Gresham Smith Selected to Master Plan 200-Acre Research Farm

4月 8, 2021

Gresham Smith is proud to announce that the firm has been selected by Lexington-Fayette Urban County Industrial Authority to create a master plan for the City of Lexington’s 200-acre Coldstream site, which is home to the University of Kentucky’s Coldstream Dairy Research Farm and was given to the City during a historic land swap. The plan will identify site development opportunities for an industrial or business park, focusing on attracting new businesses and creating jobs, preserving and enhancing the surrounding environment, integrating public open space, and providing connectivity to local roadways, trails and greenways.

“Given our team’s wide range of design, planning and infrastructure experience, we understand how to take a master plan from vision to reality,” said Louis Johnson, PLA, ASLA, senior landscape architect at Gresham Smith. “Gresham Smith is excited to develop a flexible, feasible roadmap for the Coldstream site and we look forward to the ways it will help spur economic development and improve quality of life for the surrounding community.”

In the initial phase of the five-month process, the Gresham Smith team will set a strong foundation by investigating the site’s existing conditions, challenges and opportunities. Given the site’s location within the Cane Run Watershed and Royal Spring Aquifer, the project team will explore ways to protect and enhance the natural ecosystem on the site while also leveraging the natural features into funding and placemaking opportunities. Additionally, the team will spend time considering the impacts on the overall roadway system due the access provided by I-75 and I-64 by way of Newtown Pike and Georgetown Road, as well as how a connection to the Legacy Trail can provide unprecedented multimodal access to jobs at the site while also serving as a placemaking element.

The project team will then put pen to paper, developing early infrastructure concepts before gathering feedback from community stakeholders and residents from the adjacent Coventry and Kearney neighborhoods. Using an online portal, community meetings, interactive surveys, and direct text lines, Gresham Smith will gather input on the project elements that are most pertinent to the community, such as traffic and roadway safety, access and circulation, visual impacts and land uses. Once feedback has been integrated into the development strategy, the project team will create an implementation plan that outlines strategic financing options, zoning timelines, phasing plans and permitting steps to move the infrastructure project forward.

In addition to Gresham Smith’s in-house experts, Commonwealth Economics, Third Rock Consultants, LLC, Cultural Resource Analysts, Inc., and Stoll Keenon Ogden, PLLC are also part of the project team.