The Kentucky Senate Appropriations Committee, chaired by Northern Kentucky state Sen. Chris McDaniel (R-Ryland Heights), released its state budget proposal on Wednesday, which includes a $150 million appropriation to establish a large educational campus in Covington.
Called the Center for Biomedical Excellence, the campus would be housed at the central riverfront development complex, which is located on the site of the former IRS building that was decommissioned in 2019. The city bought the land in 2020 with the hopes of redeveloping it. Officially rechristened the Covington Central Riverfront development, many in the community still simply refer to it as the IRS site.
The proposed campus would see the complete relocation of Northern Kentucky University’s Salmon P. Chase College of Law and the Highland Heights branch of the the University of Kentucky’s College of Medicine, which are currently housed on NKU’s campus.
“We’ve been working steadily and strategically to lay the foundation for a vibrant multi-use neighborhood that will transform Covington’s future, and the arrival of Chase law school and UK’s medical school would mesh perfectly with our vision,” said Mayor Joe Meyer in a city announcement from Thursday. “Chase was on our wish list even before we controlled the site, and we’ve been talking with officials behind the scenes for years.”
Although the plans are still preliminary–a final budget agreement between the two chambers of the legislature will be worked out by the end of the session on April 15 –the city’s announcement, as well as a news release from Kenton County, lay out the plans for the campus if it comes to fruition. The complex containing both Chase College of Law and the College of Medicine would be located on the G block of the development site on the land’s northwest corner.
Thursday’s announcement goes on to say the Covington City Commission plans to discuss a development agreement between a developer who wants to build 16 townhouses on the site’s B block at their meeting Tuesday night. In addition, the city hopes to reveal a proposed commercial user for the site’s O block, the largest parcel on the site, in the coming weeks. Lastly, very early negotiations are currently in progress for the site’s A, M and N blocks. The city has not yet released the names of the potential developers.
Northern Kentucky University, the University of Kentucky, Meyer and others attributed the proposal largely to the efforts of McDaniel. The budget proposal brings in $175 million in investment for the Northern Kentucky region, including the biomedical campus. Other proposed investments include $25 million in one-time funds for economic development at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, $6.5 million in state general funds for one-time funds to renovate the Highland Heights and California campuses of Holly Hill Child and Family Solutions and up to $25 million for expanded online course offerings and technology enhancements at NKU.
The one-time funding in the proposal– with the exception of the NKU online expansion and Holly Hill – would come from more than $1.1 billion of the state’s budget reserve trust fund, now in excess of $3.7 billion. The rest of the proposed funding would come from the biennial state budget bill, or House Bill 6, which the Senate amended and approved on a 37-1 vote Wednesday. That legislation covers most state government operations for the next two years, plus provides limited funds for some projects like Holly Hill and the NKU online project.
McDaniel had already secured $15 million in state funding in 2022 for a bio-sciences lab at the OneNKY Center, which is slated to open in 2025. Covington also serves as a home base for several well-known biomedical firms, such as CTI Clinical Trial and Consulting Services, Gravity Diagnostics, and Bexion Pharmaceuticals, so the proposed campus would dovetail with the city’s established economic sectors.
“Being in a vibrant location like [Covington] is an exciting vision,” said University of Kentucky spokesman Jay Blanton.
UK’s College of Medicine has two other locations in the state besides its NKY branch in Highland Heights: its main campus in Lexington and a satellite campus in Bowling Green. All of the locations, including the one that could appear in Covington, are full-service, four-year institutions with about 35 students in each graduating class. The move from Highland Heights would bring the school of medicine to a more central location in both Northern Kentucky and Greater Cincinnati’s healthcare ecosystem.
Moreover, the relocation of Chase College of Law would bring the school much closer to the Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky region’s 25 largest law firms as well as five federal and state courthouses.
“Positioning Chase in a brand new state-of-the-art facility with easy access to courts, firms and businesses will be transformational for our entire community,” said Judy Daar, Chase’s dean.
Patrick Hughes, a partner at DBL Law’s Covington office and former president of the Historic Licking Riverside Civic Association, said the move would create “a really concentrated area” of students for the medical and legal professions.
“It’s going to put law students and med students right in the urban core,” Hughes, who specializes in real-estate, commercial and economic development law, said.
This will make both schools more attractive to prospective students. Moreover, Hughes said, the complex would serve as a kind of “anchor tenant” with an established consumer base that will make the remaining land plots more attractive to developers.
“There’s going to be a lot of collateral benefit for the entire community,” Hughes said.
“A lot of steps still need to be taken, not only for the Chase and UK School of Medicine complex but also for the entire IRS site,” City Manager Ken Smith said. “But there is no doubt that this exciting announcement would be a huge move forward.”
LINK nky Frankfort correspondent Rebecca Hanchett contributed to this story.