This is April the 15th, 2008. And we have a slight change in our agenda due to some conflicts. So I'm going to ask Andrew Grunwald to go ahead and give his Newtown Pike Extension update first. And then we'll move on to the streetscape plan. So, Andrew. Thank you very much. My presentation will be fairly brief. I just wanted to give you all a quick update on the Newtown Pike Extension project. And more specifically, I guess the south end temporary housing construction project. Currently we're about in the same position we were about a month ago. The extensive rains have pushed our construction back considerably. We do hope, I want to say at least by mid-summer, to have the construction complete and the temporary homes established. At that time we're going to begin our relocation of the individual people who live in the Davistown area. That contract, hopefully we're going to let in about a month to get our consultant on board so they'll be up to speed by the time we're finished with the construction. Other aspects of the project are moving along at an okay pace. The work on the bridge, as well as phase four, that's from Main to Versailles Road, is still ongoing. We are waiting for right-of-way fund authorization to begin buying the right-of-way from Main Street to Versailles. That's basically the authorization from the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. If anybody has specific questions, I can... Council Members, this is page 95-97 of your packet. Are there any questions for Andrew? Council Member Beard? The rest of the right-of-way, how much of that is essentially available to us right now without having to purchase additional right-of-way? The rest of the right-of-way? From Versailles Road over to Broadway. Very little of the right-of-way. You mean it's not being utilized now or is already in the... It's not being utilized now. Aren't we relocating part of the park and doing some other things in that right-of-way? Yes, sir. The park itself, the South End Park, is approximately five or six acres. We currently have that right-of-way. That's where we're building the temporary construction area. Other areas, if I think I understand your question correctly, we are going to purchase some abandoned railroad line. That property is not being utilized right now, but it is not in our control. It's still in the control of the railroad companies. Besides those two parcels, I think there's two other parcels that the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet owns. And with that said, I think that's all the property that is in the government control. Okay. Thank you. Do other Councilmembers have questions? All right. Thank you very much, Andrew. Appreciate it. Thank you. Next, we will move to the streetscape plan. And I'd like to first... Well, let me say I appreciate Dr. Stevens putting this in committee, and I don't know whether you'd like to make a comment before I recognize our first presenter. I know. I've met with them, and I think they have some exciting plans, which I thought should be shared with most of the Council, which is here. Well, thank you for doing that, Dr. Stevens. And then I'd like to go ahead and introduce Mike Webb from Urban County Government, and he'll introduce consultants and take us... Various people will take us through the fluid and ever-changing plan. Thank you. My name is Mike Webb. I work in general services as an administrative officer. I've just been with Lexington-Fayette-Urban County Government since this past September. And right now, currently serving as project manager for the streetscape master plan. And what I'd like to do first is introduce our consultant and his team, the team members that were able to attend today. The consultant for this project was KKG, Kenselman, Kline, and Gossman. And the principal that we're working with is Clete Vinken. Along with him today, part of his team are Mike Woolham from Strand Engineering, and Phil Osborne and Vitaly Buford with Preston Osborne. Also on their team is Second Globe and Brownstone Design. So they have a very diverse team. And just to bring you up to date, and we certainly appreciate the time that you've granted us today to share what we've done so far, what our consultant has done so far on the plan, streetscape plan. But what we contracted with KKG for was basically four phases. You could break it into four phases. We're really in the first part of that plan right now. The streetscape schematic master plan. And we entered into the contract with KKG back at the end of December. Really became active in development, starting in on developing the plan about mid-January, and have moved very quickly since that time. And we are in that first phase, the schematic design. April 18th, this Friday evening, we'll be doing a public presentation of a preliminary master plan as part of the gallery hop. In addition to that, as part of this contract was to help develop phasing for implementation of the plan, engineering design and construction documentation for any construction in phases, and then bidding and contract documentation. And then in addition to that, we can also take advantage of contract oversight. So briefly, we are just in the very beginning in development of the master plan right now, but coming very quickly, we're moving to the preliminary, a complete preliminary master plan. So with that, I would, unless there's any questions, I'd like to let Cleet Binken with KKG continue with his presentation. Thank you. Welcome, Cleet. Thank you. Good afternoon. I appreciate the opportunity, as Mike mentioned, to be here today and present to you. I've become familiar with many of you because so many of you have been present at some of the meetings that we've had, and we've seen you at public workshops and advisory committee meetings. I'm going to move fairly quickly, and I ask that you interrupt me if you want me to stop and expand on any of the topics that I'm covering. This master plan covers a host of things, and I don't want to take all of your time today to try and go through them. The document that you have is a work in progress, and Linda mentioned that at the beginning. We will be updating this continuously over the next several weeks, looking to deliver a final master plan sometime in May, and we'll be working with staff to arrive at the dates of that delivery. What is the master plan? It's probably a good place to start. The master plan is for an area that covers approximately 7 miles of roadway in and around the downtown core. It includes 22 streets. They're listed there on the left. The purpose behind the study and behind the plan is really to build upon the findings of the 2006 downtown master plan. It's to develop a more aesthetically pleasing, vibrant, and pedestrian-friendly downtown streetscape to address the relatively poor condition of some of the streets and sidewalks in the downtown area. It's to develop, with 7 miles of roadway and 22 streets, you can imagine what the life cycle replacement cost of that infrastructure would be. And before you would set out doing that, you want to have a pretty good idea of how you're going to go about it and how you're going to spend those monies wisely. So this plan is intended to guide future development projects and develop standards for that street redevelopment as it occurs. This is a uniquely important facet of this plan. Communities rarely have an opportunity like you have to advertise to the world what a great place, what a great city Lexington is. I'd like to share some examples of cities that have had this opportunity before and they're going to sound pretty familiar. Paris, France, New York City, New York, St. Louis, Missouri, Chicago, all had world expositions of one type or another that brought the world to those cities and the world discovered them for the first time in many cases. And each of those cities was left with a legacy because of those events. You really can't underestimate the importance of this opportunity. And I think this master plan is very well timed because it's going to give you an opportunity to put the best face forward to the world when it comes. Lastly, and also as significantly frankly, is the notion of setting the stage for private investment. All you have to do is pick up the paper to know that you all are wrestling with some serious budget issues and you're not alone. Cities all over the Midwest are facing the same problems. I come from a city that faces those issues and you pick up the papers in those cities and the headlines read very much like they do here. And it's curious maybe to think about why are we talking about something that the city is going to lead when we have constrained budgets and so forth. Well, I think urban design and streetscape initiatives really have the ability to prime the pump for private investment. And now, like no other time, you should be considering things that you can do to incentivize private investment. The downtown plan went into great detail on how that works and I really would just like to reinforce that reality today. I mentioned that we are following the downtown master plan. There are also several other studies that have been done recently that are guiding much of what we're doing. Probably each of them has made commentary of one type or another on the city's desire and the public's desire to make Lexington's downtown a more inviting, pedestrian-friendly environment. Someplace that's good for business, good for residents. And so we had a lot of direction, quite frankly, starting just by looking at those plans. Our goals, and I won't read all of these off, are listed there and they're in your document. And all of these slides that I'm presenting are basically summarized out of the document. Clearly, what we're trying to do with new standards for street redevelopment is to incentivize private investment, to enhance public's perception and the world's perception of downtown, and to create a stronger supportive environment for activities that happen in the private sector. Outdoor cafes and seating and cultural activities. We have an opportunity to create a stronger sense of place for the downtown. And through the course of this study, we've spent a bunch of time looking at what other cities are doing to make themselves more successful in the competitive environment. And we, in the first, leading up to the first two public meetings, spent a great deal of time sharing examples of what other cities have done. I've mentioned at the past two public meetings that if the city simply replaced the curbs and sidewalks within the area that we've talked about, you could expect to spend over $20 million over the life cycle of those improvements. And that life cycle is 20 to 30 years, basically the life of concrete. When you're going to spend $20 to $30 million, as I mentioned at the outset, you want to have a pretty good idea of how you're going to do it. Those costs do not include improvements that are related to changes in the design of the roads themselves, traffic infrastructure, the burial of overhead utilities. All of those are over and above the simple cost of replacing curb and sidewalk. So when you think about that in those terms, the magnitude of that expenditure becomes even more apparent. It also becomes apparent that it may not be possible or feasible in this day and age with constrained state and federal budgets to expect that you can go to the same resources that you used to be able to go in the past to pay for all of that. So in recognition of that and based on our experience in other cities, we have recommended in the city as part of this study has agreed that we would apply a PR and fundraising campaign that builds public awareness for the needs of the city and of the private sector. And Phil and Vitaly are here today as evidence of the fact that we are and have been applying that strategy to build support from the private sector so that they can also invest in the downtown. So that it