The Kenton County Planning Commission unanimously approved a public facility review Thursday night for the new Kenton County School District administrative office, slated for construction on an 8.7-acre parcel of land on Madison Pike in Covington.
“We want to be a good neighbor,” said district facilities Chief Operations Officer Matt Rigg.
The district’s administrative staff and school board currently operate out of office space at the Sanitation District 1 office in Fort Wright, space they’ve used for nearly 20 years. Rigg said the arrangement allowed the district to free up necessary classroom space, rather than rely on modular classrooms. With the Madison Pike land now secured, the new facility will centralize administrative operations and provide a dedicated meeting space for the school board.
The land, located at the intersection of Madison Pike and Tuscanyview Drive, is largely vacant and approaches the border with Taylor Mill and Fort Wright. The new building, in addition to the new office space, will have a dedicated classroom for virtual learning students as well as meeting space for events and training. The facility will have about 200 parking spaces.
The designs submitted to the commission were all preliminary, Rigg said, and the project is still in the development stage. Final designs will need to be approved by the board of education before the project can begin in earnest.
The City of Covington also approved a jobs-creation development incentive for the facility in December. Statements from the city’s economic development staff indicate the city expects the district to bring in 75 jobs to Covington, the average salary for which will about $85,000.
Patrick Denbow, the planning commission’s senior planner, stated that the development is largely in compliance with the county’s comprehensive plan and standards. However, he recommended the district consider adding sidewalks along Madison Pike, as this would allow the transit authority to put a stop there.
Rigg noted the suggestion and said the district would take it into consideration.
“One of our initial concerns was the fact that [Madison Pike] is not very pedestrian-friendly,” Rigg said. “So we were concerned about bringing sidewalks down to [Madison] itself.”
He added that the district hoped it could provide other sidewalk infrastructure so that staff members could take walks during the day.
“We wanted to make sure that we connected to Tuscany,” Rigg said. “Plus, we wanted to promote wellness with our staff, many of which do like walking around the walking paths that we have access to at the Sanitation District building.”
Construction timelines were not discussed at the meeting.
View preliminary renderings of the building here.
The next meeting of the Kenton County Planning Commission will take place on Thursday, Feb. 1 at 6:15 p.m. at the Kenton County Government Center on Simon Kenton Way.
The next meeting of the Kenton County School District Board of Education will take place on Monday, Jan. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Sanitation District 1 office on Eaton Drive.
UPDATE: The original version of this article contained architectural renderings created by Emboss, the contractor responsible for designing the new building. Emboss recently released more updated versions of the renderings, which have been added to the relevant line of this article–LINK nky editorial, Jan. 12, 2024