Officials from Madison, Scott and Fayette counties gathered in Berea to break ground on a regional industrial park that had been in the works since the end of 2024.
Berea Mayor Bruce Fraley, Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton, Madison County Judge-Executive Reagan Taylor and Scott County Judge-Executive Joe Pat Covington were the local elected officials leading the Triple Crown Business Park project.
“These partnerships allow us to share the risk, but we also share in the reward,” Taylor said. “It cuts out a lot of the competing against each other and start complimenting one another.”
Taylor said citizens don’t often pay attention to county and city lines.
The new project is inside the Berea Industrial Development Authority Park.
According to Fraley, the best – and flattest – areas of the park had been used already. The area with the new regional industrial park has hills and dips that will need to be leveled, a cost that Fraley said Berea couldn’t easily manage on its own. The project has come together through an interlocal agreement and funding the state and federal government.
“I look forward to the next steps following today's groundbreaking because our ultimate goals are to seek new industry in central Kentucky, to create good-paying, quality jobs, and to ultimately uplift our communities by creating economic opportunities for our people,” Fraley said.
He described the project as a “total team effort.” Gorton said the project happened because local officials got together, became friends and then partners.
This project is the first regional industrial park in central Kentucky. The city of Berea will receive 10% of the tax revenue from the park as a hosting fee. Then Madison, Fayette and Scott counties will each receive 33% of the remaining tax revenue to support local needs.
Fraley said in forming the interlocal agreement for the park, no local government had a no-vote on the decision.
“There's been a lot of talk going around for years about regional economic development in Kentucky,” Gorton said. “Well, this represents not just talk. We're really doing it, and I think that we can all agree, when central Kentucky's economy is strengthened, we all benefit.”
When the earth work is done to level the site north of the city of Berea , Fraley said there’s expected to be seven build sites for companies to come in and use.
“All of our governments exist to serve our communities and provide services to those people, and the cost of those services will never be less than they are today, and the very best thing that we can do is what we're doing in this regional project to attract more jobs to central Kentucky and bring in good-paying jobs and opportunities to our citizens,” Covington said.
The park received $2 million in Community Project Funding, $4.1 million in Kentucky Product Development Initiative Funding and another $20 million in funding from the state legislature.
Berea Republican state Senator Jared Carpenter, Mount Vernon Republican Representative Josh Bray and Richmond Republican Representative Deanna Fraizer Gordon also were at the groundbreaking. All spoke in support of the project and what it means for the region they represent.
“Economic development is about much more than constructing buildings or preparing industrial sites,” Frazier Gordon said. “It's about creating places where businesses can grow, where good paying jobs can be created, and where young people can see a future for themselves close to home.”
Fraley said he hopes the group can take what they’ve learned from this project and package it together so other regions can replicate the effort.
