For years, leaders of UK’s Christian Student Fellowship have dreamed of expanding their building to accommodate their ministry’s growth and the growth of their mission — to minister to UK’s community of more than 30,000 students.

On Friday, a student-packed meeting of the Board of Adjustment under the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government brought students one step closer to an expansion with the approval of CSF’s application to expand its building at its current location and to build a parking lot on Columbia Avenue.

The building plan proposed at the meeting outlined five levels of space for students and CSF staff to utilize for meetings, services and events, including a basketball court in the basement and main area for meeting on the second level.

CSF has three years to initiate construction of the new building and parking lot, and five years after that to complete the project.

While more that 20 current and former students attended the meeting to support CSF’s application, some members of the community contested the construction of the parking lot on Columbia Avenue, including Lexington’s 3rd District Councilman Jake Gibbs.

“It’s hard for me to understand how going from four houses and grassy lots … to 88 parking spots is not changing the character of the area,” Gibbs said in reference to one of the clauses of the council’s staff report on the application.

Gibbs said that building the parking lot in this area would reducing housing that could be utilized by students and staff that need closer access to campus.

In addition, Gibbs said that the city is likely to close Rose Street to traffic, which could divert drivers to Columbia Avenue and increase the already heavy traffic in the area of Woodland and Columbia Avenues.

With the coming and going of cars in the lot, as many as 88 at a time not including the expected drop offs at the CSF building, Gibbs said the area could become heavily congested.

Robin Michler, president of the Aylesford Place Neighborhood Association, opposed the parking lot portion of the application for changes in the variance requiring it be 15 feet from the street’s edge instead of 30 feet. 

While the variance gives more space for the lot, it could reduce space be used for landscape and pedestrian walkways.

CSF’s representative and Lexington zoning law attorney Richard Murphy said while the architecture firm for the project, EOP Architects, was striving to preserve some of the trees on the lot, its construction will come at the loss of canopy and green landscape in the area.

Despite some opposition, neighboring occupants and members of UK and Lexington’s communities, such as UK Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart, wrote letters of support for the application.   

Another council member of Fayette County, Amanda Bledsoe, supported CSF’s application and said the expansion was necessary to adjust for UK’s expanding student population.

Former UK basketball player and CSF staff member Jarrod Polson agreed that an expansion was necessary, and said that CSF was more important to him than UK basketball.

When the board approved the application, the meeting room erupted in applause, and though CSF is still fundraising and finalizing plans, they are one step closer to completing a dream years in the making.