Council OKs bond issuance to help new employer come to Glasgow

By MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
for Glasgow News 1
The Glasgow Common Council approved the city’s participating with the issuance of up to $15 million in taxable industrial building revenue bonds on behalf of a company that plans to occupy the last available space in Highland Glen Industrial Park off New Bowling Green Road just west of Veterans Outer Loop.
It is anticipated, though, that the amount needed will be closer to $6 million, said City Attorney Rich Alexander, who advised the council of some general information before reading a summary of the resolution that was unanimously approved with all council members present.
Little was said about the company, named Sharp Carts, itself at the meeting. Its website states, “Sharp Carts specializes in providing shopping carts and related products to retailers across the USA.”
The item had not been on the agenda provided in advance, but rather was added at the beginning of Monday’s regular council meeting at the request of Councilman Terry Bunnell, who is the council’s representative on the BCEA board of directors. Mayor Henry Royse said they didn’t have confirmation the project was at that point until Friday, and the agenda had been distributed on Thursday.
Maureen Carpenter, executive director of the Barren County Economic Authority, who had already been on the agenda to provide a general report and update to the council on local industrial and economic authority activities, told the council that BCEA had actually been working with Sharp Carts as a prospective addition to the area since January.
Tax incentives were requested in March from the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority, Carpenter said, and the bond issuance was contingent on that entity’s final approval, which came Friday, Royse said after the meeting.
Carpenter said they were getting ready to close on the property, which contains a speculative building of 100,000 square feet, on Friday, so they needed to know this step was complete before that could happen.
Smart Carts is expected to create 97 new jobs and make a capital investment of $13 million, including the property purchase and equipment.
The average wage is about $17 per hour, she said, and the value of the payments that will be made in lieu of taxes is about $255 million over a 10-year period.
Alexander said this bond issuance does not put the city on the hook to make payments if the company does not, it does not increase taxes to residents and it does not affect the city’s own bonding capacity. The city essentially serves as a conduit for the financing; the company would essentially sign over the property to the city, which would then lease it to the company for the payments on the bond debt in lieu of taxes. When that debt is paid, the property returns to the company, Alexander said.
Earlier in her report, Carpenter recapped a few things that have been reported by news media recently, provided some statistics about industrial expansions and recruitment, and workforce development initiatives, including programs to help get people who have been out of the workforce for at least two years back into jobs and to help identify barriers to going back to work – like child care and transportation – and working toward solutions on those fronts to remove the obstacles.
She said existing companies here have added 605 new jobs and made more than $135 million in capital investments with expansions since 2020.
On the recruitment aspect, she said they have a “lead list” of more than 450 companies and more than 150 consultants to which BCEA has sent information about opportunities here, and it has responded to 90 requests for proposals from companies looking for locations. She said it the authority announced 256 new jobs and $32.49 million in capital investments.
In other business, the council unanimously approved the reappointment of Rossie Kingery to the Glasgow ethics board, and Royse announced a few upcoming items, including a ribbon cutting for the Glasgow Police Department’s new maintenance garage/training facility building at Pin Oak Lane next to the headquarters building plus the city’s contribution to the Barren County Quasquibicentennial celebration, which is a pancake breakfast in front of City Hall from 7 to 10 a.m. Sept. 9.