The Webb Companies issued a statement Wednesday morning saying they would continue the CentrePointe project on their own.

The Webb Comanies made the announcement late Wednesday morning as an excavator dug up rocks in a corner of the pit at Limestone and Main Street.

A six-page letter titled "Statement to the Public" said owners had remained silent while a third party developer took over the project and tried to work out a plan with the city. Now that the developer pulled out, the statement said the Webb Companies would move forward on their own.

The letter was stern.

"For the last several months, the owners of the Centrepointe Project have patiently remained silent while speculation about the project became almost every day fodder in the press and social media. Much of the information disseminated in both was inaccurate and the events leading up to the now abandoned efforts by the Collins Investment Group were mischaracterized," the statement said.

It also dismissed the notion that the property would be restored to the grassy lawn that sat downtown before excavation.

"This site is still privately owned and it is not for sale. The site will not be returned to a fenced paddock. It will not have a park or an amphitheater that will neither create jobs nor generate taxes for the City of Lexington. We intend to move forward with our original plan of the multi‐use project that we previously presented, modified at the City’s request, and which the City approved," it said.

The statement said private investors have a hard time building downtown. It said the City of Lexington went back on an agreement to grant Tax Increment Financing bonds. It said the City had agreed in 2008 to grant the bonds, but in May 2014, when the company said it was ready to proceed with construction, refused to.

"Because of this unfortunate “about face” breach by the City at that critical moment, the project was stalled while our consultants looked for a new party to issue the TIF bonds. That effort proved to be untimely in that as a direct result of the City’s failure to comply with its agreement to issue the bonds and the delay caused by that failure, we were officially notified shortly thereafter that the two major anchor tenant prospects that would have occupied most of our office building could no longer wait for the issuance of the bonds and that they were making other arrangements to meet their space needs," the statement said.

The letter also took issue with the "restoration agreement" - the part of the contract requiring that required the site to be filled in if specified work was not completed.

"Why would anyone really ever consider filling in a project that has reached the stage at which it sits and already involves, to date, the expenditure of $28.0 million of private money?" it asked.

The statement also said the city had helped other projects but had not given CentrePointe the same assistance.

"The bottom line is that we have waited patiently, listened carefully, and hoped that we could get the same cooperation and assistance that the City has given to others, but it never came. As a result, we have now decided it is best to move forward with this project on our own, just as we originally planned, and to seek justice later," it said.

Susan Straub, a spokesperson for Lexington Mayor Jim Gray said, “If real progress is occurring, then it would represent a major turn of events. Hopefully this isn’t more of the same that we have experienced for eight years. Our responsibility is to continue to protect taxpayer dollars,"

Businesses near the CentrePointe site are watching closely. Liza Betz' Failte Irish Shop sits just across Upper Street from CentrePointe.

"I won't believe it 'til I see it, really, at this stage, but something has to happen. We can't be sitting with a hole forever, so something has to happen and if is the beginning of something happening, great! I am 100% behind everybody and anybody who does it," Betz said.