Project Celebrated At Chamber Event
After nearly a year of work – and two-and-a-half years from the first public presentation of the project – the public square next to the old courthouse on South Main Street has been officially opened to the public, and was formally dedicated with a ribbon cutting ceremony during a chamber of commerce’s Business After Hours event last Thursday.
“What’s satisfying to me is I’m seeing what I thought I would see,” project manager Jesse Lyons told The News-Gazette after the ceremony. “The other thing that is satisfying is that others who haven’t been able to see the vision now see it and are excited about it as well. And the most satisfying thing is to see people using it during the day like we hoped they would.”
Work on the Courthouse Square project began in earnest last July, starting with the moving of the veterans’ memorial to position it in front of the courthouse.
That was completed in time for the Veterans’ Day parade last November, and work on the rest of the square began shortly after that.
The majority of the elements of the project have been completed, with a few small things still left to finish. Those include installation of three informational signs around the square, installation of a plaque thanking the community partners who contributed to the project financially, and installation of lighting fixtures in the square.
Lyons was one of several people who spoke during the dedication ceremony, many of whom thanked the numerous people involved in the project, from the workers who helped bring the vision to life to the community partners who contributed financially to the project.
“Everyone connected to this project either gave in, gave way, gave money or gave ground – literally – for us to now give this space back to the community,” he said.
Rebecca Logan, who served as the chair of the design committee for the Main Street Lexington project, also acknowledged the businesses around the square for enduring challenges while work was being done on the square, from construction noise to limited access to their buildings to impacts on parking.
“We appreciate all your patience and flexibility during this past year to allow this project to become a reality,” she said.
Arthur Bartenstein, the local landscape architect who designed the renovation of the square, addressed the history of the Lexington courthouse and highlighted the use of the square for Court Day – the monthly gathering that occurred around regularly scheduled court business that provided people with an opportunity for socializing, hearing news, and conducting trade.
“Basically all needs fulfilled by today’s internet, aside from meaningful, real human contact,” he said. “With today’s smart phones, Court Square’s handy new bench chargers, and both urban court and intimate garden spaces, we’ll have – and we’ll enjoy – the best of all worlds.”
That unifying nature of the square was something that multiple speakers, including Logan and Lyons, highlighted about the project.
“I recognize that there are challenges and there are other projects and issues in this community that are bigger than this one,” Lyons said. “But at the risk of sounding trite, there are more things that unite us – not the country always, but us as a community – than divide us. There is more common ground than we sometimes realize. We started this project with the goal of instilling pride in a special place. What we ended with was something even greater: true public-private partnership, [with] dozens of stakeholders coming together to create something lasting.”
While the most substantial changes to the square have been completed, Bartenstien noted that the look of the square will continue to change.
“It’s a landscape that’s never finished,” he told The News-Gazette after the ceremony. “It’s progressing. The plants are going to fill in, the trees are going to grow … I think it’s going to improve with age.”
