project or are we going to have to do a whole lot of work on our end? Two years ago, when we had the false alarm, we thought we had the last piece. We met with everybody concerned. There was enough sewer, electric, everything at that point in time. We've since met again with the proper authorities, and everybody tells us they know of no problems at this point in time. Okay, because this will force us to address all those issues. It will probably make us relook at all those various utilities downtown and get a more comprehensive look. And there will be a process where we'll continue updating them probably almost monthly in terms of what changes are occurring, but right now we're not hearing any situation that tells us different. Okay, thanks, guys. It's an intriguing project. I look forward to learning a little bit more about it. Thanks, Mayor. Thank you. I don't have anyone else that has indicated a desire to speak, so I think we can let you all adjourn. Thanks very much for coming and visiting with us today. Thank you very much. We're now ready for council reports. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Mayor. Just a couple of quick announcements. One, I want to congratulate the Bronze Station defenders for winning the 42nd Basketball Championship on Friday night and just remind everyone that they will be playing this Wednesday night at Bronze Station in the Regional Finals at 7.30 p.m., and hopefully they'll be able to march their way on to the Sweet 16 at Rep Arena. I also want to remind people that live along St. Anthony Drive that we will still be having the meeting tonight at 6.30 at Bronze Station High School to talk about your traffic calming measures. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Gord. Thank you, Mayor. I have two items. I wanted to remind council members that we are continuing our committee of the whole this coming Thursday, March the 6th, at 5.30 on the fifth floor conference room, and I'm told there might be food. There will be food. Secondly, each of you should have received the infill and redevelopment packet in your boxes today. The infill and redevelopment recommendations have been moved into the planning committee and will be discussed at our meeting on March the 18th, and there will be one more updated draft which will mostly involve technical changes, and that most recent updated draft will go into our planning packets, but I'd like to encourage you to take a look. We're going to work our way through it point by point because I believe this will be the only opportunity the council has to look at the infill and redevelopment recommendations. Thank you. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mayor. I thought there was somebody else in front of me. I've passed out, or I had Joe actually pass out a resolution. We made an amendment to it today. Councilman Unger brought up the fact that we had 36 hours on there instead of 72. We were looking at business hours originally with that, so we changed it to 72 hours. So you've got the latest version of that today. So I moved to place on the docket for March 6, 2008, council meeting, a resolution amending the rules and procedures of the Lexington-Fayette-Urban County Council to require that copies of any presentations and documents or handouts related thereto be made to the Urban County Council be provided to each council member no later than 72 hours, excluding weekends and holidays, prior to the scheduled date of the meeting, and that failure to provide such copies shall result in postponement of the presentation. So moved. Second. I have a motion by Council Member Myers and a second by Council Member Gordon. Any discussion? Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Mayor. One, in the intro it says that at the end shall result in postponement of the presentation, but I think in the word itself says we can waive that if that is the will of the council. Is that correct? That's correct. In everything that we do, the council always has the prerogative to vote to amend that. So, yes. Okay. Thank you. Any further discussion? Those in favor of adding that resolution to the docket, please let it be known by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. No. Motion carries. Thank you, Mayor. That's my report. Council Member Blevins. Thank you, Mayor. I move to approve the Neighborhood Development Fund List for this week, please. Second. I have a motion by Council Member Blevins and a second by Council Member James to approve the NDF. Any discussion? All in favor, please vote aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Thank you. I also have another motion. We have a traffic safety situation in my district near a couple of schools and near Southland Park. Traffic engineering is not opposed to installing a multi-way stop at this location, so I would like to make the motion that we install direct traffic engineering to install a multi-way stop at Topeka Road and Hillendale Road intersections, so moved. Well, let me raise a question about that. I think that would most appropriately be in the form of a resolution that would require a couple of readings, and I don't know that it got any substantive issue with it. Just the procedural question is maybe the Department of Law can give us some help on that. This is how we do it every time. I don't know. I mean. Right. It will eventually wind up on the docket. Okay. Well, if the motion then is to put a resolution on the docket to do that, I've got no problem with it. Any discussion? Yeah. I'm sorry. Yes. Traffic engineering is approved. Okay. If there's no further discussion, those in favor of the motion that we add a resolution to the docket to place that traffic device, please let it be known by saying aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Thank you very much. Council Member McCord. Thank you, Mayor. Just