From hotel on Manchester to Town Branch Park, here’s what’s new, what’s coming in 2023

Some long-gestating Lexington projects will begin construction or open in 2023.

And many of those new projects are in downtown Lexington near the newly expanded Central Bank Center and Rupp Arena, which had its grand opening this spring.

Here’s where five of those developments stand at the end of 2022:

Manchester Hotel, Town Branch Park

The Manchester, a seven story, 125-room boutique hotel in the booming Lexington Distillery District, is expected to open in spring 2023, developers have said.

Announced in December 2021, the more than $37.5 million hotel will include three restaurants and bar spaces, a 12,000 square foot event space and more.

Nik Feldman, of New Circle Investments, the developers of the project, said all of the restaurant areas have been designed but the group is not yet ready to announce the names of those restaurants. The space that is adjacent to the Manchester Music Hall.

“Concepts have been created and spaces designed, however, we are holding back on the release of any more detailed information until the new year,” Feldman said.

The hotel is slated to open in May 2023, he said.

The group has previously said the location of the hotel was driven in part by its proximity to both the Distillery District and the expanded Central Bank Center. Central Bank Center will need more hotel rooms to accommodate larger conventions.

The hotel is also on the Town Branch Trail, which will lead to the long-awaited Town Branch Park, a 10-acre public park adjacent to Central Bank Center and Oliver Lewis Way.

The privately funded park, which was first announced in 2013, will begin construction sometime in late 2023 if it meets a key fundraising goal, park officials have said.

Town Branch Park needs $2,000,000 in private funding to reach its first capital campaign goal.

“We intend to break ground in late spring of 2023 so long as we raise the additional funds to cover our Phase I goal,” said Allison Lankford, executive director of Town Branch Park.

In September, park officials unveiled final designs for the park that includes an urban dog park, water play areas, a children’s play ground, a stage and plenty of trails.

The 7,600 square foot urban dog park will have two pens: one for larger dogs and one for smaller dogs. The water play area, which is 3,350 square feet, will have a traditional splash pad but will also incorporate science, technology and engineering with hands-on activities that will show children and adults alike how streams and water ways work.

The Sasaki designed-park was created after hearing feedback from more than 16,000 residents.

There have been hiccups and changes as the park struggled to go from concept to reality.

An entrance on Main Street on what was once the Jefferson Street bridge was nixed due to a long-standing parking dispute between the city and Main Street Baptist Church. Church leaders have asked the city to honor a verbal agreement between the city and the church to provide parking to the historic Black church.

The new entrance is now on High Street. But it will take a little more than $6 million in city money to make improvements on public infrastructure along Manchester and High streets to make the new entrance a reality.

Construction on the park could not begin until the expansion of Central Bank Center was completed. That happened earlier this year.

If the groundbreaking starts in 2023, the park will open in 2025.

The park is also still raising funding for operations and an endowment.

“Upon successful completion of Phase I, the park will commence Phase II of the campaign to provide for operational and program funding for the first two years of park opening as well as the seeding of the park’s endowment,” Lankford said.

Donors can contribute to the project by giving money online at www.townbranchpark.org or by contacting Lankford at allison@townbranchpark.org or Ben Shaffar, director of development, at ben@townbranchpark.org.

High Street parking lot redevelopment

Just a short walk across High Street from Town Branch Park is another long-awaited downtown project — the redevelopment of the High Street parking lot on the corner of High Street and South Broadway.

Lexington Center Corporation, which oversees Central Bank Center and the Rupp Arena parking lot, has long wanted to turn that parking lot into an entertainment hub. A previous attempt to solicit developers was scuttled in 2017 due to a variety of reasons.

Those long-awaited plans became reality in May 2022 when the Webb Companies and Dallas-based Lincoln Property Company were selected out of multiple bidders to redevelop the 17-acre lot.

The Lincoln-Webb proposal includes a mix of residential, retail and parking garages. As part of the request for proposals, the group must build parking garages to replace the surface parking on the lot.

Dudley Webb, of the Webb Companies, said construction is slated to begin in 2023. The group is expected to have the entire complex completed by 2025, he said.

“The first phase will be the residential component, the apartments,” Webb said. ”We will also be replacing the parking as we go. There will be three garages built in phases.”

In other words, as construction continues on the site, Lincoln-Webb must provide parking for spots lost to construction, hence the need to build parking garages in phases.

Other plans for the lot include a hotel, retail and restaurant spaces, he said.

