Baker Hunt project rejected by Covington’s Urban Design Review Board; appeal to city council is option

By Greg Paeth
NKyTribune Reporter

One of Covington’s most revered cultural institutions has run into a stone wall with the city’s Urban Design Review Board.

At issue is a plan to build a glass-walled classroom as part of a $3 million renovation of the Baker Hunt Art and Cultural Center campus at 604-632 Greenup St.

The design board voted 5-1 Monday to reject the plan to build a 1,500-square-foot glass box classroom that would front Greenup Street between the two most prominent and historic buildings on the campus. The vote came after nearly three hours of discussion by board members and comments from 27 people who wanted to answer questions or offer opinions about the project.

The classroom would have been positioned at an angle to the street between the original Baker Hunt Mansion, which dates to about 1840, and the Scudder home, which was built about 1880.

The proposal was presented by architect Chad Burke of GBBN Architects, a Cincinnati firm that had been hired by the Baker Hunt board. Board members Chris Meyer, Charles King, Sue Sampson, Will Yokel and Jim Guthrie voted against the plan while Rebecca Weber voted in favor of it.

The city staff, headed by preservation and planning specialist Emily Ahouse, had recommended approval of the building plan if the architects agreed to two conditions that urged them to minimize the building’s “visual impact” along Greenup Street.

The vote to shoot down the plan came after Yokel’s motion to approve the plan with some major revisions was defeated 4-2 with Yokel and Weber casting the only affirmative votes. Last month the board voted to table the renovation project until Monday’s meeting, when the board had hoped to receive further information from the architects.

In a separate decision, the board voted 4-2 (King-Sampson) to approve a plan that calls for a major renovation of the grounds and garden, including a proposal to slice into the long and well-crafted stone wall on Greenup Street to provide a pathway into the property that would meet standards spelled out in the Americans with Disabilities Act.

It’s doubtful, however, that the grounds and garden work will proceed unless Baker Hunt gets an OK to build the additional classroom. Assistant city solicitor Donald Warner said the center has three options: appeal the ruling to the Covington City Commission, which could override the review board ruling; submit new plans to the design board, or drop the project.

As he had said last month, Baker Hunt executive director Ray Kingsbury emphasized that the center needs to build the new classroom and undertake the work on the garden and grounds in order to serve its art students and continue to be “…sustainable, active and relevant.”

Last month the design board approved without much debate other elements of the plan that call for restoration work and upgrades for the four buildings on the campus: the Baker Hunt mansion, the Scudder house, the studio building and the auditorium.

“Margaretta Baker Hunt didn’t want this to become a mausoleum,” Kingsbury said Monday, referring to the wealthy woman who created the Baker Hunt Foundation in 1922.

At the June design board meeting, Kingsbury stood out as the only person who took the microphone to speak in favor of the glass-walled classroom and cutting into the stone wall that runs between Sixth and Seventh Street on the east side of Greenup. Those elements of the plan were criticized by 14 others, some of whom made it clear it that they were long-time supporters of Baker Hunt, which is located in the city’s prestigious Licking-Riverside neighborhood.

There was far more balance at the microphone Monday. Critics of the plan barely outnumbered supporters by a 14-13 margin, although three of those supporters included Kingsbury and two of his staff members.

One of the critics was Barry Coates, an architect who works for the Covington firm Hub & Weber, and lives across the street from Baker Hunt. Coates said he had problems with the glass classroom because it fails to “respect” nearby historic buildings. He said if the design board approved the building, “You might as well say, ‘Anything goes – anywhere you want to put it’.”

Many of the people who spoke at the meeting live in the Licking Riverside neighborhood. One of them was Jeanne Schroer, president and CEO of the Catalytic Fund, which makes investments in Northern Kentucky’s urban core.

“I very much respect the work of my friends and my neighbors who advocate for historic preservation with Progress for Preservation. I too, through my professional work, work very hard to find ways to adaptively re-use our historically significant building stock here in Covington,” Shorer said. “I believe the Baker Hunt addition is a special case in that it does not involve demolishing a historic structure. I think it’s a bold architectural statement in the neighborhood and only enhances the value of my property.”

Another project that may have stirred some controversy was withdrawn by Covington businessman David A. Meyer of Designs Direct, which occupies the building at 605 Philadelphia St. that had once housed the offices for the MainStrasse Village Association. Meyer had proposed that he would acquire and tear down buildings at 612, 614, 616 and 618 Philadelphia.

Ahouse said she was not given specific reason why Meyer wanted the demolition plans pulled from Monday’s agenda.