a couple of announcements. Tonight at 7 o'clock at Stonewall Elementary, the annual Stonewall Neighborhood Association meeting will be held. On March the 20th, Thursday night before our council meeting from 515 to 630, we've been invited to come down to the World Trade Center. Former Governor Martha Lane Collins, who is the director of that, has invited us down to come visit with her and with their operation to see more of what they do and how it relates to economic development and all the things that are important to us. And lastly, on March 25th, Mr. Green, I just did ask you last week if we could put the Leadership Lexington class on for a presentation. They have a number of recommendations to bring before the council and this government as it relates to recycling, the project that they have been working on throughout their tenure with Leadership Lexington. So if we could have them on on the 25th, that would be great. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Mayor. As most, if not all, of us know in this room, we collectively have struggled with the situation at Meadowbrook Golf Course. And the decision was made by the administration last week that it needed to be closed. And, you know, there are lots of reasons to recommend that, most of which revolve around money. And our situation as far as the upcoming budget is concerned. However, it is only one of four other golf courses, three other golf courses, actually, that are also losing money, some very significant amount of money, probably 80 percent of the money in two of the golf courses. Meadowbrook fills a specific need that none of our other courses can fill for seniors, for ladies leagues, and for youth who are learning to play golf and who get, in fact, all of those get somewhat intimidated by playing on a full-size course with people breathing down their necks when they're spraying balls around and going through the learning process. And I promise you, I've been there, and I understand what that's like. And you turn around, hanging your club up, and you never learn how to play golf. So, with all that said, I moved a place on the docket for Thursday, March 6, 2008, a resolution directing the Division of Parks and Recreation to open Meadowbrook Golf Course for the current golfing season. Subject to the same lease terms with the Fayette County Public Schools that were exercised in the last golfing season, and that the opening of Meadowbrook Golf Course shall be for one year. Second. I have a motion to second. Any discussion? Second. Council Member Stennett. I appreciate Council Member Beard bringing this forward today. I do have one concern, and that's the marking of our golf courses. You know, I think they don't have to be an operating loss leader. And I would do this, and I would not want to amend your motion, but we need to get on the ball, so to speak, on our golf courses because we do have an opportunity. And I hope in this budget we're going to see a new plan on all the golf courses, not just Meadowbrook, because I do think there's a golden opportunity that we're missing here in Lexington on all of our courses because I do enjoy them as well as many other people and fully support Council Member Beard's motion. But I do want to take a heavy look at all of them. And let's do something going forward that markets golf in Lexington. Thank you. Council Member Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. I'm also very supportive of this and have heard from many, many, many constituents, some of whom were very emotional about this closing of this golf course, which is the only one on which many of them can play. I'd like to tag on to what Council Member Stennett said. I think this is a perfect opportunity for us to look at something that constituents have brought forward, and that is fees. To a person, everyone who has contacted my office has said, we will pay more. Now, that's not a usual thing for citizens to say. I think that they love this course. Those who play there realize the value of it, and they're willing to pay more. So I think this is a perfect opportunity for us to look at the fees and to see what could be done there. And, Mayor, it's my understanding that the administration could do that, take a look at the fees and the charges that we have. So I'd be very supportive of that. I might ask Commissioner Cole if she would address our current understanding with regard to the fee issues, since that's been raised. Hello. Yes, I'd be glad to address that. Parks and Recreation have taken a look at the fees for all the golf courses. They've looked at what comparable courses charge and have made recommendations. They're working on final recommendations to me right now on what we would charge at each golf course, and each one's a little different. In anticipation of this today, we had prepared a motion, in case the Council wanted to consider it, to go ahead and give us the authority to look at those fees and implement those fees with an April 1 start date. So if anyone would like to take a look at this and consider it, I'll be glad to pass it out. May I ask you a question about that? You said to give us the authority. Can you be more specific? Because I know in the past, Council members, the Council as a whole has either approved or not fees, park fees in general. And so can you get a little more specific about giving us the authority? Do you already have the authority? I'll be glad to. From advice from legal counsel, I've been told that the Administration does have the authority. But traditionally, the Council, we have come to the Council, and the Council has approved the fees based upon what the Administration has recommended. But legally, we do have the authority. Thank you. Council Member McCord. Just a quick comment. For those who are watching and who have contacted our offices and who have felt so