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Rob Morris
Lexington
Lowell's is an automotive maintenance and repair shop located in Lexington, Kentucky. Lowell's is focused exclusively on Toyota, Lexus, and Scion vehicles.
Recent Activity
I think that the Lexington market might not bear rates which would make the business model work. According to LexPark, the highest current daily rates are about $12.50 and the highest monthly rates are around $100.
The Great CentrePointe Parking Garage Mystery
IMPORTANT: Following my initial post yesterday, I found new and different information on parking costs for underground garages. Please see important updates at the end of this post. Why does it cost twice as much as normal underground garages? Over the past 7 years, I have publicly challenged ma...
The Great CentrePointe Parking Garage Mystery
IMPORTANT: Following my initial post yesterday, I found new and different information on parking costs for underground garages. Please see important updates at the end of this post. Why does it cost twice as much as normal underground garages? Over the past 7 years, I have publicly challenged many aspects... Continue reading
Posted May 12, 2015 at CivilMechanics
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CentrePointe is Still in Trouble
CentrePointe, Version 8 Over the past couple of weeks, the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government and the developers of CentrePointe have traded barbs over the direction of the perpetually-troubled $180 million retail, office, residential, and hotel project. Citing a lack of work over the past 60 days, the city triggered a... Continue reading
Posted May 9, 2015 at CivilMechanics
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R: I am simply saying that Council made a very bad decision to support using KLC to issue bonds for CentrePointe.
I have attended Council meetings in the past, and have addressed Council with regard to CentrePointe and with regard to other local issues.
I have not found it worth my time and effort to attempt to cram all of the detail and nuance of a complex matter like CentrePointe into a miniscule 3-minute allotment, when most council members ignore public comment anyway.
Instead, I have chosen this forum, which allows me to set out my perspective on my terms.
How Council Voted to Defraud Investors to Benefit the Webbs
Call it "CentrePointe Fatigue". After six-and-a-half years of bulldozing, promises, broken promises, half-truths, and outright lies on the CentrePointe project, folks are just plain tired of talking and thinking about CentrePointe. They're tired of waiting. They just want something, anything to ...
A Simple Guide to Defending CentrePointe
With my post on the Urban County Council's questionable-but-unanimous decision to support a fraudulent new financing scheme for CentrePointe, I hoped to raise important questions about the wisdom of proceeding with public funding for the long-stalled project in downtown Lexington. To some degree, that effort succeeded. That long article is... Continue reading
Posted Sep 24, 2014 at CivilMechanics
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How Council Voted to Defraud Investors to Benefit the Webbs
Call it "CentrePointe Fatigue". After six-and-a-half years of bulldozing, promises, broken promises, half-truths, and outright lies on the CentrePointe project, folks are just plain tired of talking and thinking about CentrePointe. They're tired of waiting. They just want something, anything to be built on the long-empty block in the center... Continue reading
Posted Sep 22, 2014 at CivilMechanics
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Moving the Goalposts on CentrePointe
In 2009, an analyst hired by Kentucky's Cabinet for Economic Development evaluated the CentrePointe development project in downtown Lexington. The analyst looked at whether the Tax Increment Financing (TIF) that the developers proposed using made any sense. At the time, CentrePointe was slated to be a $298 million project, and... Continue reading
Posted Sep 16, 2014 at CivilMechanics
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Kentucky's Regressive Tax Reform
I was pleased to be asked to comment for today's story by Jack Brammer and Janet Patton for the Herald-Leader on the Governor's tax proposals. They did a great job accurately representing my views. This post helps elaborate on my perspective. Dubbed "Kentucky Competes", Governor Steve Beshear's tax proposal consists... Continue reading
Posted Feb 5, 2014 at CivilMechanics
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Anatomy of a Con
Imagine, for a moment, that you build houses. You're a competent - and pretty crafty - builder, so you earn a profit of 10% of the sales price on each house you build. You've found a cheap lot on the edge of town which is a decent prospect for a... Continue reading
Posted Mar 12, 2013 at CivilMechanics
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Five Years of Failure: Lessons from CentrePointe
Five years ago today, the Webb Companies announced CentrePointe, a then-$250 million downtown Lexington development effort which planned to produce 900 jobs and the city's tallest building on one block in the center of the city. Citing the urgency of the project, the developers moved quickly to demolish several neglected-but-historic... Continue reading
Posted Mar 4, 2013 at CivilMechanics
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How Mitt Romney Disqualified Himself
Mitt Romney has taken multiple-choice campaigning to dizzying postmodern heights, demonstrating a well-documented, disturbing adeptness for adopting any position which provides a momentary political advantage. But in last night's debate, he disqualified himself from the presidency. Rachel Maddow nailed the very human costs of Romney's strategic "issue position-switching": Visit NBCNews.com... Continue reading
Posted Oct 23, 2012 at CivilMechanics
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Mitt Built That...
"What's sauce for the goose is now sauce for the gander." Indeed: Continue reading
Posted Sep 20, 2012 at CivilMechanics
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Good question! We recommend changing the cabin filter every year / every 15,000 miles or so, depending on your driving conditions. Basically, the cabin filter should be changed whenever it gets dirty and starts impeding air flow inside of your vehicle.
Most cabin air filters need to be changed instead of simply cleaned. Washing or cleaning a cabin air filter doesn't fully remove many of the allergens and other microscopic particles caught in the filter.
Toyota Tip: "What's a cabin air filter?"
We recommend changing your car's cabin air filter about once a year. Many customers know about their car's engine air filter, but they aren't as familiar with the filter for their cabin. So when we recommend changing the cabin air filter, we're often asked "What - exactly - is a cabin air fil...
