By Mark Hansel
NKyTribune managing editor
The monthly Covington Business Council Luncheon at the Madison Event Center Thursday had a decidedly upbeat tone.
Jack Moreland, president of Southbank Partners, provided an update on the organization’s Imagination 2020 initiative.
Southbank Partners, Inc. is a community and economic development organization that coordinates activity with the cities that lie along Northern Kentucky’s bank of the Ohio River. Partner cities include Fort Thomas, Covington, Newport, Dayton, Bellevue and Ludlow.
“When I talk about Southbank Partners, most of you, or an awful lot of you folks are the Southbank Partners,” Moreland said.
Imagination 2020 is the organization’s economic development action plan for Southbank’s partner cities along the riverfront.
“Over the last three years, Southbank has been involved in, or written $21 million worth of grants for the cities that we serve,” Moreland said. “I would like to take an awful lot of the credit for that, but the truth is that I’m only eye candy.”
Moreland said the recognition in obtaining those funds goes largely to State Rep. Dennis Keene, D-Wilder, who is a part-time economic development consultant for the organization, and Bob Yoder, who does much of the grant writing.
Yoder was recently named Main Street Manager for the City of Dayton.
Moreland also credits Southbank’s partners, including the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments (OKI), the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, meet NKY, St. Elizabeth Healthcare and Duke Energy for Southbank’s progress.
Southbank doesn’t work directly for the cities in its network, but advocates on their behalf.
“We come up with money to do projects,” Moreland said.
Riverfront Commons is Southbank’s signature project. It is an 11.5 mile walk/run/bike trail that will extend from Ludlow to Fort Thomas.
About $6 million was spent on Riverfront Commons projects and this year Moreland hopes about $15 million will be invested in new trails and construction in five cities this year.
“All of our cities are excited about this,” Moreland said. “We’re blessed to have people who believe.”
Moreland started working for Southbank in 2009, at the height of the Great Recession, which was not the best time to get funding for public improvement projects.
“If you wanted to have a developer do a project in one of the urban core cities, you could call all you wanted to, because developers weren’t returning your calls,” Moreland said. “And it didn’t really matter, because if they wanted to do a project, the banks weren’t loaning any money at that time. If you were in the economic development area at that time, you were just sitting around twiddling your thumbs.”
The leadership at Southbank Partners, however, were confident that the economy would eventually recover and those that prepared for it would be in a position to capitalize.
That’s when the Imagination 2020 strategic plan was developed. Components include riverfront development, commercial, mixed- and residential-land use, entertainment and tourism, and transportation projects, such as the KY Route 9 connector.
The Route 9 connector had been discussed since 1964, but the funding was never available. Largely through the efforts of Southbank Partners, such as Keene and Rob Hans, then with KYTC District 6, and with support from Northern Kentucky legislators, $26 million was secured for the project, which is now underway.
Moreland said the connector will achieve several goals, including providing a more direct route to Interstate 275, and a link to the Taylor-Southgate Bridge.
“The Taylor-Southgate was designed for 40,000 cars a day and it might have, on a good day, 4,000 cars go across it…because it’s a bridge you can’t get to…so we had to find a way to get people onto that bridge,” Moreland said. “Just as an aside, that corridor is going to be a pretty good economic development corridor.”
The last phase of the project is scheduled to begin in April of this year.
Moreland also stressed the importance of public improvement projects as a tool to increase tourism.
In 2016, tourism accounted for $13 billion in Kentucky, and Boone, Campbell and Kenton counties were responsible for $2.7 billion of that amount. In addition, tourism supports 36,937 jobs in the three county area.
“It behooves us to try to connect with those things downstate that are so important in terms of tourism,” Moreland said. “We need to think about how we can grow the tourism industry. We do it through economic development activities and providing things that people want to come and see, it’s as simple as that.”
Taking advantage of the region’s assets on both sides of the river, Moreland said, is critical to that strategy.
“We need to have things that (tourists) can do for a three-or four-day period of time,” he said. “We don’t care if it’s over in Ohio.”
The Southbank Shuttle, which provides transportation between the cities of Covington, Newport and Cincinnati, has been a catalyst for the promotion of regional tourism.
Southbank Partners is located at the site of the World Peace Bell in Newport. For more information on Southbank Partners and its projects, click here .
The monthly Covington Business Council Luncheon provides opportunities for members to interact with each other, as well as the City of Covington elected officials and staff. Luncheons generally include a presentation on a topic of local interest to the community at the Madison Event Center.
Contact Mark Hansel at mark.hansel@nkytrib.com
Jack did a great job as usual. Can’t wait to see more development in our urban core. Especially Ludlow! Thanks Southbank.