Future development hotspots...

[seicer]

Curious as to what your thoughts are for future urban development hotspots. Here are my current picks:

Ashland - The medical and commerical hub for northeastern Kentucky, with two malls, a very large hospital (now the largest employer), and a downtown revitalization project. During the early-1990's, many historical structures were demolished, unfortunately, but this process has stopped. It was fast becoming a parking-lot city.

Now, the old Sears Building is coming close to renovations into apartments and businesses; the old Bazaar Home Fashions shop is now the Pendeleton Art Center; Hotel Henry Clay is being renovated into nice apartments (mostly complete) with stores on the ground floor (incomplete); a parking lot is destined to become the new police HQ, and so on. Kopp's office supply store just went out of business (owner was getting too old and it was just time to close, from his words), and its already being renovated into a pottery studio, with the owner of it renovating the upper floor for an apartment.

Melody Mountain was just flattened to make way for a ... Wal-Mart, but on the opposite hill is the Providence Hill development, which is well underway and will include townhomes, offices, stores, and an 8-story condo.

The hospital is rapidly expanding, adding a new outpatient center, heart-vascular center, and plans are underway for new additions. Medical Center B was just completed, Medical Center A was just recently completed and expanded with 3 more floors. Parking structure 2 was just finished, and a new entrance with 5 floors was completed two years ago.

Your thoughts?

[Rural King]

I would think there could be alot of potential in Ashland city. From what you posted it sounds like it may well be on its way to becoming a hotspot, or at least an even larger regional center.

[Lexy]

I think Lexington is still a hotbed of growth. If only the city would come out of its shell and reveal itself to the world. The only thing holding Lex. back is Lex. itself (government included).

Louisville goes without saying.

Eastern KY. As long as Frankfort keeps feeling sorry for it, it will grow contrary to recent news reports about how horrible it is to live in.

Western Ky. Perhaps in another 10 years, it will grow. But only when Frankfort reverses its stand on the other half of the state....which will be a long time. Otherwise, it will continue to be at the very bottom of the feeding chain.

[Rural King]

Paducah is doing alot in the area of urban development. It has a nationally recognized artist relcoation/district program (covered on PBS a year or two ago), a revitalized downtown, has its urban core and surrounding neighborhoods in tact, a new downtown performing arts center for its highly rated orchestra, lots of high end shops and restaurants, newly refurbished office space in the US Bank Building for lease, the Quilting Museum, the River Murals, the potential of the Ohio River itself, etc. The city has worked hard on its downtown and seems to be moving towards a piont where it could even start luring at in the future more office/white collar type jobs to the CBD, and eventually younger residents (aside from artists) to live in the downtown area.

Paducah is interestingly way ahead of its peer Jackson (TN), who despite having tremdous economic growth is lagging way behind in its urban development not only downtown but overall compared to Paducah.

[LA_TN]

^ Also note that the 'area' around DT Paducah is not exatly the best neighborhood, but it does not seem to affect the growth occurring DT. That's highly unusual. Paducah's economic status would probably get a 'medium', but the efforts in DT would make one think otherwise. DT Paducah is not a true regional desitination yet, but there are serval venues that attract as RK mentioned above.

I heard a couple years ago that the Executive Inn was going to be revamped after it was sold, anybody know a status on this?

[Nashnoize]

I saw on some news web site, about a month ago, where they are refurbishing several more of the old homes and buildings around downtown. They will be turned into lofts for the artist relocation program that Rural mentioned. I believe that Paducah is slowing cleaning up around the downtown area because the tourist count continues to grow. They would perfer that the city as a whole look good for the visitors. And, yes, that would mean cleaning up the shady areas that begin just past the Executive Inn. As far as the Executive Inn goes, I don't believe they changed or revamped much to it. As far as I have heard, the big E is still the same. I'll ask around and see if anyone knows anything different?

[Rural King]

^ Its still the same for the most part, its very well maintained inside and out, but I don't think it has been modernized much on the exterior at all.

I don't really notice any issues with safety or downtown Paducah not being seen as clean. I always have found it to be way cleaner and safer feeling than many of its peer cities like Jackson, TN, which really does have those issues with its downtown efforts. There are areas with-in a short distance on west and east side of downtown that are not all that great, but there is IMO very little bleed over into the more affluent areas of downtown and it more affluent housing streets that surround it that stretch south of the CBD.

Economically Paducah is very much in the middle, and its a very accurate statement IMO that downtown, and the commercial areas of town out by I-24, give the city an image of being much more prospering and growing overall than it actually is.

[Vertigo]

Two words....Bowling Green

It's located on a VERY busy Interstate, is home to a fairly large university, and is located relatively close to a major metropolitan area (Nashville). Throw in the new airport transpark and there is the potential for some major growth for this community in the decades to come.

That being said, I don't think this is necessarily good news for the area. While the economic benifit is obviously a plus I can speak from experience that the area is already suffering from poor planning and added congestion. It's staggering how many new traffic lights have been erected in that city over the past 10 years. The sprawl in Bowling Green is embarrassing for a town its size and this is certain to become worse in the coming years.