State to pay $500K toward road expansion in Bowling Green’s Kentucky Transpark

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – Kentucky state government awarded $500,000 to Bowling Green and Warren County for a new road which will provide access to a newer business and to a nearly 300-acre expansion of the Kentucky Transpark.

Governor Andy Beshear announced Monday afternoon that the Kentucky Transpark expansion will receive the money from state funds to boost economic development in Bowling Green.

Coming to the Kentucky Transpark expansion, funded partially by the city, county, and state, is a new road called Prosperity Drive.

This new road will allow for economic expansion in the Transpark allowing new businesses to build and current businesses to grow and expand, according to Ron Bunch, the president and CEO of the Bowling Green Chamber of Commerce.

“We’ve now developed out the first phase of the park, so we had to shift to the second phase of the park by adding additional acreage and so now you’ve got an expansion to the Transpark,” said Bunch.

This new road, Prosperity Drive, will connect the currently occupied 84 acres to the additional acres for expansion.

“This investment in a road is investment in preparing to do economic development so in the absence of that, you are not prepared to be successful so I think it’s great that team Kentucky sees that value even in a pandemic in investing in preparing for future economic development. It’ll help us recover from the pandemic. It’ll help us keep driving the economy forward and so I think it is a very strategic and thoughtful investment,” said Bunch.

More than an estimated 1,000 new jobs will be created as a result of the road addition and continued expansion of the Transpark, based on a growth track of jobs per acre.

“When a company creates a job that is a manufacturer in the Transpark it creates another 2.5 or supports another 2.5 jobs in our economy and so this 300 acres and half million dollars toward this road will position us to continue to be successful,” said Bunch.

The road is expected to cost around or under $2 million, with the state contributing $500,000 toward the project.

The project will soon be contracted out and likely will begin in the next month or two.

The road is expected to be complete within about six to eight months after construction begins.