Mitt Romney's Impressive Word Gymnastics
In the past 48 hours, we've seen some truly epic logical contortions from Mitt Romney's Republican presidential campaign. Yesterday, hoping to slow his public opinion nosedive two weeks ahead of the Michigan primary, Mr. Romney attempted to defend his infamous 2008 "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" editorial with a second editorial... Continue reading
Posted Feb 15, 2012 at CivilMechanics
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The Austerity Drag
The U.S. economy added 243,000 jobs in January, far surpassing analysts' expectations of around 155,000 jobs for the month. As a result, the unemployment rate also unexpectedly ticked down to 8.3 percent for January. The private sector added 257,000 jobs in January, while public-sector employment dipped another 14,000. And that... Continue reading
Posted Feb 4, 2012 at CivilMechanics
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2012 and the Local Economy
I was privileged to be surveyed late last week by the Herald-Leader's Tom Eblen for today's column on the state of Lexington's economy for 2012. I don't envy Tom: distilling the often-disparate views of eight different business owners into 800 words or less must be tough. (As regular readers might... Continue reading
Posted Jan 23, 2012 at CivilMechanics
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The 1345
Mitch McConnellYesterday, despite having support from a majority of the Senate, the $60 billion Rebuild America Jobs Act was blocked from even being debated on the floor of the Senate by Kentucky's own Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul - along with every other Republican senator. The Act included $50 billion... Continue reading
Posted Nov 4, 2011 at CivilMechanics
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The American Idea
My wife and I are one-percenters. We have amassed a small fortune - built over some 20 years of climbing our respective corporate ladders, saving very aggressively, and making some favorable investments. We worked very hard to build our wealth. But we are also incredibly lucky. We were both winners... Continue reading
Posted Nov 1, 2011 at CivilMechanics
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Confessions of a Job Creator
I'm a job creator. And job creators are important. At least that's what we've been hearing from Republicans lately. House Speaker John Boehner cited "job creators" and "job creation" 26 times in a speech about the economy last week. And in that speech, the Speaker invoked us job creators to... Continue reading
Posted Sep 21, 2011 at CivilMechanics
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Introducing CivilMechanics
Since its inception three years ago, the Lowell's blog (blog.lowells.us) has been a strange beast. It has been an admixture of news about Lowell's, tips for car maintenance, thoughts about business and the economy, and assorted commentary on our community, on downtown, and on the city of Lexington. While this... Continue reading
Posted Sep 21, 2011 at CivilMechanics
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These are great questions, and I think that you should keep asking them.
I think it is up to folks like us to keep pushing for the kinds of change we want to see. (That's one reason that I'm so vocal here on the blog and elsewhere.)
If we don't, it is far too easy for leaders to slip back into the status quo.
The Trouble with Consultants
In the wake of the scandal surrounding Angelou Economics and their "recycled" economic development plan for Lexington, there have been a number of calls for developing a more homegrown economic development strategy. These include Tom Eblen's thoughts on local knowledge and leadership, John Cir...
Heh. Your "antifloridian" streak is showing.
I felt I learned far more from Creative Cities than I did from any of the various Angelou reports.
While keynoters got a lot of the Creative Cities buzz (and criticism), the breakout sessions featured people who were struggling with real urban development issues in a variety of challenging contexts. Some were successful, some were still fighting.
Most of those folks weren't consultants. They were extraordinary citizens trying to change their community for the better.
There was, indeed, a lot of consultant 'fluff' at Creative Cities; but for me, there were also substantive approaches we might be able to use to make Lexington better. I think Angelou lacked that substance.
The Trouble with Consultants
In the wake of the scandal surrounding Angelou Economics and their "recycled" economic development plan for Lexington, there have been a number of calls for developing a more homegrown economic development strategy. These include Tom Eblen's thoughts on local knowledge and leadership, John Cir...
Rob Morris has shared their blog Lowell's
Aug 4, 2010
This post is intended to help the community question the wisdom of issuing bonds for CentrePointe infrastructure.
With regard to TIF, there is a considerable difference between completely avoiding risk and simply deferring risk until later.
The CentrePointe Scam
We've long been critical of the economics of the proposed CentrePointe development just a few blocks away in downtown Lexington. One of the least understood portions of the project is the element known as Tax Increment Financing, or TIF. In essence, TIF allows cities and states to allocate fu...
Chris,
Thanks for disinviting me to the South Limestone street party. I always appreciate disrespect from public servants. At least (this time) you weren't posting while on my dime.
Sorry to disappoint you, but I will be there to support my friends who own and work in businesses along the construction zone. I have been an avid supporter of those businesses, including organizing lunchtime 'LexMobs' every day for the first six weeks of the South Lime closure.
It is all too easy to sit in your LFUCG office and criticize, Chris. But what have you really done to ameliorate the pain caused by the year-long closure?
I've never been opposed to the idea of improving Lexington's streetscapes; I just objected to the awful planning, execution, and overspending of this project.
Closing a major artery to downtown for a year - without providing an commuter-friendly alternative like converting South Upper to two-way before closing South Lime - was extraordinarily short-sighted. It hurt businesses throughout downtown. It destroyed a significant portion of Lexington's tax and employment base. It accounts for about one-third of the city's budget shortfall.
Do I hope South Lime succeeds and is beautiful? Absolutely.
Do I think the project could have been done better than it was? No doubt.
I know you and your Planning buddies dislike my criticisms of how poorly planning works in Lexington, but try to refrain from personal attacks and to remain on-topic in future comments.
Thanks,
Rob
Will Creative Cities Matter?
Lexington hosted the third installment of the Creative Cities Summit late last week (previous editions were in St. Petersburg in 2004 and Detroit in 2008), and the event was headlined by internationally-recognized experts in urban growth and vitality: Charles Landry, Rebecca Ryan, Richard Florid...
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