The current plans call for the apartment complex to be near the back of the property on Maxwell Street. The more commercial elements will be toward the front of the property, he said.

Booming northwest Lexington

The area around Leestown Road, Citation Boulevard and Georgetown Street has seen a boom in residential development over the past 20 years.

Now, more retail and restaurants are in the works, as well as more townhomes and apartments.

The Village at Great Acres, an Anderson Communities development on Leestown road, received final approval in 2016.

Great Acres will have 127 town homes, 270 one-bedroom apartments, and 96 two-bedroom apartments, Anderson said.

Some of the townhomes, which are near the edge of the property, are already under construction.

A commercial building, which will include a Ramsey’s, will open in May 2023, Anderson said.

“We will have 26,000 square feet of retail space,” Anderson said.

Great Acres follows a similar model as Anderson’s Townley Park, near the intersection of Leestown and New Circle roads, which has apartments and single-family homes on the rim of the development and commercial, restaurant and other spaces toward the center and near the front entrance.

A wooden, two-story building that was once part of the former landscape operation on the property will remain but will be remodeled, Anderson said.

“It will be part of the clubhouse for residents,” he said.

The architecture will be Prairie style. Anderson is already working on designs for a sculpture that will be placed in the center of the property, likely of an animal.

Not far from Great Acres at the corner of Citation Boulevard and Georgetown Road is a long-vacant 38-acre plot.

In September, the Webb and Greer companies announced it had purchased the property and intend to put a $60 million shopping plaza on the lot.

Webb said those plans are still in the works. The group is working to find tenants for the parcel. That side of Lexington has long needed a full-service grocery store, Webb said.

“We are still hopeful that we will have a large grocery store, yet to be identified,” he said.

They are still working on a development plan for the property. It’s already zoned for a shopping center, he said.

Webb said it’s unlikely that substantial work on that property will begin in 2023.

Across the street, Fuqua Develoment is developing a property for a yet-to-be-identified grocery store.

Jeff Fuqua, of Fuqua Development, said construction will likely start in the spring with the store hopefully opening in 2024.

Fuqua said the tenant will likely be announced in the first three months of 2023. The parcel also includes 12, smaller lots that will soon have restaurants and retail.

New hospitals on Polo Club Boulevard

Work continues on one of Lexington’s biggest construction projects of the last few years — a new hospital campus for Baptist Health Lexington on Polo Club Boulevard near the Interstate 75 and Man O’ War Boulevard.

“We are pleased to be on track to open Baptist Health Hamburg in the spring of 2024,” said Ruth Ann Childers, a spokeswoman for Baptist Health Lexington.

The plans currently call for a multi-story hospital, an outpatient surgery center, medical offices and a cancer center.

The Hamburg site will be a new campus for Baptist Health Lexington, which will not move from its Nicholasville Road location. There is no space at that location to expand. The hospital hopes to add 600 new jobs at the new campus over the next four years.

The building hit a key milestone in July with the “topping off” ceremony, or the placing of the final beam, of its four-story ambulatory care center. Construction on the new complex began in November 2020.

Since July, the Congleton-Hacker constructed campus has seen other key milestones reached such as new lights, a traffic signal for the primary and secondary entrances on Polo Club, and new canopies for all entrances to the new complex, Childers said.

The hospital will receive a 20-year multimillion-dollar tax break from the city to add those 600 jobs. Baptist Health will get a rebate of 1.25% on local occupational taxes for each new job created in the first five years. It will receive a rebate of 1.15% for new jobs created from year six to 20. The total amount Baptist will receive will depend on how many new jobs it creates at Hamburg.

Baptist Health will not be the only new medical campus in that area in coming years.

In June, the University of Kentucky announced it had purchased property adjacent to the new Baptist Health Hamburg campus in the Hamburg area.

Plans for the medical campus include a new regional hospital facility, medical office building and other clinical facilities, with a focus on providing acute and outpatient care. The property, located at 2550 Winchester Road, will cost $20.3 million, according to UK.

The new facility will increase capacity for UK HealthCare, allowing some shorter-term patients to move from the Chandler Medical Center. That will in turn open up space for patients in need of longer-term care from Chandler, said Mark Newman, executive vice president for health affairs, at the time of the June announcement.

UK officials said they hope to have more information about the new campus sometime in 2023.

“UK is continuing to finalize agreements on the Hamburg project and will then begin the planning efforts,” said Kristi Willett, a spokeswoman for UK HealthCare.