The Greater Owensboro Economic Development Corporation is looking into building an 184-acre industrial park on W. Parrish Avenue, and officials are looking at the best use for the land.
The land would cost roughly $423,500, but if the EDC is selected for the Kentucky Product Development Initiative, that price will only require a 50% match split between the city and the county.
“The city and the county will share half of that match, and the state will match the other,” GOEDC President/CEO Claude Bacon said.
The KPDI is a statewide effort to support upgrades at industrial sites throughout the commonwealth and position the state for continued economic growth. Through a collaboration between the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development and the Kentucky Association for Economic Development (KAED), $100 million in state funding will go toward upgrades of sites and buildings across the state.
The 4000 W. Parrish Ave property sits at 184 acres, and Bacon and Brad Davis, GOEDC Vice President of Business Development, said they are still in the analysis phase.
Davis said they are currently working on getting documentation about the land to provide the state to get the final approval from the state. In the meantime, they are completing environmental studies and plan to minimize the threat of the floodplain as much as possible.
“The additional information gained from the SITE Intelligence Report and some renderings and site uses will help us better market the property as new interest comes in through our office or through the state,” Bacon said.
The property had been something they were looking at developing for years, predating both Davis and Bacon they said. Under the prior leadership, they said the EDC was looking for properties over 100 acres to create some development not in the floodplain.
There is a lot of acreage in the county that’s in floodplain, and plots that size that are flat, they wouldn’t take a lot to make developable are kind of few and far between,” Davis said.
According to both Davis and Bacon, there is no current plan for what could be there after the land is developed. But Bacon said this mission is to remain open for any opportunities.
“That’s our plan here, and part of our mission here is to be ready when those requests or proposals come in because the other surrounding states and even those that we are competitive with amongst our own state also have their own sites that are prepared and ready. So we need to have ours as far down the road as we can have so we can market them in the best way possible so the company that’s looking to relocate here can get to speed to market as fast as they can,” Bacon said.
With the analysis, they are looking at what a potential layout could look like for many options. This could be what it would look like for one business to come in or what multiple would look like.
“We’re going to kind of look at is how could you potentially lay out buildings. We could potentially have one prospect come in and want the entire site, but that’s not as likely as there being two or three different ways to use it,” Davis said.
Bacon said they would be willing to divide the property by need for some of the businesses — depending on how the analysis returns.
The land is being marketed at the local and state levels, under the name Massie Property, to businesses as a potential location.
Bacon also noted that the land is in the county lines, and any action to annex it to the City would have to be made by the city or the business at the time.