isn't a matter of total public subsidy to get the streets done because a healthy and inviting downtown environment is good for everybody, not just the public. We are hoping that as this moves forward that we'll be able to bring some private investment into this mix. And I think the groundwork that we've laid through the development of this plan will help us get there. We believe that there's a tremendous opportunity to reach out to foundations, philanthropic interests, corporate world and private citizens and begin to pool dollars between the private and public sector to be able to get more done more quickly. This is kind of a placeholder on the schedule that shows where we are. We're delivering the preliminary master plan report to you today and we'll be delivering the same on Friday at the gallery hop. Mike already mentioned the way that the project is designed so I won't go into that. When I mention that we've already done considerable work in building public and private support for this plan, this is a listing of all of the groups and individuals that we've talked to so far. I come down on a weekly basis since the inception of the project and meet with some of our other consulting partners. And typically we meet in the DDA's office and we talk about issues that are near and dear to a particular stakeholder group's hearts. We also talk about the big picture and what we're trying to do with the plan. And as a result of that we've really been able to establish a very good rapport and relationship with people that are direct stakeholders in the downtown. They either own property or they run an agency or a department or they have some direct say in what's going to happen in the downtown in the future. I think it's safe to say that very little in this plan will come as a surprise to any of those stakeholders. And that's somewhat rare when you're talking about such an all-encompassing study. All along the way we've circled back and we've met with the public and we've provided an opportunity for people to have a voice about what we're doing. In your packet you've got exhibits that have followed along with the process. And what I'm doing right now is simply summarizing some of the things that are in your packet. So I apologize that we're not going directly through the document, but I think if I did that I'd take too much of your time. So with that in mind, I just want to summarize that the first public meeting was held on February 23rd. It was a Saturday. We had a two-hour open house where folks could come in and browse the work that we've done. And then we had a one-hour plus, I've been told, presentation that summarized all the things that we've done. We spent a lot of time talking about the qualities of the place. And we frankly looked at a lot of hard data. Some of the maps up there speak to that. And one of them is a ground floor use map. And the reason I highlight that map is you wouldn't design a street for retail activity if that street had no potential for retail activity. By the same token, you wouldn't design a street for the efficient movement of cars, and only the efficient movement of cars, if what you were trying to promote were ground floor uses that were about something else, about sidewalk cafes and outdoor activities and maybe adjacent event space. So what happens in the downtown environment from a land use standpoint is important to what's going on with the design of streets. One of the bigger issues that we encountered with this plan was, okay, you're going to design street improvements. Are you going to design them for the way the streets work today? Are you going to help us figure out how the streets will work better in the future? Or are you going to design them for the way we want the streets to be? And the answer was, all of the above. We have been asked to make sure that what we do works with the one-way pair configuration that you have in downtown today, and it does. But we've also been asked to look at a realistic strategy for how, over time, you can improve the pedestrian environment throughout downtown. And I believe strongly that you have tremendous opportunity, and I speak for many of my teammates when I say this, to convert your one-way pairs to two-way. And I'll go into how we reached that determination over the next couple of slides, but suffice it to say that that's a question that you've all been asking for the last 40-something years. The 1967 Lexington downtown plan talked about how pedestrians had to, quote-unquote, run the gauntlet to get from one side of the street to the other. And I'm here to tell you that it's pretty much that same way today on Main and Vine. They are not inviting streets. More importantly, Main Street, frankly, isn't even navigable all the time. You've got noncompliant ADA issues. You've got curb ramps that aren't friendly to people in wheelchairs or people that have disabilities. You've got clear zones that aren't clear for people in wheelchairs or people that are sight-impaired. And so there are some serious things that go beyond purely the design of streets. But, all in all, what are you trying to do? Whether you have one-way streets or not, you're trying to promote easier user orientation. Two-way streets are better for that than one-way streets. You're trying to slow the pace of traffic, and two-way streets generally are better for that than one-way streets. You're trying to improve storefront visibility and patronage. You're trying to get more dollars out of the real estate that you have downtown. You're trying to get a higher contribution. You're trying to get a higher quality of life, quite frankly, out of those streets. And so two-way streets are better for storefront visibility and patronage. This supports that kind of activity. And, lastly, you're trying to prioritize the pedestrian, because people want to live in downtown. They want to work in a place where it's convenient and safe to get from their car to their place of business or to their restaurant or to their retail destination. And so there's really good reason to be thinking about what you can do over time to convert the streets to two-way. Cities that are currently considering or undergoing that conversion are listed there. I won't go into that. When we think about two-way streets versus one-way streets, we thought it would be helpful if we put it in layman's terms. You read some of these reports that are done by traffic engineers, and with all due respect to our consulting partners that are engineers, our eyes glaze over sometimes when you look at that. But to put it in simple terms, traffic moves like water. And the more we can remove obstacles to that movement, the better traffic is going to flow. So one of the thoughts behind this conversion strategy is let's remove restricted movement intersections. You better be careful because phasing is pretty important. You wouldn't want to do it all at once. You need people to be able to acclimate. First of all, before you even thought about doing that, you need to conduct the studies that are done that need to be done to ensure that the design of those streets in the future will accommodate all of the things that need to be accommodated. And you need to build a basic consensus. The last thing you want to do is create a public outcry that says, why are you doing that? It's not tried. It's not tested. One nice thing about some of the things we're talking about is it can be as simple as repainting streets. Now, when you get to signal infrastructure, there's more of an investment there. But it can be done in an incremental fashion where you do build public consensus for the strategy that you're undertaking. That's what the header of this next slide says. Basically do it incrementally. Do it with the recognition that you're going to be lessening travel demand by some things that you already have underway. For example, the rolling trolley, the more prevalent use of bike transportation, the completion of the Newtown Pike extension. All of those improvements or all of those initiatives are going to change traffic patterns in the downtown. And it's going to make it easier for you to apply a strategy that begins to convert these streets. We recognize and you need to recognize that anything we do needs to be basically blessed by the Transportation Cabinet. They're the source of the federal dollars that come in and maintain those streets. Any street that touches one of the state routes in Maine and Vine are both state routes, Broadway is a state route, part of Limestone is a state route. All of the any changes that we make to those streets have an impact on those state routes. And there's something called the level of service concept whereby the Transportation Cabinet will be disinterested in making changes that reduce the capacity of those streets to carry traffic. So I think that, and it may come as a surprise to some, but we're saying that you don't really want to do things that are going to reduce the level of service on those streets. And as a matter of fact, you'd go so far as to suggest that you really don't want to convert Maine and Vine. There's just too much traffic on those streets today and even in the near future for us to recommend that you convert those streets. The others is another story. Here's a map. Anything in red is a one-way street. The gold circles represent an intersection that has a restricted turning movement of some type. There are only in the downtown area, as represented on that map, 14 intersections that have completely unrestricted full movement. There are 50 that have restricted movement. If, however, you began a phased conversion strategy, and in this slide, phased conversion strategy, you would have you back up a little bit here. In this slide, the first two to be converted would be short and second. You'd move up to 25 intersections with full movement. If you converted Limestone and Upper, you'd be up to 35 full movement intersections. And if, lastly, you converted High and Maxwell, you see how many black streets there are versus red streets now. And you see graphically that there are a lot more options for people to make turns toward their destination. And in a nutshell, that's the basic idea behind a conversion strategy. Give people more options. Give people a way to circumvent a backup where it might occur. And there's more detail about that strategy in your packet, and I encourage you to read it if you haven't already. How did the public feel about these thoughts that we're thinking? And what do they feel? How do they react to some of these notions? Well, we created a survey that we've passed out at each public meeting, and we've gotten a very good response. At the first public meeting, we had over 50 attendees. 27 surveys were returned. Two out of three respondents from the first public meeting lived in downtown or in an adjacent neighborhood. Over half of the respondents worked in downtown and 70 percent owned property within the area. We asked them questions that really spoke to quality of life issues and talked to investor perception, whether that's an investment in a home or a commercial property. For example, one of the questions was, how important do you feel the following are for improving the downtown environment? And we said one of the questions was, should we use sustainable design practices? Is it important to improve sidewalks and curb ramps? One of the questions was, should we convert neighborhood streets from one-way to two-way? Of those respondents, 90 percent cited the importance of creating more attractive gateways into downtown. 70 percent said they thought it was important to improve the condition of downtown sidewalks. 70 percent said it was important to use sustainable design and construction practices. 