By Beverly Fortune And Linda Blackford from the Lexington Herald-LeaderThe World Equestrian Games have traditionally been held in European cities steeped in history and with vibrant downtown squares where people congregate. In Aachen, Germany, the Games were within walking distance of the cobble-stoned town square, fringed by cafés and shops and dominated by the Gothic City Hall. The venue in Jerez, Spain, was just 2 miles away from its town center, the city's heart, where people work, stroll, shop and dine in winding streets and broad open plazas. That's a far cry from downtown Lexington, which is just beginning to rebuild after being gutted by urban renewal more than 30 years ago. What, realistically, can be done in the next three years to beautify and energize downtown, enticing the more than 300,000 spectators to leave the Horse Park and spend money in the city? Lexington leaders say their list is long, including public art, murals, concerts, new sidewalks, new landscaping, and some old friends -- the decorated fiberglass sculptures from Horse Mania. The center of all these activities will be Phoenix Park and the new courthouse plaza, says Mary Wathen, Lexington's liaison to the World Equestrian Games. Organizers have talked about a second medal ceremony that could take place there. Aachen started the practice, holding the normal medal ceremony at the stadium and a second one downtown after competition had ended. It was a way both to lure spectators to the city and entertain residents who hadn't seen the actual Games. In addition, Wathen imagines hundreds of people gathered in the fall sunshine to eat their lunch in the courthouse plaza and watch the Games projected on the side of a downtown building or on a big TV screen, another innovation started by Aachen. "Everybody wants to be a part of it," Wathen said. "I think enthusiasm and anticipation on behalf of the community is intense." The arts community is making big plans for 2010. A downtown mural project involving artists, LexArts and the Urban County Government will brighten the exteriors of many buildings, said Jim Clark, president and CEO of LexArts. Details are still being worked out, Clark said. "Most of the walls we want are privately owned, so we have to secure permission from the owners," he said. LexArts hopes, by working with the city, property owners will see their participation as a civic effort. The details will be announced at a news conference in the fall, Clark said. The first murals are expected to show up in late spring. The mural project is just one of several public art projects planned. "Public art can go a long way toward beautifying and making urban space more interesting without costing a lot of money," Clark said. Aachen and Jerez both planned equine-themed art exhibits. Changing exhibitions of sculpture will be placed on Vine Street in a project called Art on the Vine. "We'll be doing it on Vine Street as a way to get people thinking about a linear park," Clark said. The first exhibition will be in 2008 "if not sooner," he said. "We have to develop community interest and a collective taste for public art," Clark said. Also, the city will have another Horse Mania, a repeat of the wildly popular project in 2000 when artists painted life-size fiberglass horse statues placed all around the city. The project will have its debut sometime around July 4, 2010, and will remain on display until after the World Equestrian Games, Clark said. Aachen also did a similar project, and many of the painted horses remain around the city. Sprucing up downtown Cleaning up downtown tops the list of what Harold Tate wants to see happen before 2010, and that takes little more than elbow grease. "At Victorian Square, when I come to work in the mornings, they are out there hosing the sidewalk, sweeping and picking up litter. Everybody downtown needs to start doing that." "We need to do it for community pride" whether the World Games are coming or not, said Tate, president and CEO of the Downtown Development Authority. He wants to "put the pressure on some of these property owners to take pride in terms of what they do." In the near future, Tate and Jack Kelly, CEO of the 2010 World Games Foundation, will walk around downtown to find places where special events, such as concerts, could be staged. "That can easily be done," Tate said, as a way to help energize downtown. Aachen also set up five stages around town with a variety of music shows that went on every night of the Games. Jerez organizers directed people down the "flamenco routes" in the old city, to tavernas that hold live flamenco performances, one of Jerez's most famous traditions. Since there will be shuttle service from the Kentucky Horse Park to downtown, "We need to determine where parking is going to occur," Tate said. Tate doesn't favor forcing retail downtown just for the games. "We need to take the retail we have and enhance it," he said. Victorian Square and the Lexington Center have retail shops, but they are hidden from view. "There is no indication on the exterior of the buildings of what is inside. You don't know what's in there. And that does hurt them," he said. Lexington's ordinance prohibiting large exterior signs could be part of the problem. Tate said the sign ordinance has been changed several times, and more tweaking is expected. Developer Phil Holoubek said the sign ordinance is "outdated, more than 30 years old and designed to sanitize downtown." Sidewalks, Vine Street Repairing the broken, uneven sidewalks downtown is high on many people's list, including Holoubek's. "It's not just new brick pavers and pretty paint, but redesigned to make them more pedestrian friendly." In June, a survey team started work at South Broadway and Vine to produce a high-definition, three-dimensional scan of 14 miles of downtown sidewalks. Another priority is cleaning up and beautifying Vine Street, viewed by many as a hot, dirty, unattractive corridor made even more pedestrian-unfriendly by four lanes of speeding traffic. Expediting plans for a linear park with a water feature was championed by U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler, D-Versailles, when he recently announced a $500,000 federal appropriation for downtown Lexington. Holoubek said the linear park, connecting Triangle Park to Thoroughbred Park, "may or may not" be completed by 2010. "but there's a chance that a two-block area can be finished," he said. From Tate's viewpoint, a lot is already happening downtown. A downtown marketing campaign is "what's needed next," Tate said. "Everybody keeps talking about injecting life into downtown, but it amazes me on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights now, it's packed downtown," he said. "It's occurring, but how do we get people who don't know what's going on downtown to know and participate?"