Johnson County buys property for industrial park

By TONY FYFFE
BSN Editor

PAINTSVILLE — Johnson County recently purchased property at Hager Hill to serve as an industrial site to lure jobs to the region. Judge-Executive Mark McKenzie said during the regular Johnson County Fiscal Court meeting Monday that the 15.5-acre site is behind the former American Standard building and was bought with the county’s local government economic development (LGED) funds. “The fiscal court is currently working with representatives from the Kentucky Economic Development Cabinet to obtain a Build-Ready Kentucky certification for this property, which helps increase the marketability to companies,” McKenzie said. Build-Ready certification is “proof to a company that unknown obstacles have been removed, that the site due diligence has been performed and the project implementation timeline has been significantly accelerated,” according to its web site. “With a Build-Ready site, much of the work, other than actual construction, has already been completed,” the website says. “That includes control of the land to be developed, archaeological, environmental and geotechnical studies performed, construction of a building pad, preliminary design work (complete with project cost and construction timeframes clearly defined), approved site plan permits and necessary infrastructure in place. On a Build-Ready site, construction can begin immediately.” McKenzie said the site has “a lot of advantages already in place, a lot of infrastructure in place” to “expedite out efforts to achieve Build-Ready certification but also to ultimately be able to get placement of good-paying jobs on this property.” The property already has access to water, wastewater, three-phase power, natural gas, high-speed Internet capability and rail availability, McKenzie said. Chuck Sexton, president and CEO of One East Kentucky, which is assisting the county with the project, said direct rail access is a big plus for the site. “We don’t have direct rail access in any industrial park in Eastern Kentucky,” Sexton told the fiscal court Monday. “When you have a site like this one in particular,” Sexton said, “it opens us up to companies that we otherwise probably wouldn’t be able to compete for, and those are like plastic industries.” Having a county-owned industrial park is also another advantage, he said. “The goal for this site, my personal opinion, is we want to get a manufacturer that’s around one-hundred square feet, that has anywhere from seventy-five to one-hundred-fifty jobs,” Sexton said. “And we want to make sure wew see what those pay scales are, what the wages look like.” Another goal, McKenzie added, “is to have an employer that would pay at least the state wage average,” which he said is around $18 to $20 an hour. “We’re not talking about trying to acquire someone who is going to employ folks at ten, eleven, twelve dollars,” McKenzie said. “We’re obviously going to be targeting employers that would give folks a living wage, at least the state average.”