One of two speculative buildings currently under construction in South Cooper Industrial Park. These buildings aim to attract businesses and manufacturors to Barren County by providing a ready to use facility for prospective organizations looking for a place to locate. Photo courtesy of the Barren County Economic Authority's social media page.
By MICHAEL CRIMMINS
Glasgow News 1
The Barren County Economic Authority gave the green light to begin the next phase of the South Cooper Industrial Park during a recent special-called meeting.
Though Maureen Carpenter, president and CEO of the authority, was authorized to request bids for the grading, fee schedule and surveying of the next two lots in the industrial park, the buildup began the week prior with a special-called meeting that approved “service extension/construction agreement” made between the authority and the Glasgow Water Company on Feb. 16.
In the contract the water company agreed to the “construction of water and sewer main facilities and necessary appurtenances” at the 153.18 acres plot of land along New Bowling Green Road for the estimated cost of $815,000. According to the contract, that is money that will be paid to the water company based on “unit prices” from their contractor, Basham Construction and Rental Co.
“Glasgow Water Company is extending the sewer into the industrial park,” Carpenter said. “We pay for it, we receive grant funds to pay for the extension of the sewer. The contract is just saying that they’ve contracted with [Basham] to complete the project.”
Gary Hartell, one of the members of the board of directors, initially expressed concerns over the contract as it only included an “estimated cost” and did not lay out a time frame in which the work would be completed. In the end his concerns were soothed by Attorney Rich Alexander and he then seconded the motion of approval.
Four days later came the authority’s property committee, chaired by Larry Glass, to review the progress of Chapatcha Park in Cave City and South Cooper. No action was taken on Chapatcha Park as it was purely informational.
During the committee meeting Carpenter went into the authority’s finances and explained that some of their funds were set to begin incurring federal interest and she, therefore, advised they use those funds before the deadlines, which is “the big chunk of money,” which is the County Industrial Bond, set to expire in August.
“The money doesn’t go away but any interest it earns we have to start paying to the federal government and we don’t want that to happen because we want to utilize all the money we can,” Carpenter said. “Basically we’re looking at $4.4 million that we need to spend by the summer.”
Since the speculative building in lot 1, which is the 100,00 sq. ft. lot near New Bowling Green Road, has steel being erected and the adjacent lot, lot 7, was ready for another speculative building, and with the time constraints of the funds, Carpenter recommended to the committee to enter the next phase.
“Now that we’re getting all the infrastructure there we’re ready to go that next step,” Carpenter said. “We want to have that continuum of development. We’re going to have buildings; now we need pads and vacant land, so the first part will be to move to the next part of this project.”
“We’d like to propose getting Lot Two and Six ready,” she added.
In addition to those lots she also recommended extending the internal road by 0.4 miles.
The committee’s recommendations were formally approved at the Feb. 23 special-called Barren County Economic Authority meeting where the members “authorize acquiring quotes for engineering services” and authorized an extension agreement with Atmos Energy that will extend the gas lines an additional 4,300 feet into the industrial park.
All-in-all, Carpenter said she was confident the authority had the funds to complete this phase and she hoped to complete this by the end of August.
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