By Kevin Eigelbach
NKyTribune reporter
There’s a 75,000 square-foot building under construction on Doering Drive in Florence that will provide space for an aerospace company with high-paying jobs, says Joshua Hunt, the city’s director of business and community development.
He’d like to tell you the name of the tenant, but can’t right now. For now, the project’s known just as CVG Site 6C.
Hunt and city government are working to find places in Florence for 10 to 15 other companies, but he can’t tell you about those right now either.
What he can tell you is that the city remains a place where businesses, especially logistics businesses, want to be.
“People call our area the Silicon Valley of logistics,” he said.
You can learn more about the city’s recent economic development successes by reading the quarterly report Hunt just prepared.
One of the biggest successes is Wayfair Inc., at 5101 Renegade Way, where the online furniture seller plans to open its first-ever brick-and-mortar store by early next year. That news generated social media buzz from all over the nation, Hunt said, including from Canadian residents who said they’d shop there on their way back from Florida vacations.
Other big projects under construction include Menards, at 5000 Apex Lane, scheduled to open in spring 2019; an A.C. Moore Arts & Crafts store at 7665 Mall Road, a part of a remodeling of the T.J. Maxx/Home Goods store; and a Holiday Inn Express on Vandercar Way that will have 98 rooms.
The latter is one of nine hotels the city has seen open or start construction within the past 16 to 18 months, Hunt said. Also under construction are a Fairfield Inn & Suites on Merchant Street, a Tru Hotel on Vandercar Way and a Staybridge Suites at 3255 Ted Bushelman Blvd.
On Seligman Drive, Dominion Senior Living, an 84-bed assisted living facility, is expected to open this winter. In the past two years, Hunt said, Florence has seen two assisted-living facilities built and another two put in the pipeline.
He gets at least one call a month from companies that want to build assisted living or other housing for senior citizens, he said, probably because Florence’s population of Baby Boomers is nearing retirement age.
Two communities built with older residents in mind, with extra-wide doors for wheelchairs and other age-related accommodations, are scheduled to open in the spring of 2019: The Villages of Florence Community, 177 ranch-style homes on Hopeful Church Road; and The Villages of Weaver Community, 56 ranch-style homes on Weaver Road.
At the other end of the age spectrum, Hunt said, the city hopes to get built on Mall Road or Houston Road some urban-type apartments, similar to Aqua on the Levee in Newport which would appeal to millennials.
Since the late 1970s, Florence has been a retail destination for Northern Kentucky, and key to that role has been Florence Mall. In March, General Growth Properties, which had owned Florence Mall since 2003, was acquired by Brookfield Property Partners for $9.25 billion.
Hunt is working with the new owners to find new tenants for the Sears store, which opened in March 1976, six months before the rest of the mall.
In October, Sears Holding Corp. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and announced plans to close 142 unprofitable stores by the end of 2018, including the Florence store.
Together, Hunt and the new owners will look to recruit stores that can make the mall a unique destination. It’s not enough just to have retail stores there, he said. You have to offer activities like rock climbing or cooking classes or some other activity; for example, Glow Golf, which opened in Florence Mall last winter.
“It’s not ‘What can you sell me,’ but ‘How can you make me feel while I’m there,’” he said.