93 percent cited the importance of providing improved public open space. And two-thirds of respondents cited the importance of converting neighborhood streets from one-way to two-way. Now, I don't want to represent that that is a representative survey sample that you could take over and apply over the entire constituent area. You couldn't. Those people were committed downtown stakeholders by and large, but that's a pretty good group to start with when you're trying to understand where the public's view is about the downtown and about the street conversion strategy in particular. The second public meeting, we got away from the analysis and we started to talk more about some of the opportunities for improvements, for improvement of the downtown environment. This is a map that's in your packet that just talks about some of the places where things that go beyond pure curb and sidewalk and streetscape enhancements could make a dramatic impact on anyone's perception of the downtown. And we specifically looked for projects that had a lot to do with the downtown environment. We looked for project opportunities that over the long term, some maybe over the short term, but certainly over the long term, could really, really begin to make a dramatic improvement in not only a resident's perception or a local business person's perception, but an investor's perception or somebody that would come to visit, their perception. So our audience in our mind's eye was not just the folks that lived here, those are the most important users, but also the folks that might want to live here in the future or might want to invest here in the future. And so what can you do to make downtown a better place for, to attract folks? We recognize that Newtown Pike is very unique in terms of the corridors that lead into downtown. It probably has per mile fewer owners than almost any corridor. There's more single ownership of large tracts of land on that corridor than anywhere else. That's a good thing, because that gives you more control and gives you less obstacles to making dramatic improvements. It also is interesting because it is the thread, the common thread, between downtown and other neighborhoods, toward this wonderful rural landscape that you have. And it's the one corridor where you see that rural landscape filtering all the way into the downtown. It also happens to be the path that most people will be taking to and from the horse park during the World Equestrian Games. So it's a critically important corridor in terms of establishing people's perceptions of a great rural landscape, but maybe providing an opportunity to elevate people's perceptions of downtown as a quality place, as a world-class downtown. The diagram there shows the notion of a traffic circle, a modern traffic roundabout. We don't propose that this is something that's all figured out, quite frankly. All of the things that I'm showing you early on here are concepts that we feel have potential long-term to be implemented. They're going to help to make a dramatic impact on downtown. For any of these things to be implemented, there's a lot of work left to be done. Certainly you're going to have to start talking to some of those property owners. You're going to have to certainly figure out how you're going to fund those things. But we were asked to and wanted to show you the opportunities that you have before you. And they are significant. There are any number of ways to make dramatic improvements to the quality and the environment of the downtown. This is a diagram that speaks to what can be done with the area to the west of Lexington Center. The town branch trailhead was proposed to come in there. You've got the New Town Pike Extension coming across there. I wish I could show you all of the imagery that we showed at some of the earlier public meetings, but there really is an opportunity to, with private money and private investment, make a tremendous impact on the quality of this area of downtown. Jefferson Street could become a wonderful mixed-use street versus the pure and simple overpass that it is today. You could have Lexington's version of the San Antonio Riverwalk down at the basin, or at the bottom of the town branch corridor. Or if you've been to Indianapolis and you've seen their canalway, we could have something that looked very similar to what they have there, where you've got private investment as the building blocks around the edges of some great public open space and event space. Backing up a little bit and looking back up and down New Town Pike, the photo on the left is taken near, I believe, that's Third Street, and there's an old granary there, and there's an art studio in that building today. We're suggesting that we build on the strategy of improving New Town Pike, and we're aware that there's already momentum and a plan in place to begin to do that, and we're suggesting that this really becomes the front door, that you start the process, or rather the experience, of venturing downtown out here along New Town Pike, because that's the way people perceive it. How do I get to downtown? What do I see on the way in there? This sketch represents opportunities for private investment to make a dramatic impact on the quality of the corridor, where we provide new housing and neighborhood- serving retail and entertainment uses, maybe, along this area. We're not talking about displacing residents. We're talking about providing better housing and better opportunities for the residents that are there. I think one of the take-home messages behind this sketch really is the notion of improving the median, and making a dramatic statement with wayfinding and bannering, so that when you come in through the downtown, this is something you could do today. You have a sense of excitement and anticipation that builds by what you do within the public right away, not only in the outboard side, where the private properties somewhat encumber you, but on the inboard side, where you have the ability to make an immediate change. These are just some sketches that suggest some things that might be done permanently and temporarily. On the outboard side of the road, we've suggested the possibility for some temporary mounding. Could be permanent, if the property owners were on board with it. Maybe it's a matter of getting easements or so forth. Don't want to dwell on that too much, but I do want to show what can be done with the median. When a horse wins a race, what happens? Somebody lays a spray of roses over that horse's back. What if Newtown Pike, the featured plant in that median, was the rose? And what if we had a series of banners that talked about the connection between the countryside and the downtown, between the horse industry and the economy of downtown? So some of the bannering and some of the, even the planting composition really speaks to the patterns and the colors that are prevalent in the countryside, in the culture, and in the commerce of Lexington. This is just a close-up section of what that roadway section might look like in the future. We know that you're so profoundly invested in improving the pedestrian experience and in providing alternative transportation options, so we've suggested there might be a way to take the trail, the legacy trail that is leading out to the horse park and even bring it down Newtown Pike and connect it to the trailhead with the town branch. There was a slide that we presented many times that looks at this image, and this is taken from the intersection of Newtown and Maine, and you can see the water tower in the background. This is just an example of what could be done with a paint scheme on that water tower that really talks about something important in the culture and in the history of the area. There's the, I don't know why we put it in that sequence, but there it is. And then there's the diagram of the modern roundabout. Well, here's what that might look like, and the inspiration for this idea came from Columbus Circle in New York City. I mentioned before that we looked at other places as examples of what could be done, and there's any number of ways to envision what that might look like. This is just one way, but what a tremendous impact that would make, what a dramatic change that would make, converting what is today a very suburban-looking intersection to someplace that you'd be very proud to call your own. What's in the middle of that intersection? Don't know. Could be a monument, could be a piece of art, and Second Globe prepared some sketches that speak to one way to handle an art piece in the center of that. And then there's a couple of other ways. If many of you have been to Frankfurt and you've seen what a dramatic impact the piece of art, oh, that by the way, was done by the person that sits in that old granary that I mentioned before, did. And if you don't believe that public art can make a tremendous impact on a city, go to Frankfurt. Triangle Park, and what I'm doing is I'm frankly just following the sequence into downtown. There's been a lot of discussion over the last several years about what Triangle Park could be and how it could be improved in the future. Perfect example of what could be done is in Fountain Square in Cincinnati. Used to have a very uninviting park, and fortunately for you, Triangle Park is much more inviting than Fountain Square used to be. But all the same, it wasn't as wonderful a place as it could be or is today. Fountain Square, over the last three years, $38 million have been invested in the redevelopment of that square. And you think, gee, that's Cincinnati's most important public park. And you redid the whole thing? Well, yeah, they redid the whole thing. Started from scratch, ripped it out and started over. Moved a fountain that they spent $3 million improving because it just wasn't good urban space. It didn't work. Since that park has been improved, 20 new restaurants have moved into the downtown area. All of the ground floor retail and restaurant spaces around Fountain Square have filled up, and they're tremendously successful today. It really is about building and catalyzing private investment. These are just some examples of sketches that talked about what might be able to happen in the future. What might be able to happen over time if you were able to take traffic off of the yoke of Vine Street in front of Lexington Center. It also shows some things that could be done today to improve the view in and the gateway in. And there's the idea of a starting post there with the jockey colors and the imagery taken from the starting line maybe at Keeneland. We have, of late, begun to spend a lot of time looking at what each and every street is going to look like. And we've created what we call typologies or prototypes. Because with 22 miles of street, you really can't design every lineal foot of street. So we've categorized your downtown street network into six basic street types, and we've begun to look at ways to improve those streets. Here at Main Street, we've recognized that we're going to have a one-way street in the near term. It's not going to be a two-way street. There's too much traffic. But there are things we can do to really elevate the quality of that street, to reduce the street section, to reduce the pavement width, to take traffic lanes down from 12 and 13 feet down to 11 feet. It's fine for traffic flow, moves cars just fine, to maybe eliminate a lane of moving traffic during non-peak hours, during basically when it's not rush hour in the morning or the afternoon, one of those lanes of through traffic is converted to on-peak traffic. So we've also recognized that there's a need for more on-street parking. What that does is it provides more on-street parking in the evenings and during the day when you're trying to get merchants and restauranteurs to be successful. It allows them to be more successful conducting business. We've also recognized, and this is a perfect example of where we have such broad sidewalks that we can really begin to green those sidewalks. And if any of you have been to Portland, as an example, you really get an impression for how wonderful a place that is, and that's