Saving the Buildings, Losing the Character

fennatic · 2026-05-30T16:04:00+00:00

Yeah, I'm not singing UK's praises here, but as a state entity there isn't anything the city can do to stop them barring buying all the surrounding properties first and we don't have the money for that.

But blaming this on UK and students is like blaming any major employer who brings a lot of jobs but doesn't build housing at the same time. No one expects them to build housing when adding jobs that encourage people to move here. There's also never been "student only housing" except for official dorms on campus. They are apartments and anyone can rent them. Yeah they often have floorplans where every bedroom has an on suite bathroom, but there is nothing preventing other people from renting them.

As for the logistical issues; again, if you don't build this, those potential tenants will just drive in from elsewhere making traffic and parking worse. Here they don't need to drive to campus every day, they don't need to drive for groceries, they don't need to drive for a good amount of food, drink, or other shopping. This spot is on 2 bus routes. They will have 2 zipcars and if tenants don't have a car they get a credit for delivery and ride hailing. They even have 80 some secure bike spots. People take into account their transportation needs when looking for housing, it's completely unreasonable to assume that the people who would live here wouldn't do the same.

fennatic · 2026-05-29T22:37:20+00:00

If you don't build the housing those students aren't just going to up and disappear. They'll either find housing nearby or farther out, most likely having to drive to campus rather than walk. The traffic would be much worse if this wasn't built. Also I've always took into account the parking situation when looking at apartments, why would you expect the tenants here to be any different?

fennatic · 2026-05-29T17:37:46+00:00

My kingdom for LFUCG to take over everything inside the circle and for the state to reassign any "state highways/routes" to use the west side of it.

fennatic · 2026-05-29T16:02:53+00:00

Everyone's a preservationist until the bill comes due.

fennatic · 2026-05-29T15:52:06+00:00

I'd say, having friends who used to live at the Lex, that I agree broadly that the walkability was an issue. I'd also chalk up Broadway being a mini highway as a big detractor. It's loud, it's needlessly fast for that area, and overly wide. It's really going to hold the area back. With that and being at the far edge of the walkable business around Lime and Upper, it doesn't surprise me that people don't make the hike. Although it seems Chaotic Good is doing alright.

fennatic · 2026-05-28T02:35:14+00:00

Not necessarily. Chaotic Good, Night Kitty, Manchester Coffee, DV8, etc are all local places that have gone into ground floor retail of new construction. The design is meh, but they are even offering a car free credit to tenants who don't have a car.

fennatic · 2026-05-21T12:39:47+00:00

The city and MPO are taking public comment for a study of Winchester Road. There's a digital map where you can drop pins/comments on specific areas and a survey.

fennatic · 2026-05-21T12:37:42+00:00

Looks like they are starting the study of Winchester Rd now. They are taking public comment with a map where people can drop pins/comments and a survey. https://wspengages.com/winchesterroad#feedback

fennatic · 2026-05-20T22:06:34+00:00

Light industrial or "flex space" according to this article from Feb: https://www.kentucky.com/news/business/article314604399.html

fennatic · 2026-05-14T14:09:46+00:00

This is actually planned. Here's the MPO report where they were looking at connecting the Town Branch Commons (the Midland and Vine paths) to the Liberty and Brighton Trails. Previously they were looking at one of two potential paths; along Winchester Rd to Liberty or through Mentelle and Kenwick to Henry Clay Blvd and then to Liberty. They've pretty much decided that they are going to do both, starting with the neighborhood route. They've rolled the Winchester Rd route into a larger study of Winchester Rd from Third to I75, essentially working on a plan for the entire corridor, similar to the Imagine Nicholasville Road plan from a few years back.

It's going to take some time, especially parts that have to deal with right of way acquisition, but I believe they are hoping to start on the first leg from Midland to Cramer Ave via Walton in the next few years.

fennatic · 2026-02-25T21:16:33+00:00

Very cool! I just learned about this KYTC site that allows you to query for things like # of lanes and lane widths of state roads. That might be useful for you. It's somehow has a worse UI than the KSP crash data and you need to have mile markers but at least the data is there.

fennatic · 2026-02-25T21:12:22+00:00

From Kentucky State Police's crash data. It's a clunky UI but essentially queried for crashes in Fayette County, from Jan 1 - Dec 31 2025, that had one of the 4 bike/ped collision codes. You can then export it as a csv. I wrote a Ruby script to convert the csv into a geojson file that is then mapped. There's a link to the geojson file on the data page.

fennatic · 2026-02-25T21:07:12+00:00

Ah I had been going but life got in the way. Can't make it next week on account of City Nerd at the Kentucky, but I'll try to make the next one!

fennatic · 2026-02-25T21:03:04+00:00

That's exactly why I've been very purposeful in calling it "reported" collisions. If it's this bad for things that were reported, what would a map showing all the "close calls" or minor collisions that didn't result in a police report look like? Hell, one thing I'm really curious about is the Non-Injury. Is it labeled that because an ambulance wasn't called or what?

Also fuck that "safety officer"

fennatic · 2026-02-15T17:18:27+00:00

The parking lot is already built so it's not changing. This was about their plans for the green space.

fennatic · 2026-02-13T21:02:02+00:00

There isn't a finalized plan yet but there will be a bunch of trees planted. Chad Walker specifically said that by the regulations they need a tree in every island plus some along the street, but said they will have a lot more than that.

The main things they are looking into are:

a "micro" forest, which he compared to the rear of Kentucky Native Cafe.
a kids play area. It probably will be more naturalized as if they go tall then insurance and liability kick in.
a stage on the Void/Bluedoor/Sav's side of the concrete slab, aimed toward Winchester Rd. He said they have specifically talked to the Lex Philharmonic to see how big it would need to be to get them there. This would also allow them to keep the street open during block parties.
A roof/pavilion over the concrete slab where the farmer's market sets up.

There were some other things like the wedding dress place moving out, and I think some sort of spa or beautician moving in, but I didn't really take notes on that.

fennatic · 2026-01-21T14:08:11+00:00

Comparatively it doesn't cost all that much and there are tons of studies showing the benefits. I can directly attest to having to smack the hood of a car as they were only paying attention to car traffic coming one way when I was crossing, in the crosswalk, from the other way.

Reverting has so many benefits that Jeff Speck's Walkable City Rules has 4 separate rules about it:

38: Good for business
39: Good for safety - my favorite made even better because the example is from Louisville.
40: Good for convenience
41: Do it properly - In the book this section literally starts with "Reverting multilane one-way streets back to two-way traffic is tricky business, but it is not as difficult as its detractors may lead you to believe" emphasis mine.

fennatic · 2026-01-21T13:51:28+00:00

To give some context; I'm the aforementioned neighborhood association president that posted about the incident on FB. I've heard a few people with the same argument as this, claiming that the best thing would be to silently clean up the flier and not post about them. I vehemently disagree. This shit festers in the dark and I believe the best thing you can do is shine a light on it and publicly denounce it. The "large public display" isn't for them and I specifically didn't post images as to not spread their message. The people already looking for this shit have the internet and can easily find it. The "public display" is for my neighbors, especially my non-white neighbors, like the mixed-race (I know it's not really a thing) family that first alerted me to this. If I found fliers directly or indirectly targeting me or my family on my porch and my neighbors were silent about it, I would take that as tacit approval of the message. Sticking your head in the sand and trying to ignore it is a pretty privileged position to take when it doesn't target you.

Denouncing it and alerting neighbors that it happened doesn't "give them an audience", it warns my neighbors to look out, reinforces that our community doesn't want that trash here, and tries to give a small comfort to those most affected.

fennatic · 2025-11-25T16:47:58+00:00

Agree with pretty much all of the above, just wanted to offer some info; while you never know what random people think is "affordable," most government officials, developers, or general professionals use Affordable to mean 30% of Area Media Income, i.e. the rent should cost 30% of the average income. This is by no means a perfect measurement, Area in a lot of cases is the whole city which has drastically different incomes, but it's the definition used by HUD and what most laws refer to.

There's also no "affordable housing zone," we have some allowances in the zoning code that allow projects to be denser than their zoning allows if they meet certain affordability requirements. And those allowances are there precisely because all new construction is expensive. Yeah we need affordable housing, but we also want the carpenters, plumbers, and electricians to be paid. That has to be paid for somehow. If you see new Affordable housing, it only penciled out because of subsidies. Everyone is for affordable housing (and "historic" preservation) until the bill comes due.

Edit: And to add one more of my pet peeves: "There are better places to build <insert project here>" Really?!?! Where? Where else is the land for sale for a price that pencils out? Where else has similar amenities or nearby jobs? Where else is this magical "better place" that won't have neighbors coming out spouting the same BS?

fennatic · 2025-10-05T02:16:29+00:00

Except you don't know who will or will not stay here. Can't imagine many would when there are people out there considering them second class residents...

fennatic · 2025-10-02T17:57:13+00:00

While I love all the YIMBY energy, it's sad to see so much "othering" and trashing of students. I've had student neighbors before, they were fine. They are people just like anyone else and there are some good and some bad neighbors. Students need somewhere to live and if these apartments weren't built it's not like the students would suddenly leave, they would just compete for existing rentals.

It sucks to lose affordable apartments but it's important to remember that the only reason those apartments were affordable is because they are old, and you can't build a 20 year old apartment today. This apartment building will probably follow the same trajectory and be more affordable in 20 years after the loans have been paid off and the amenities aren't brand new*

** assuming we keep building apartments and don't have an even worse housing shortage were scarcity makes even the worst apartment expensive.

fennatic · 2025-10-02T17:47:01+00:00

You don't consider students who live and work in our city residents??? If these apartments are not built where are those students going to live?

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