By MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
for Glasgow News 1
The idea of an agricultural exposition center in Cave City edged a little closer toward the first concrete steps on Friday, as a group of about a dozen representatives from local, state and federal governments and the Cave City Tourist and Convention Commission gathered to discuss it.
Barren County Judge-Executive Jamie Bewley Byrd reiterated for them some of the information she had provided to the Barren County Fiscal Court Building and Property Committee earlier this week, with two of the three members of that committee and another magistrate being among those who attended Friday, about the vision that began nearly two decades ago for this facility. Tentative schematic designs for a complex that would include the main ag center building; horse and cattle barns and paddock buildings; and a horse barn wash bay and restrooms on land adjacent to the Cave Area Conference Center were drafted in 2004 but the project did not come to fruition.
Cave City Mayor Dwayne Hatcher said they were in the office, when Byrd started her term in January, Hatcher approached her about the possibility of pursuing the dream once more, and they and others have since had numerous private conversations to build interest in the project.
A primary focus of this new plan is for it to have regional appeal, so leaders from Hart and Edmonson counties were invited to the table as well, and Edmonson County Judge-Executive Scott Lindsey and Horse Cave Mayor Randall Curry attended, with Curry said he couldn’t speak specifically for his judge-executive but he believed he was at least generally supportive of the idea, as the majority of Hart County is still rural.
In addition, Barren County’s state representative, Steve Riley, and field representatives for U.S. Rep. Brett Guthrie and U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell were on hand, and rounding out the group were the two co-directors and two of the board members for the Cave City tourism commission.
For a little more than half an hour, possibilities for how such a facility could be used – livestock shows and auctions, equine events, concerts, fairs, rodeos, youth events, and more – were tossed about along with some dollar-figure estimates in the 10s of millions. The discussion also centered a lot on how the timing is prime to take advantage of Cave City’s positioning along the Interstate 65 corridor between Elizabethtown, where a massive electric-vehicle battery plant is being constructed, and Bowling Green, where Riley said things that are widely known and not yet publicly known are “moving and shaking,” and how state and federal government programs favor regional approaches to projects more than those of individual counties or communities.
“I think it would really help all our communities and counties a lot,” the state representative said.
For starters, though, Byrd had solicited a proposal from Sherman Carter Barnhart Archictects, which she said was recommended by a local engineer, to work through a master-plan process and production of conceptual plans with visual renderings, along with a “comprehensive project budget with anticipated construction costs and soft costs identified.” Their charge would be $35,000 for these services.
So then the big question came – who could and would contribute to getting that much done and how much?
Of course, none of the local tourism nor governmental leaders could commit to any funding, let alone exact figures, until they’d brought it before their respective governing bodies, but the agreed next step is for each of them to do that.
Byrd asked about whether any federal dollars were out there that could help, and Gilbert Mischel and Kylie Foushee, field representatives for McConnell and Guthrie, respectively, said they didn’t know of any currently available, but Foushee continued that funding programs and their eligibility guidelines sometimes change from year to year, so by the time this project is at the point at which it would be ready to request the dollars, new opportunities could be possible.
“One thing that is necessary is to have this plan complete. … You just have to be ready to go,” she said.
Byrd agreed they have to be prepared.
Riley added that state and federal government representatives are going to want to see a good-faith effort from the local entities with regard to funding before they’ll want to invest in a project.
Byrd has also said that some private donors are interested in contributing, so she would expect this to be a public-private partnership arrangement.
A tentative date was set for the next meeting, but then discussions after adjournment indicated that may not give everyone enough time to have met with their individual entities.
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