because they really have paid careful attention to greening the downtown streets. Typically, in a downtown, you don't have enough room to do that. But you're unique. You do. You do have enough room. Maine and Vine have very broad right-of-ways and very broad sidewalks. And there's an opportunity to develop bio-efficient sidewalks. There's a lot of retention areas and rain gardens that are the way you used to design tree pits on steroids. Frankly, it's a green, environmentally-friendly way, new way to use old technology to accomplish a lot of things that you have all said you want to accomplish. You want a more pedestrian-friendly, green street scene, and great opportunity on Maine to do that. We've looked at a lot of options, and we're still working with staff on the best option to select. That's what these slides represent. There's an example in the lower right photo of a rain garden that's taken from the Pacific Northwest, but that same technology will work here in Lexington, Kentucky. We've looked at ways to improve the accessibility of intersections. We'll be looking at standards that may be a little different than what you have today, because we want to be current with the best practices for ADA compliance. So, for example, we're looking at audible pedestrian crossings, and we're looking at blinking lights in the crosswalks so that cars know when a pedestrian is in there. There's any number of things that can be done, and those are all cited on these examples. You'll also notice there's a photo of a pylon there with a scale figure standing next to it on the right. That's a wayfinding icon that really draws inspiration from some of the great limestone masonry work that you have in the city, and you have it in spades. This is a concept for the linear park, the downtown plan a few years back indicated that there was tremendous desire to have, you know, Vine Street have a completely different character and maybe have a park space that runs down the center of it. Well, the lower plan there shows some red lines, and those red lines represent that culvert that you see pictured in that historic photo on the top of the slide. And it would be very, very expensive to modify or encroach upon that. And that and the fact that Vine is going to remain a one-way street caused us to think a little differently about how we're going to use it. We thought about how that linear park would work. So on the aerial map in the center, you see some green dashed lines around where maybe that linear park could be in the future. This is what Vine Street looks like today, and I apologize for the darkness of the slide, but it's a very wide street. It's got a bright sidewalk, but it's not the most pedestrian-friendly place to be. So it appears to us, and I think there's general consensus, that there's great opportunity to turn that into a more green street. This is a concept plan that shows how that could be done, using the right-of-way that's there today, reducing the roadway section of Vine Street, taking, in this concept, town branch, and ceremonially bringing it back to the surface with some reflecting pools that are at seat-wall height, and those pools of water could be interspersed all along Vine Street, walking in. In the spaces between those and the building faces, you've got great opportunity for event and gathering spaces, cafe spaces. Out near the curb, where there today is a parking lane, we can fill that parking lane in, or we can fill that parking lane in, we can move that parking and not lose any parking count out to the curb, as long as we have non-peak parking lanes. And these are concepts that we've discussed with transportation cabinet staff and city staff, and there is general agreement that these are all very feasible approaches that we can employ. And in so doing, we really changed dramatically the character of Vine Street. The linear park that had been in the center of Vine could be behind the Phoenix building. Today we have a single-story parking garage between the Phoenix building and MLK. In this scheme, we've proposed that you find new homes for those parking spaces as the downtown plan matures and develops. The parking authority has said that those spaces that are in that garage today may be available in the garage in the condominium building, that's adjacent to it, and in the transit center, and in some of the city garages. So there is the ability today to decide to take that garage out and turn that into basically park space. The purple blocks that you see there are suggestions for putting tenant spaces on the ground floors off of Water Street and off of Vine Street, and letting tenant space that might be retail or restaurant face onto a new urban park. And the basic idea is you've got Cheapside Park, you've got Triangle Park, and those event spaces and public open spaces have a dramatic impact on the economic potential of the lease space around them, and this is that same notion. Let's take public space, turn it into great public open space and event space, and elevate the potential of the lease space around it. What that might look like is represented in this sketch. You can see the before photo on the upper left. Basically in this scheme, the parking lane is filled in, it becomes a rain garden. The promenade connects all the way up along Water Street. There's no blue in it today in this sketch, but there will be in the future, and you'll be able to see where that is. And then you've got a private project on the left where we're representing ground floor retail, restaurant, and entertainment uses. What might happen below the street might be radically different than it is today. We could have bio-infiltration areas, I mentioned that, but we could also have rainwater collection and storage, where we're treating some of the stormwater that right now runs untreated into Town Branch. We can maybe use some EPA and consent decree dollars to help fund that, and we create a more inviting place. We help fund the streetscape replacement by being creative about how we use public monies and dollars that are public. They're not funneled through the city, but they're public all the same. They're part of the plantings that are out along the sidewalk in so doing. You've got some wonderful, absolutely wonderful public spaces in downtown, but if you're not from downtown, you don't know what they are, and you don't know necessarily how to find them. And we have made suggestion in the downtown streetscape plan that the wayfinding can do a better job of that. This is a sketch that looks at what might be able to be done with the Cheapside area to make that a more successful and contributory open space and event space. And there'll be more detail about that in the plan. Talked about the typologies, I'm moving now into street standards, getting away from some of the project opportunities, and talking about what can be done in the future. And I'm going to move really quickly through this, because I want to give you ample time to ask me questions. But we are, we looked at what's there today, we're looking at what we want to have in the future, we've looked at the design of streets and the alternatives for them, and right now we are working with staff to arrive at the best possible solutions. And we've cited some examples from other places. We're looking at what those standards for sidewalk improvements will be, will there be brick, and if there will, where will it be? What about the concrete, will it be saw cut or scored or tooled? And it seems mundane to be talking about that, but all of that has a cost implication. What might they look like, these are just some examples of the materials and the assembly of materials that we're considering right now. We do not recommend that you apply the same thing all over downtown. It begins to look too homogenous, and we want to support a unique identity in different districts. And so where you have entertainment uses, you might look at more elaborate or refined materials, and that's what these slides suggest. Limestone, for example, probably wouldn't want to look exactly like Main Street does. But might we use a recycled asphalt paver, as the city of Indianapolis has done in the upper right photo? Or might we use some other material, as the photo on the left shows? Don't want to get into wayfinding too much today, I'm just going to quickly flash through this. But I do want to make comment about, frankly, what's a lack of visual excitement in downtown today that is directly attributable to the sign ordinance that you have. That slide in the lower left is from the 60s, as you can tell. And you look up and down the street, and there were some fine examples of signing. Those are museum pieces today, if they were still around. And it was very easy to find your destination. You can see how busy that street was. This afternoon, there's three restaurants in that stretch of limestone. I couldn't find one of them by standing at the street corner and looking. And now there's signing there, but it's flush mounted to the building, and you can't see it. And that is a very drab and dull street scene. There's really maybe not enough room to have a street tree there in that stretch, and some signing could have gone a long way, or would go a long way, to enlivening that street scene. It needs to be done properly, but it can be. And we suggest that you look at, in the future, modifying your sign code to allow tastefully done and appropriately scaled and colored signing to take place throughout the downtown. The city of Louisville has a special overlay district that guides the signing that goes on in 4th Street Live. And that's an example where, yeah, they have a downtown similar to yours. They have a lot of great historic infrastructure, but you can have vibrant signing and great historic infrastructure coexisting, provided that you write the ordinance properly. You've got an arts district that's developing along Manchester. There are some other areas that, frankly, are a little more contemporary in their style and flair, and you might want to have an overlay for those types of areas. That might be still different. These are some inspirations for bannering and signing and wayfinding. Some of these I've shown you before. There are things you can do to private properties, like murals on the sides of buildings, that, frankly, add a lot to the vitality of the street. And we believe they deserve consideration. There are some wayfinding icons that could be developed in some of the public spaces, and we've suggested that you don't say, gee, we're going to have an entertainment district, and you put an arbitrary line on the map and say, that's our entertainment district. What we've suggested is, if I'm going to a place or a restaurant, chances are I'm going there because I recognize that it's on Courthouse Square, or it's on Cheapside, or it's on Triangle Park. These are all public spaces in great cities that people gravitate towards. So if you're looking at doing wayfinding, and if you're looking at doing placemaking with things like monument features like this, we think that there's great potential to use the great places to really give names and identity to the land uses that are taking place around there. These are some examples of some more refined versions of those. Implementation priorities, you can imagine that it's hard to figure out where you start. Well, we've been thinking about the logic and the priority of where you start from the time we got started. And in order to make some of the immediate improvements that, frankly, you should be considering, some other things need to happen. Number one, if you want to do some of the things that we've shown on Main and Vine, we would need to conduct, or you would need to conduct, a traffic study that would simply confirm the recommendations that have been made. The Transportation Cabinet controls that right away, and they would need to issue a permit for any changes to the streets. So that is one thing to put on the list. Another would be, as we suggested, improvements to Newtown Pike, and you are already getting started with that. But there are things that could be done maybe above and beyond what's been envisioned before and We've we are suggesting that you look at those improvements that can be made today as something high on the priority list Next we've we've said Main Street And we've heard this quite frankly at several meetings from folks that Main Street really needs attention That the sidewalks are not very navigable there in disrepair the curb ramps are not in good condition And you really need to be doing something about that If the remeddling ceremony is going to take place in Old Courthouse Square You're going to have a lot of pedestrian traffic from the hotels up by Triangle Park to Old Courthouse Square And I tend to agree that you need to do something about that the limestone corridor the Collegetown corridor between UK and in downtown Is is ripe for? Investment and and there's there's great potential to do things with the university with the foundations and so forth To to make those improvements Courthouse Square some some improvements that create a great sense of place Could certainly be done now Things could be done to the yoke at Triangle Park even without taking traffic off the front of it to make a dramatic Gateway through that area today, and then you saw the ideas for vine and and What could be done along Vine Street? As long as the traffic study was done The the physical improvements could be made But a lot of signing and wayfinding could take place there today with even that not occurring I'm gonna just conclude and talk about the funding and implementation strategy We know there's not a bucket of money out there to make all this happen. We said that the beginning But that there are things that can be done now Using private monies certainly TIFs are a great way to get public infrastructure installed We can Help you and intend to help you apply that fundraising strategy provided that we know How that partnership is going to come to be and we're encouraging? You all to think about what the city can do to participate and in that public-private partnership I Back up The vehicles for financing aren't just public But I'm going to start with those if municipal road funds state and federal appropriations t21 a transportation enhancement financing block grant monies Municipal bonds if you can back bonds you you might consider Funding some of these improvements with those We mentioned the EPA route and what we could do with federal dollars and through the consent decree Tax increment financing is probably the the one here and now thing that you can do If you have projects that are taking place in certain areas Maybe more for maintenance than in the actual installation of infrastructure You could be using special assessment or management districts. You have that tool available to you here and certainly Through the PR and fundraising campaign that that fill in vitality will help us Implement we can we can seek out private dollars There's a there's a copy of the plan here if that's too small to read we can certainly provide copies to you I don't know if that is actually in your packet With that I want to thank you for allowing me to deliver such a long monologue And I apologize for that, but I would certainly welcome your questions I think it was very nice that you could give pretty thorough presentation councilmembers who have questions if you'll log on and So Before we go into questions, I would just say we need to start buying our lottery tickets You didn't have that on your funding strategy I Councilmember McCord is first Thank You madam chair Thank you very much for all the work that you've been doing and certainly been hearing about Pieces and parts of that, but it is nice to have almost an hour's worth of detail For the time you've been working As it is it strikes me. This is possibly the most important economic development Activity that we can do Seeing how in a 21st century economy. It's about place and it's about creating a vibrant downtown and So this is possibly one of the most important activities that we can do to generate the type of city that isn't I guess nice to live in for those Those types of folks who we want to attract here and keep here to create those jobs so it's a whole lot more than tearing out some sidewalks and and getting rid of Pavers and so forth. So it seems like to me that the most important aspect of this whole thing is this PR campaign? You know, it's great that we were privy to 45 minutes of detail and and Councilmember Stanton had to leave a little early And he kept saying, you know, this is so exciting. This is so exciting. I think that there's a lot of misconception out there there's a lot of stakeholders who You know for one reason or another You know don't know all the story and don't see the bigger picture And so can you speak to me or maybe Phil if you if you want to tell me a little bit about? How you're going to roll out the PR campaign and and where we go from here and how this body can help I'll take the question first and then turn it over to Phil Our experience has been that when we Conduct the kind of strategy frankly that we have been conducting all along and we make private stakeholders part of the product of the Processes at arriving at what the priorities are and they have been intimately involved in deciding what the priorities are They're much more willing to step up and invest their own money. And so we've laid the groundwork for that In Covington, Kentucky They like you have financial struggles and they don't have The money that they would like to spend they'd like to do everything a lot faster than they can from a financial point point of view But what they have done is they've taken the money that they do have and they've said this is what we're going to put into It and if we can raise the additional money will match essentially that money so on the first phase of their downtown streetscape implementation They put 70 cents on the dollar in private sector came in and put about 30 to 35 cents on the dollar in we were able to do that because we did what we did here, but also because the City did say we're gonna spend X and they were able to go to the private sector and say we're gonna put this in we need you to step up and and help us meet the rest of that goal and When you begin to have those discussions you find out pretty quickly Where you're going to be able to leverage private money and that begins to inform where the phasing is going to occur Because of XYZ corporation is willing to step in and through their foundation or through if it's a bank through CRA money or whatever Put money in it begins to help you align where you can apply monies So if you had some private development projects taking place on a given Street And you had a little money to put into it You could then go to somebody else and say geez we've got almost all these dots connected on the street Can you step up and help us fund it so we can connect all the dots? I think that's the what's one of the things that we would be okay? Just to amplify a little bit on that Embedded in that previous slide was kind of a layout of what the PR and fundraising strategy is going to be and basically follows typical Formula when you're doing any kind of fundraising project on a capital campaign like this or hospitals churches, whatever There's a study phase a decision phase and a solicitation phase so in the study phase We're going to go to the key stakeholders with some of this information And then we'll make a decision about what the capital construction cost is going to be if it's 20 to 30 million just replace Sidewalks and curves we're not going to raise that out of private sector period into discussion So we have to enhance it so that the private sector is going to take some pride of ownership and step into it Now with that being said you know the challenges. We're facing too. We've got a bad economy right now. We've got competition from The games it's a blessing and a curse because they're going after the same kind of sponsorship dollars But once we get the stakeholders in the room and show them the scope of the work Lay it out so they can see it they can take some ownership of it Then they step up and we see exactly what can come out of the private sector It won't be a hundred percent out of the private sector though Well again, I think this is absolutely critical to the future of our town 20 and 11 and beyond and so I would say that that absolutely Whatever we have to do to to make sure that the the PR is done right and and done off the chart is really what needs to happen and I applaud Phil and Vitaly for all that you've done so far and and Again, thank you for bringing this forward, but anything that this body can do please keep us in a loop as to Now it's time to take a look at that that sign ordinance or here's here's some draft Draft resolution that they used in whatever city for those types of things I think that this body certainly is willing to to take a look at anything at this point in time. Thank you all councilmember Stephens Thank you for your presentation I'm beginning to understand it. I think after Getting a chance a couple times but and it is exciting. I agree with our departed councilmember Senate that but We've had a series now of studies as you know in Lexington and it's not clear to me really What should be the role of our council? I kind of agree with Mr. McCord And I'd pose a question for Harold Tate who is kind of the father of these studies and Has been responsible a lot for getting them done It's whether we need to have the council receive your final one, which will be in May. Did you say? and Adopt that or not. Do you think we need the imprimatur of the council on these things? We're now talking about downtown plan Which I think we were Furnished a copy of but that was about it. Yeah, and now I think mr DeCamp is recommend that go into a committee, but it's kind of after the fact In some ways, so I'm just trying to think in my mind how we should arrange this thing So we can take the best and get it done After the presentation we're doing to you all right now Chris King and Building inspection a bunch of the staff here. We're going to get together and we're going to see What the possibilities are in terms of the land of the streetscape plan? So I think it's safe to say at this moment. Is there an answer? No But we'll be coming back to you with some suggestions in terms of how this could be implemented. What's the best way to do it? I Think in terms of the downtown master plan the fact that dick put that in in planning committee I think it's a good idea because it is moving forward and this gives us the opportunity to work with you all in terms of Where we're going to see how you because I know all of you all have mentioned me what can we do to get that master plan moving farther along and We are moving 13 out of 16 recommendations are ongoing right now So this will just give us the opportunity to work with you all and I think Cohesively we'll all be able to decide what's the best strategy for us to move ahead on that plan And then we'll be coming to you with some recommendations on the streetscape plan as well Well, I would suggest in having the council educated as to what's in the plan Before we start implementing it Would be better than going one at a time as you're not come off and and since this plans not completed yet the purpose today You know, dr. Stephens is you and I were talking at the last public public meeting We felt it was important that we bring all as many of the council people up to date in terms of where the plan Has gone to this point is it is not finished at this time but this allows you all the opportunity as well as the public time to comment to us and to KKG so that they can make any of those changes Appropriately before we have the quote final product And I would certainly include in the report what mr. McCord suggested and that cities in which you have knowledge about previous plans which have been implemented because we need to Need to understand how that's done and well Linda and I were talking before Me and start there is there is a lot going on right now And I think we we do need to look at everything that is going on and start Determining priorities what we feel is most important that we can actually concentrate on and implement not just this plan But all all the stuff that's going on downtown Well, I think it's a good idea because as you know better than anybody else being the downtown development. It's already Many downtown's in the United States died 30 or 40 years ago and and now we're trying to revive them and Maybe they're not dead. Maybe they're just in in in the intensive care unit or something, but we're trying to get them back going and It's not an easy job. That's correct So do you think we should adopt this plan when we get it finished Well, I said let us have our meeting after this come back with with some recommendations in terms But yeah, I do think it's something that the council does need to bless whatever that whatever the final product is It gives it gives implementation a stronger point in terms of Agreeing that this is what needs to be done and how it needs to be done. Okay. Thank you. That completes my remark councilmember James Thank You madam chair I'm not sure to whom my questions would be directed But anybody that wants to take a stab at him is welcome to step forward or invited to One of the questions that came up recently in another committee was the issue of sidewalk cafes And I know that maybe vice mayor had spoken with someone about this Is there any reference to sidewalk cafes in the sidewalk plan? Cleat thank you. Yes. Yes Andrea there is We have proposed standards for the placement of sidewalk cafes Relative to the building entry and relative to the curb and in so many downtowns The merchant has made and in the sole Arbiter of the decision about where that sidewalk cafe will go But in this day and age with the Americans with Disabilities Act you really as a city need to take control of that decision Some of these sidewalks are wide enough to have sidewalk cafe spaces out along the curb where they do not interfere with the clear zone that Disabled folks need to have and so far our recommendations are suggesting that those kinds of spaces do not occur Immediately in front of the building or the storefront there could be exceptions And we've talked with Chris and others about where those exceptions would be made and how they would be made We believe there needs to be some agency or board review of those conditions And the mechanics of that will be discussed as Harold mentioned as we move forward But the downtown streetscape plan will be making recommendation for how those kinds of spaces need to be addressed okay, and you and Before today and before this meeting that you're going to have have you had building inspection included in on the conversations As you develop this plan We've been we've been talking to building inspection traffic We've talked to a couple of groups who are concerned about people with disabilities They've been into meetings as well the last thing we had a real good conversation of some things We we just didn't even think about and I think it was at the second public hearing they came and Suggested some changes that we might want to do that We had not thought about at all, so we've been trying to get input from as many people as we can and So we want to make sure we continue that conversation as well, okay, and along with that Mentioning conversations I see LexTran Has also been one of your stakeholder meetings that you've had Yet, I notice Not a lot of marked Bus stop and shelter locations on the actual plans I saw some trolley stops and things like that Is there any way that these plans if we can go ahead and firm up where some of the transit stops, and you know? designed bus shelters Should be placed Can we talk about that or have shown now as you know? Terry Garcia Cruz has left and Rocky Burke is the new general manager We have not met with Rocky yet because he's only been on for a few weeks But we did have the conversation with Terry and then we've been working with Jared as well throughout the process and through GIS We're trying to get all Their locations where their stops are and their shelters I believe there's been a Committee that's been working with Don Kelly's office in terms of trying to get more shelters up And so we're in the process of trying to get LexTran More involved in terms of where they do want their their stops be located I know LexTran's talked about putting signage up better signage indicating that this is a bus stop if possible a shelter as well And I say that that I believe to move forward with this plan that that has that conversation has to happen quickly For it to be approved because I don't know if other council members are aware I think councilmember blues may be aware of this, but it's very different It's a difficult process for them to get a shelter approval evidently So if we can make that part of this plan and go ahead and get those spots Permitted and gone through that process we can do that collectively And do away with kind of this trying process or at least try to counter it on one side Until we get that process Remedied or are streamlined Another thing I don't know who maybe cleat would be the best one for this But we talk about our sidewalks and the maintenance of them and even like with the sidewalk cafes Identifying where the four feet clearance is and some of the cities even Boulder. I think that we visited last year The city actually maintains the sidewalks and takes care of those around a certain area When you were looking at cities To use to look at you know what their streetscapes looks like in their sidewalks was there any? Did you do any research to figure out what cities are taking care of their own sidewalks versus the property owners? being that Responsibility because that as we talk about improvements example, we had a constituent from the Tate's Creek Road area Where it's proposed to put sidewalks all up and down Tate's Creek and he and he said well We're gonna be responsible for maintaining that so as we look at improvements even with our landscaping We have the quarters has a landscaping proposal that landscaping goes in it becomes the expense of the property owner to maintain that I Could see where if people would be a little bit fearful at a street state design thinking about hitting it hitting their pocketbooks How can we? How can we review what cities are doing? What who's paying for what and how on a regular not just as in a one-time fundraising event to do a project? But on a regular maintenance What is what is our maintenance program need to look like our cost share program need to look like in order for this to be successful? sustainably Andrea that's a that's a very intelligent question and We have discussed that and I guess to start the answer is all over the board in terms of what cities do some cities Are well funded? they have assessments for landscaping and street trees and so forth and They collect Essentially a stream of revenue to be able to address that in the future others have Have assessments That that you know follow different pieces of infrastructure others frankly just Have it in their operating budget every year. We're going to spend this much on a street enhancement program or street maintenance program I think what might make sense for you knowing what your financial? Capabilities are today would be to look at Seriously looking at management districts as a way to Collect Monies that can be used for sidewalk maintenance and And planting area maintenance and so forth It's it's it's it's it's hard to find property owners that are willing to fund Infrastructure concrete and brick and things like that It's easier to find property owners that see the value of having those sidewalks swept and the trees watered and so forth So it really gets down to human nature and what how people like to be treated and merchants tend to like the city To deal with the infrastructure and they're much more willing to deal with the ongoing maintenance of that infrastructure So an example of a management district on you'll have to educate me a little bit is Example would be something like downtown Lexington Corporation would if within their conglomerate of businesses that are members would maybe have part of their membership fee set aside for landscaping a maintenance of those rain garden things that those beautiful little concrete inlets that you showed us and Pay, you know permeable pavement and things such as that they would maintain those on their own, right? the way I understand it to work here in the state of Kentucky is that a management district would would be based on a Essentially a vote of the property owners in a given Geographic area and you have to have a certain amount of participation with the exact percentages I don't know and they essentially vote to levy themselves They create a fund That they pay into on an annual basis or a quarterly basis or however They set it up and those funds are used for the contracting of services or activities. Okay? Thank you very much. See if I had anything else. I Do have a list That one of my constituents he says he just he did a non-exhaustive review and if not exhausted Exhaustive is two pages and I can't imagine if he delved into it, but I'd like to share And I'll give you a copy of that and I'll share that with all committee members as well there were just some probably oversights and Some things that aren't illustrated properly on the maps that were part of our packet today Things like non identification of historic districts and Transi going over one additional block rather than where it is There's some things that he felt like needed to be addressed or probably correct it For history purposes and for the sake of the public record So I'll hand you that sheet and share it with other committee members for reference and there's a couple other questions on here, too, if if someone from Your staff would be willing to communicate back with him. That would be wonderful Otherwise, if you want to communicate back to me with responses, I'll be happy to forward those. Thank you for your time. Thank you Councilmember to camp Thank you, madam chair. I just like to Delve into one specific matter, which I'm involved with I'm chairing a committee on news racks Which are horrible in our city you can sit At a restaurant called a lot of Lucy's and look out the window and there are 15 of them lined up in front of our new courthouse Plaza and that's just one of the bad examples, but there are many more within the area of which you are focusing on and we're sort of at a standstill now as far as the committee because there are two things that we are Hoping to get from you and I'm just bringing these out so we can get this information from you Your recommendations on locations that the DLC the downtown Lexington Corporation has been working with the herald leader which is our major publisher of our daily newspaper and As for some recommended Spots in downtown for the distribution of newspapers reducing the number that are there now and We are waiting really before we pursue any of this to get your recommendations So I hope that we will get this very soon We have decided that the best way to go it our corrals, and I know that you you all are going to Design some sort of corral which would be put at these locations, but We would also like your recommendations as to other design standards You know vis-a-vis the corral what goes in I mean should there be a design standard or in your estimation not that we could You know demand this at this point But I think it's going to help us when we get your recommendations as a design standards of those Distributing machines and so on and so forth so we're ready to go. We're right. We've we've drafted an ordinance Based on several cities of ordinances that we've gotten on the news racks We feel that we this is something we could go ahead with maybe not have the corrals at this point but if we have a specific number that go in the corral that we now go ahead and just Follow that specific number if we can And wait for the corrals to be built at the appropriate time, and if we had the look you recommended locations I think we could go ahead pretty quickly and pass an existing an ordinance Which would I think in the meantime waiting for all this to happen? Could be a huge step in beautifying the area as it exists now, so we're ready to go we're waiting to present something to the Intergovernmental I think it's intergovernmental that we're a subcommittee of and then hopefully bring something to the council I don't think we have to wait till We get the new sidewalks in we can begin to Get people to begin to understand that there are locations, and they're not going to be a limited number of newspaper distribution Machines within a certain area So I think it's something we could go ahead with and I think would take me at least be taking a positive step forward But we need more information from you and the sooner we get it I think the sooner we can go ahead and at least take a step in that direction Councilman We have we have I believe finally gotten to the point where we understand the configuration that Our guests the preferred configuration for sidewalks, and it's not we didn't spend a lot of time Elaborating on it in the in the current draft of the plan that you have, but we do have Recommendation for how corrals would be cited the orientation they go in and by the next time We get together, and I would like to suggest that Mike and you talk and set up a meeting where we could go through recommendations for the placement and configuration of those Thank you. Look forward to it Councilmember beard Thank you madam chair. I guess this is a question for Phil Osborne if I might and it concerns the Raising of private funds And I've done a quick inventory from memory, I guess of Main Street and Vine Street between Midland and Jefferson and I can't come up with $60,000 let alone six six million dollars with as many public buildings as there are the way things seem to be going right now as far as The Webs are concerned. I can't see them throwing any money Toward anything right to tell you the truth, and that's almost two blocks of Main Street Are you going to cast are you thinking about casting a wider net that we have to cast a wider net given the The look and feel of what the streetscape projects going to bring to downtown there's going to be a strong tie to the equine industry So, you know We need to look outside New Circle Road and perhaps Engage some of the folks in the equine industry to put some of their donor dollars into the downtown project That's one of the things that we'll do as we go through this Investigative or information finding process to see where those dollars may be. There may be foundations outside, Kentucky. There may be You know a consortium of banks that pool their resources rather than donate individually That's what we have to find out during the investigative or information gathering before we pronounce exactly what our goal is going to be That being said I would add a caution We did a similar it was a actually a park project in Danville Boyle County a few years ago where in the course of the feasibility study We determined that we could raise 2.2 million in the private sector to match city and county funds to build the park So we got a little cocky and set the goal at two and a half million then we had the dot-com bust We were fortunate up. We still raised over a million dollars, but didn't get anywhere close to the two and a half We projected so the economy again I continue to bring that up as a factor that is going to influence this not just as you point out the number of public buildings downtown Thank you councilmember blues Thank You madam chair cleat I guess this is a Question for you me. I know that this study as you've carried it out over the past several months has has been contextualized in terms of Certain developments that are in you know in progress like the new town extension the town branch trail and so on and Also those that are under discussion You mentioned the Vine Street Linear park and how that might be Reconfigured in terms of one-way two-way street discussions What I'd like to know is how how if in any way does the Does the center point discussion figure into? Into your into your study I Apologize that I am not knowledgeable really about the center point project other than the other than the controversy that that surrounds it I will say that TIF dollars are an excellent target for how street improvements can be made and taking the the the qualities and the in the Context of the proposal out of the equation for a minute One of the most desirable things About the downtown plan as I read it was the notion of having Vine Street become a true Main Street of a walkable pedestrian street, and I and I frankly Think that that can be accomplished any number of ways and It might be an opportunity that project to begin to accomplish some of the things that you've been trying to do to change The character of Vine Street from what is essentially today Almost a highway and to something that feels like a real downtown street And I understand that there's there's a ways to go to to be comfortable with with the qualities of that project But the notion of ground floor Commercial and retail and restaurant space is Very very complementary to the kinds of activities that could happen along that street Um if why I have the mic I'd like to also comment on something That was just asked of Phil I don't want to leave you with the impression that the PR and fundraising campaign is the silver bullet That's going to solve your ills Or that the TIF would would be the silver bullet to solve all the ills at the end of the day What you're going to have is a master plan that will be useful to go to your State and federal representatives and say we need some help to get where we want to be we want our fair share of Transportation monies that maybe aren't coming to you today, and I think from our experience It's going to be important that there be some Public participation in order to secure the private participation, so thank you for letting me have that in We have a rebuttal I Think the private participation is more of a signal also to government To whomever if it's foundations or whatever that You know we have our head screwed on right about the about this whole thing as opposed to This is a bright idea. Let's jump into this and listen. There's another bright idea. Let's do that and oh by the way the new town pike extension has been on somebody's drawing board for 50 years, and we aren't done yet and we haven't been able to get the money to do that yet and I would like to see something finished somewhere along the line especially that one. I guess before Oh Maybe we go to the private sector for that one At least please let's get it fixed Thank you remember by your lottery ticket Julian then donate it to the government I have a few questions, and they're ticked I'm going to ask them in the context That I know that this is a moving Evolving project, okay And I talked with Harold about page 5 At the bottom when it refers to downtown development plan and I'm going to assume unless someone Contradicts me that that's the downtown master plan is that correct because I think it's important We keep all the terms I I wasn't familiar with what the downtown development plan is Knowing though that you probably have a lot of plans down in your office Harold So that's the master plan Okay Now as I read through the different Where you were assessing conditions of different Things Like sidewalks and furnishings and street trees, etc Do you anticipate that one of the ones is lane widths and of course then you get into the Discussion and recommendation of the two-way streets will that piece come as a recommendation to the council How will that move forward? Does anyone do you know cleat? I'll tell you what I do know. Okay, that'd be great. We have had Meetings with internal staff Urban County government and with the transportation cabinet and You have the downtown transportation plan, and I don't remember the exact name of that study that was done previously That plan stopped short of making recommendation I think we want to push it up a notch a little bit and I think where we're Gravitating toward right now with this plan is to say that There there is good reason to believe that you should begin to Apply that conversion strategy, and I believe we're inclined to say that you should start with the easy streets and Incrementally convert those starting with Those that you can develop strong engineering rationale for and in order to do that you're going to have to conduct a supplemental engineering study that looks at the the individual Frankly it's it's a case-by-case basis You're literally looking at each intersection, and you're saying you're asking an engineer to look at what are the turning? Radiuses and what are the what's the signal timing and will this intersection have a left turn lane or will it not and what's the stacking? Distance and what is the impact on the best design of that intersection on all the other intersections? So it really does get down to that level of detail Before you can say this is it this is we're going to do it the first thing you as a council though We need to say and I think I'm safe in saying this you probably need to have a comfort level with Advancing that strategy, and I don't think we're asking council or anybody with the city to say yes We want to unilaterally Convert the streets we want to wave our magic wand and say make it happen. I think what you do need to Weigh in on is whether or not you want that process to begin Mike is that how will that come forward to us? Some of us by the way are old enough to remember the two-way streets in downtown Well at least two maybe three of us I wouldn't want to look at anybody in particular up here, but we remember two-way streets in downtown, Lexington I'm Mike woolen with strand associates for those of you that don't know me But I didn't want to mention that we as part of this process We have had meetings with with representatives of the transportation cabinet, and I think in cleats presentation he mentioned that anything that we would do relating to Several the streets which are in fact u.s. Highways as well as some of the streets that intersect those streets would require interaction and involvement of transportation cabinet district 7 staff and making The proper decisions on things like lane widths Storage links return lanes all the things that would go into developing You know a cohesive strategy for a conversion They would be a big part of that process and I think to cleats point about you know You're all support or or in wanting to initiate that you know They would have once you make that if that were the will of the council or the will will of the people So to speak here in Lexington We would need to develop What I would call a kind of a strategy to go forward with that issue so that we engage the proper people along the way And we perform the necessary Studies and and basically demonstrate that this can be a positive Thing for our downtown community so so it would be a process and would be something that would have to be backed up by a good sound engineering So right now, there's not really anything we need to pursue on that I mean, we don't know yet. We know about the 50 people that cleats that were surveyed at the one meeting, but we don't know what the Will of the public would be or do we have you surveyed Fayette County on this or? We have not had a countywide survey. We we simply have surveyed the people that have attended the meetings, okay? Linda I think I think the the easiest answer is to say one of the recommendations is to Go ahead and authorize the study of Maine and vine as one-way streets, but as Streets that are on a diet as we like to say and and that means that we would still need the transportation Cabinet's permission to make the changes that we have recommended in the plan And that's the first step quite frankly It's something that is Important to you all or so we've heard and in order to be able to do that and to take that into implementation You're going to have to conduct that study to con to I think it is worth your debate and discussion as to whether you want to take that one step further and Also look at including the conversion of short and second in that Because we have heard from the transportation cabinet that there's really not much standing and from and from Urban County government staff that there's really not much standing in your way from converting those streets And the best thing you can do is develop a case history and a track record for the successful conversion And quite frankly if it doesn't go so well on those streets you might change course, but I don't think we would Suggest that you be forced into making a decision on the conversion of all of the streets Until you've got a track record of track record of success with the first conversion, but I think it is a It's an easy recommendation to say go ahead and conduct studies on those first two Pairs, I think the council The council has not had any discussions about Downtown Street Conversion this is the first it's come up So I guess my follow-up question would be have we done any post? Conversion studies, and this isn't necessarily for you because I don't know if if you had a hand in this But has LF you see G done any post conversion studies of third and fourth streets? We converted them a few years ago, and do we know? Do we know how that's worked out other than just anecdotal from people who travel That that to me that might be something we should look at I'm not aware of any study that has been done, but I'll check one day, but we assume it's it's fine I mean it appears to be working well I Guess when we authorize a traffic study Don't we authorize money to do that study or does LF you see G? Do it in-house for free what when we did the downtown master plan as you remember? We did do a downtown traffic analysis, but yes all it did was take the numbers it did not look at alternatives It did not look at any it just looked at the numbers and at the time so that was a beginning of a study And as cleat indicated in that study it showed at second and short Street pretty much there's no impact either way and I Believe that was the recommendation that we put in the downtown master plans that you phase it you don't do them all right and I believe that the second and short was the first one we Recommended to go ahead and phase in simply because the impact was so little But in terms of anything on third and fourth Street I'm not aware of anything, but I'll check for you and let you know engineering may have done some post Implementation studies, I don't know Okay, but thank you for that And well, I guess my other question would be Going back to that again is how to get the public input on that and on two-way streets Yes Harold Yeah, that's I guess that'd be one of the things that the council would have to determine if that's you know a direction that you Want to move in or not and if it is I will say that when we were doing the downtown master plan Comments were fairly quiet until we got the one-way versus two-way conversion and and The emails did come in Well, I will share that with you it for it does stir people up and I think that I'm gonna look at Phil now the PR person one of the things I think that people say is that Well, the purpose is to slow traffic down and to make it more pedestrian friendly, which is and bike friendly Which is a really good thing? but then for those people who Don't want to come downtown if the traffic slowed down it becomes a an issue I think that's what we I know those are things I've heard and so I don't know how you Linda I'd like to comment on that. I Think there's good empirical evidence out there that two-way streets are Generally Easier to turn into good commercial streets Into storefronts that generate revenue, and I don't think there's folks in Even in traffic engineering circles that would debate the desirability of two-way streets for commerce. Okay Safety is another issue but We like to tell the story that In the 50s and 60s traffic engineers designed ways for people to get out of downtown Quickly and efficiently and they did a very good job of it and we're dealing with the legacy of that today Still having a hard time making downtown successful, and I think That the more that you do and the more you're willing to do To say to people that are thinking about investing here that we want to do everything We can to make it business-friendly and people-friendly the more successful you're going to be I think We can come out fairly strongly in this plan and say that there are Alternatives to take to one-way streets main and vine and make them much better one-way streets for pedestrians And that's something you should do By the same token. We think that you should be looking at I'm Seriously looking at and and we favor The recommendation and and as we move through the discussions with staff will firm up recommendations, but as we sit here today We're leaning toward what the plan says today that that is is that there's good logic for Implementing that strategy and that that strategy will inform you as it plays out as to how that's working. Okay? I appreciate that Phil. Did you have a comment? To add unrelated to this project we are assembling a group of Different stakeholders that will be conducting a public opinion survey about issues specific to downtown And the one-way two-way conversion is going to be a subject that will be discussed with that So we'll be in a position to share that with you maybe six weeks. Okay, that's wonderful Pleat could you I had one more question about that had to do with It has to do with lighting this is just kind of an maybe an off-the-wall question in your discussions about Street lighting. Did you discuss street lighting versus sidewalk lighting? I Was recently in a city where their streetlights are actually lighting the sidewalk So they make it pedestrian friendly Yeah, well, we have the the happy circumstance where the the pedestrian the Decorative post lamp that you have along Main Street and Vine Street today also serves as For lighting that the carriageway for lighting the traffic lanes and those being the widest streets if it works there It's gonna work pretty much everywhere else now. I'm not a lighting designer But KU is basically come saying we're comfortable with providing the level of illumination And so I think what you see today is what you'll see in the future. Okay, I think that's great And then Let's see, I had one more Oh You may have talked about Did you mention whether how much money Covington in here on page 9 you mentioned Covington in? Cincinnati had the curb and sidewalk Replacement how much of that were they they were pretty big numbers Were they able to generate through private funding, do you know offhand I Don't know what the city of Cincinnati generates, but I do know that the city of Covington Generated about 30% of what they've invested so far out of the private sector 30% was private Okay, and then my last question has to do with the outdoor dining Councilmember James asked a cafe question and I was really curious about Your thinking and the discussion on Why it is you would put diners next to the curb? I think of a lot of cities where I visited and the diners are usually next to the restaurant and It seems awkward to me that You know wait staff would be carrying food through the walking space of the pedestrians Well, and I'm not sure I understand that If you look at the shopping center industry as an example, okay, and you go to Some of the newer lifestyle centers, you'll see that they are essentially duplicating downtown shopping environments and what they're doing is they're building recesses into The the facade of the building to allow that outdoor dining to take place Not even they are pushing it out into the middle of the sidewalk because at the end of the day They want shoppers to be able to move from one place to the next Conveniently without interruption safely. And so if you have conditions where you can accommodate Sidewalk seating up against the building face, but it's not jutting out into the clear zone in the sidewalk No problem. Go ahead and do it And you can design those situations to occur that way But in a in a downtown where you have to accommodate more than just one merchant You have to accommodate the the you know, the the safe and efficient movement of pedestrians that maybe don't go to that restaurant We're saying that it's it's a it's a very acceptable standard That's used in other cities to simply move that sidewalk cafe space out toward the curb Maintain the clear zone between the storefront and the and the cafe. So what cities are doing that putting the outdoor dining? Near the curb. Do you think of any off the top of your head? Sure It's happening in Cincinnati where I live. It's happening in Columbus. It's So just so I just want to make sure I understand we would have the cafe Then the walking space then the diners then the curb then the cars Okay, I Find that really odd to find that the cars would be zooming right past the diners Strange they'll be going slower. I know Okay. Well, thank you very much. Councilmember James had another question. I did just one last question You said that on April the 18th this Friday, you'll have What will you have on display on the 18th We'll have I didn't even present to you today all of the standards for all the streets but it is in your packet and we'll have the the latest version of that where We'll have the benefit of having met with staff today To talk about those standards and we'll be presenting those as well as the things that you have in your packet Where we were exactly will you be? we'll be at the In the In the method mezzanine area Okay on the second floor of Council of the city of City Hall in case anybody is watching Can we also ask for that if it's not already or once it's complete to be put as a link on our website? Sure, we've got some folks that don't do gallery hop that probably that may have plans for Friday night Currently, we've been put in on our website, but we'll make sure it gets on the government website to appreciate that. Thank you Madam chair, uh-huh Now Harold or cleat you mentioned that the final draft will be ready in May Someone mentioned that is that correct? Yes, that's what we're scheduled to prepare the final by May. Okay Would you want to come back to the committee to show us any changes not to go through the entire? Plan but to show us changes Sure Harold says he would We would be pleased for that Okay If someone will let us know when it's finished and we would welcome that to just see changes anything that was Significant change. Okay. All right I appreciate your time very much in your presentation and Mike and Mike and Harold and fatali and Phil Thank you so much. This is it's exciting. Thank you and Council members. Do you have any issues with the last page of the council packet where we have issues in committee? Councilmember Stennett just want to make sure that Liberty Road update is on the next month's agenda It's getting springtime. They're getting acting and a lot of people want to know what's going on. No problem. We'll put it on the next agenda If there's nothing else the meeting stands adjourned You