The City of Covington plans to buy the building that formerly housed Gateway Community and Technical College’s Professional Services Center and Massage Clinic, located on Scott Boulevard across from the Kenton County Public Library branch, and then sell it to office developers.
“We would use this to create or attract jobs and increase payroll tax revenue,” said Covington Economic Development Director Tom West at the meeting of the Covington Board of Commissioners on the evening of March 3. After some discussion, the commissioners placed approval of the purchase order for the building on the consent agenda for next week, meaning it will likely pass.
Gateway moved out of the building at the end of last year. At that point, the building served as a space for the college’s massage and nursing training programs. The massage program has since relocated to Gateway’s building on Madison Avenue, and the nursing program is now housed in Gateway’s Edgewood campus.
The Covington Economic Development Authority voted in December 2025 to approve the purchase of the building using $1.45 million in TIF funds, lower than an appraisal had put it, roughly at $1.6 million.
TIF stands for tax increment financing and is an economic development tool used by government agencies usually to finance needed infrastructure projects including sewers, streets, parking lots and more. Taxes generated in a TIF district past a certain threshold are redirected into a separate fund that can be used for specific projects, rather than public services. West said TIF funds could be used to buy buildings and any proceeds from the sale would be redirected back into the city’s TIF fund.
Gateway Chief Financial Officer Todd Kilburn signed the purchase agreement on Dec. 18, 2025, according to documents submitted to the Board of Commissioners before Tuesday’s meeting. The city will keep many of the small amenities in the building – light fixtures, exit signs, bathroom supplies, storage shelves, network racks and the like – as part of the purchase agreement. West also said the city had secured a letter of intent to allow for employee parking in the nearby Hotel Covington parking garage.
The building occupies roughly 12,300 square feet and has a partially finished basement. The city has already completed required due diligence procedures on the building and plans to seek requests for proposals from developers shortly after the sale is approved.
“There’s a lot of local developer interest in it,” West said. “We’ve walked three local office developers through the building. All three of them have expressed an interest. Two of them have tenants in mind. We’ve also walked through another organization here in town that’s looking to relocate.”
West declined to share specifics about the developers in his statement but said they were all Covington-based.
Vice Mayor Shannon Smith asked West to explain why the city gets involved in projects like this, echoing questions she’d received from constituents.
“I really want to make sure it’s clear to the public why we do these things,” Smith said.
West said the building is located in a mixed-used zone, so if the school were to solicit buyers directly, they would have to take the highest responsible bidder.
Additionally, West said, “we have no idea what that buyer might want to use the building for. It could become apartments with ground floor retail, which might be fine otherwise, but we’re short on office space, and our department tries to attract jobs and increase payroll taxes.”
Payroll taxes, net profits taxes and other occupational licenses and permits – as they’re officially categorized – accounted for about 55% of the city’s general fund revenue in fiscal year 2025, according to the city’s most recent financial report.
“How long do you think before we would start seeing businesses in there, where we would start getting tax revenue?” asked Commissioner Tim Acri.
That would depend, West said, on the amount of renovations the new owner would want to carry out, but he hoped to get the building sold before he retired in July.
The Board of Commissioners will cast a final vote on the sale on Tuesday, March 10.