- OneNKY Center opens Sept. 12 in Covington, a $26 million, 47,000-square-foot hub uniting Northern Kentucky’s leading growth organizations.
- LifeSciKY lab and incubator on the second floor will anchor the state’s first dedicated life sciences facility.
- Community leaders credit collaboration, political will, and board-level risk-taking for the success of the project.
The first meeting Brent Cooper attended as president of the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce in 2017 was about the OneNKY Center.
Eight years later, the project remains a priority for Northern Kentucky’s political and economic stakeholders as its grand opening approaches.
“It’s a reminder that things don’t happen overnight,” Cooper said. “Sometimes it takes time, and sometimes it takes some hard work and some stick-to-itiveness.”
The OneNKY Center is nearing its grand opening on Sept. 12, less than a month away. Construction began in August 2023. The building is nearly finished, with the ‘OneNKY Center’ sign already in place on the fourth floor exterior. Several tenants are starting to move in.
As the project nears its launch, community leaders involved in the initiative shared their thoughts on its potential impact during the NKY Chamber’s Eggs ‘N Issues breakfast panel.
Keynote speakers included OneNKY Alliance CEO Karen Finan, LifeSciKY Executive Director Christin Godale and Kenton County Judge/Executive Kris Knochelmann. NKY Port Authority Executive Director Christine Russell moderated the panel.
The OneNKY Center is a 47,000 square foot, four-story corporate office building located at the foot of the Roebling Bridge. It will house several of Northern Kentucky’s growth organizations, including the NKY Chamber of Commerce, meetNKY, OneNKY Alliance, The Catalytic Fund of Northern Kentucky, BE NKY Growth Partnership, Horizon Community Funds of Northern Kentucky and Northern Kentucky Bar Association.
The property on which the building sits, 209 Greenup St., is owned by the NKY Port Authority.
Its second floor will be exclusively dedicated to LifeSciKY, a 15,000-square-foot life sciences laboratory and startup incubator. The second floor is currently under construction and will not be operational by the building’s opening date. Once completed, Godale stated that the center will be a net benefit to Northern Kentucky and the state as a whole.
“We don’t have anything in Kentucky like this, so the opportunity isn’t just space–it’s about influence in Kentucky,” Godale said.
Russell said the idea for the OneNKY Center manifested in the 1980s when Corporex chairman Bill Butler envisioned a “front door” for Northern Kentucky.
“He had a vision that we needed a front door to our communities, a visible symbol for regionalism and unity in Northern Kentucky, and along with that, was a drive for enhanced collaboration efficiency and an opportunity to share resources among our growth organizations in Northern Kentucky,” she said.
Recently, regional leaders have shown interest in growing the life sciences and biotechnology sectors in Northern Kentucky. This idea developed alongside the creation of the life sciences hub in Covington, which was eventually integrated with the OneNKY Center.
Throughout the development process, the project faced hurdles, particularly with financing.
“There were so many times that we could look at this project and say, but if Kris (Knochelmann) hadn’t funded the bonds, if LifeSciKY hadn’t happened, the building would never have happened,” Finan said.
Funding for the OneNKY Center project needed collaboration among multiple individuals and organizations. To meet the $26 million pricetag, project leaders needed to secure loans, grants, donations and public funds from several sources.
In 2022, the project secured a $15 million state grant from Kentucky, primarily backed by state Senator Chris McDaniel (R-Ryland Heights), Governor Andy Beshear, the City of Covington, and key life sciences companies like Covington-based Bexion Pharmaceuticals and CTI Clinical Trial Services, according to Russell. Additionally, nearly $1 million in philanthropic donations came from foundations and community donors.
One of the most critical funding sources came from the Kenton County Fiscal Court, which approved a credit enhancement for approximately $8.7 million in construction bonds in May 2023, issued by the Kentucky Association of County Officials Finance Corporation.
Knochelmann said that although the task was challenging, support from various community organizations helped advance the project.
“To have all these agencies, which Christine said this, but their boards had to approve and come together, number one, so that’s huge,” Knochelmann said. “To get everyone of these boards to a majority, and if not, I think most of them are unanimous to say, let’s do this–that’s big.”
Ultimately, once the ribbon is cut, the obstacles will be behind Northern Kentucky community leaders, as the decades-long vision for the OneNKY Center finally becomes a reality.