passionately about this, especially those who are older and have a certain amount of means who golf this course, I would encourage the public. One of the things that we've heard throughout, ever since this was brought to us by the school system, was, well, what about the kids? What about the kids? What's going to happen to them? I would encourage the public to take it into their own hands to a certain degree and begin to scholarship those kids. If you're someone that enjoys this course and you're worried that if an increase in fees is going to keep kids from there and you've got the ability to put money in, I would say that we need to incorporate that into this course so that the citizenry can do what they say they want to do. It doesn't have to fall always on government. So I just want to throw that out to those watching that this is important. You're going to see that the Council really has listened and is trying very diligently within the parameters that we have to keep this as an asset as long as we can. But if that is a concern, then I would say scholarship the kids. And I appreciate the opportunity to talk. Thanks, Mayor. Any further discussion? Council Member Gordon. Council Member Beard, this is actually for you, because knowing that we don't own the course, have you spoken recently with the superintendent or members of the school board? And what's your sense on that? Not with members of the school board. I have talked to Superintendent Silberman on two different occasions, and that was on the subject of our purchasing in one way or another the course from them, because they had an offer to buy the course, which they own, for some purpose anyway, for a pretty good sum of money and one which we couldn't possibly touch if we were a competitive bidder against them. Anyway, that's what the discussions were about. But I did ask him at the time if he was in as much of a hurry that we couldn't get another year's play out of it. And he said no, that that would be fine, that they weren't in that precedent and in that much of a hurry. Thank you. Just to follow up on that point, I had a conversation with Superintendent Silberman this morning about this issue, and I think there's a good bit of flux as far as the school board is concerned with regard to what their plans are right now. And I presume from reading the motion that this deal would be subject to our being able to negotiate a dollar a year lease specifically from the school board. So if the school board came back with some other counterproposal, we'd have to negotiate or bring that back to the council in some fashion or another. Anything further? All right. Those in favor of the motion, please let it be known by saying aye. Aye. Those no. That carries. Anything further? Council Member Beard. No. Thank you. Council Member James. Thank you, Mayor. I have a motion. I move to refer the draft of the sidewalk cafe ordinance recommended by the Commission for Citizens with Disabilities to the Service Committee for action. Second. Thank you. I had a motion from Council Member James and a second from Council Member Blevins to refer the sidewalk cafe ordinance to the Services Committee. Yes. Any discussion? Those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Those no. Motion carries. I have another motion, which if it's out of order, please let me know. I'm not sure if I can do this or not. But I move to refer Article 26 of the zoning ordinances to the Planning Committee for review. Is there a second? The Article 26 has to do with tree protection. No second? I hear no second. Boo. Second. Thank you. Second from Council Member Blevins. All right. I just wanted to make sure I was hearing the right voice down here. Any discussion on the motion to refer Article 26 of the ordinances to the – I'm sorry, was it Services Committee? I'm sorry, I said Planning. I'm sorry. I apologize. That's okay. Thank you. Any discussion? Council Member Blevins. Council Member James, could you elaborate a little bit on what you're looking to do here so we can understand what you're after? Basically, it's an overall review of Article 26, which is the tree protection ordinance. The issue has come up in the Green Space Commission as well as in the tree board. And it's something that's been on in the zoning ordinances since the Miller Administration. And there's some issues with the Article 26. And I'm not sure how it needs to move forward, but I do know that it needs to be reviewed. But being that it's between Green Space and tree board, it needs to have one entity or one committee that's moving it forward. So we'd like to bring the Green Space Commission members and the tree board members and whomever is interested in tree protection to one committee for discussion and then determine how to move forward. Any further discussion? Those in favor of referring Article 26 of the ordinances to the Planning Committee, let it be known by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Carries. That's all I have, Mayor. Thanks. Thank you. Council Member Hinson. Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to announce that tomorrow evening at 7 o'clock, Cardinal Valley School, there will be a meeting showing the plans for the improvements to the For Sale Road corridor. And that would be from Manowar Boulevard into Maxwell High Street. And this will be the second meeting. The first one, I was very impressed with the proposed plans. And anyone interested? Does any other council member have a report? I see none. The mayor has no report today, so we're ready for public comment on issues not on the agenda. Does anyone wish to address the council? Seeing none, we'd entertain a motion to adjourn. I have a motion from Council Member DeCamp and a second from Council Member Myers that we adjourn. Those in favor, say aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries.