Lexington rejects bids for new city government center. Mayor says search is not over

A decades-long search to move Lexington city government operations to a new location will continue.

On Tuesday, the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council voted unanimously to reject bids for a public-private partnership for a new city government center.

Mayor Linda Gorton said the city received two bids but one was rejected for not meeting the specifications of the bid requirements. The second bid was rejected. The bid was for either a new or a renovated building.

The names of the bidders and the proposals were not released Tuesday.

“The council agreed that this particular proposal would not ultimately be in the best interest of the government,” Gorton said.

The vote came after the council met behind closed doors in executive session for more than an hour at the end of Tuesday’s council work session. Council is allowed to go behind closed doors for limited reasons, including discussing real estate transactions.

Gorton said her staff would return to the council in the next few months with possible proposals and said the search for an affordable solution for a new city government center was not over.

“We are going to look at other possibilities and return to the council,” Gorton said after Tuesday’s work session. “We are hopeful. We are optimistic. We are all kind of disappointed that the (request for proposals) didn’t work but we are hopeful.”

Vice Mayor Dan Wu said ultimately the bid was rejected because it was not in the city’s best interest to pursue the bid.

Wu said the city still has options, including renovating some of its current buildings or finding a new building. The bids were received in February. A request for proposals committee, which included Wu and other city officials, went back and forth with the bidders to get more information.

“It was not just cost,” but cost was part of the reason why the bid was rejected, Wu said.

Wu said the options include a brand new building to renovating the current buildings. In addition to the former Lafayette Hotel building, the main city government building on Main Street, the city has other downtown buildings including the Phoenix building on Vine Street.

The city has tried for decades to find a new city government center dating back to Mayor Pam Miller in the late 1990s.

In 2018, the city considered leasing the former Lexington Herald-Leader building on Midland Avenue through a private-public partnership. However, that deal was ultimately nixed.

Other options the city has pursued included buying the Central Library building or putting a new government center at Phoenix Park. At one point there was a proposal to put a new city government center at what is now City Center.