The long-discussed $1.1 billion University of Louisville Belknap Engineering and Applied Sciences Research Park received final approval Thursday to recover more than $700 million of public infrastructure costs through the state’s tax increment financing (TIF) program.
The development will include nine buildings dedicated to engineering and applied sciences research and development, and five buildings for commercialization incubators.
+++
The gourmet grocery, on the former site of Joe’s Crab Shack at 2326 Nicholasville Road, opened Friday morning, reports the Lexington Herald Leader.
Lexington’s Trader Joe’s grocery is 12,000 s.f. with an adjacent wine shop that is 3,000 s.f. By comparison, the Kroger on Tates Creek Road is 59,000 s.f. and is being expanded to 92,000 s.f., the paper says.
+++
The upholding of national health care form provides certainty for Humana insurance members, and poses no major threat to the Louisville-based insurer’s growing Medicare business, a company spokesman said Thursday, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal.
Humana members know they can keep benefits mandated by the law, while the company can continue implementing its provisions, as it has been doing for the last two years, he said. But, he could not say whether the law will have any effect on Humana’s employees, which number more than 10,000 in Louisville, the paper says.
+++
Twenty-four Kentucky counties have been declared as in a Level 2 drought, and a Level 1 drought has been declared in 66 counties.
Agriculture throughout the state has been severely impacted by the lack of rainfall and above-normal temperatures, according to an official with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Wildfires are becoming a major concern as fields and forests continue to dry out, aided by the high temperatures and low humidity.
+++
The Bell County Tourism Commission voted to allow the city of Pineville to use the restaurant tax money to help fund the $14.3 million Wasioto Hotel and Resort project.
County and city officials are hopeful the tourism project will help the area move forward and create new jobs.
+++
About 100 concerned – and some short-tempered – residents piled into the newly renovated Simpsonville Community Gym on Monday evening to hear new details and ask pointed questions about the Outlet Shoppes of Louisville, the outlet mall Horizon Group Properties is planning to build in the city, according to the Shelbyville Sentinel News.
The development, which is planned to be more than 365,000-square-feet of retail space on about 50 acres, sits just south of Interstate 64 on Buck Creek Road behind the current BP gas station, and many residents who live in that area attended the meeting to voice their concerns about mall and ask why it has to be built in Simpsonville, the paper says.
+++
The Hyatt hotel corporation is buying the state-owned land under the Hyatt Regency Louisville at Fourth and Liberty streets downtown for $8 million from the Kentucky State Fair Board, reports the Louisville Courier-Journal.
The fair board approved the sale of the 1.4-acre tract. It had been leasing the property to Hyatt for about $30,000 a year since the hotel opened in 1977. The sale is not expected to change the hotel’s operation, the paper says.
Add Comment