By MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
for Glasgow News 1
The head of Glasgow’s government announced during Tuesday’s meeting of the city council “the first project” for the nearly 162 acres referred to as the former Johnson property purchased by the city last year with the intention of guiding orderly residential, retail and recreational development.
Mayor Henry Royse said he decided to place the item on the agenda as simply an announcement as an update on the property because there was no action needed from the council at this particular time, but it was an announcement he was “really, really, really tickled to make.” He said the proposal would be presented later in much more detail to the council for its approval.
“Barren County Judge-Executive Jamie Byrd has a vision for a sports complex to be built,” he said. “The City of Glasgow is embracing that vision by providing the property to build the much-anticipated sports complex within that 160-acre plot. Judge Byrd applied for a grant for hiring an architect to design the sports complex. She could not apply for that grant without a place to build it. … Negotiations began, and the city moved forward with an agreement; we are providing 15 acres to the county [for it] to build a sports complex. Not too long afterward, the architecture grant was approved, and the pieces are now falling together.”
Royse said the recreational endeavor is “a natural way” to start developing more residential properties and retail opportunities, including restaurants, noting the proximity to Red Cross Elementary School, the city-county soccer complex, Industrial Drive and the Veterans Outer Loop and Cleveland Avenue, which borders much of the land. Cleveland Avenue, also known as Ky. 1297 is already on track to be widened, a process that would include the construction of sidewalks along both sides from the U.S. 31-W Bypass to the soccer complex. More than half the land needed for the road project has been purchased and Transportation Cabinet employees are working toward the acquisition of the rest of it. Construction is slated to begin in the 2026-27 fiscal year.
The mayor said Byrd is very excited about this project and “the city is excited about it, too, to the point that we thought it would be a good gesture to work forward and to provide the property, 15 acres, to build this sports complex on such a beautiful piece of property.”
He said he expects this to be only the first in a series of announcements of things that will be happening with the Johnson property to grow the city.
Following a couple of other announcements about upcoming community events such as Saturday’s Sip, Shop & Stroll and upcoming movies in the park, Councilman Freddie Norris asked for clarification on whether the city would actually be “giving” that land away. Royse responded that the property would be the city’s “contribution” to the sports-complex project.
He told Glasgow News 1 after the meeting that he would be getting further legal advice on the smoothest way to handle allowing the county to use the property, e.g. whether to actually deed it to them or take some other approach.
With regard to residential and retail developments, city officials, engineers and others have spent several weeks creating a document that specifies all the rules and expectations to which developers would have to agree to follow before the city would want to sell any of that land to them. Currently, a draft of that document is in the hands of Qk4, the engineering firm that performed numerous surveys and examinations of the property and presented possible layouts for how the different components of the three Rs could be arranged within the acreage, Royse said.
In other council business, ceremonies took place early in the meeting to note the promotion of Glasgow Police Department Sgt. Nicholas Houchens to the new rank of lieutenant and to swear in Benton Estes and Luke Penrose to their new roles as firefighters for the Glasgow Police Department.
Additionally, with all members present, the council unanimously approved the following:
– Second readings of ordinances essentially replacing the city’s existing code of ethics ordinance with an updated one and amending the budget for the fiscal year ending June 30, with the latter transferring money from one General Fund expense account to another for a $98,400 interest payment on bond proceeds;
– A municipal order appointing Aaron Woosley to finish the unexpired term of the late Jonathan Belcher on the Glasgow Board of Adjustment that expires June 30, 2026;
– First reading of an ordinance repealing the city’s current ordinance relating to animals and creating a new one, details of which will be reported separately by GN1; and
– A resolution declaring certain GPD property as surplus and authorizing its disposition according to law. The property in question is three automobiles that were seized through the process of investigations and for which there was never any intended use by the department, but all three “need mechanical work and are out of service.” They are a 2008 GMC Envoy with 130,000 miles and frame rust, a 2006 GMC Canyon with 120,000 miles and 2013 Ford Fusion with 129,000 miles.
This was a special-called meeting to take the place of the regular meeting that would have fallen on the Memorial Day holiday.
The next regular meeting is at 6 p.m. June 9 in Council Chambers on Floor 2 of the Luska J. Twyman Municipal Building, 126 E. Public Square.
