Downtown Covington has seen a major resurgence over the past decade and is now a regional destination for diners, drinkers, and shoppers. The city’s riverfront just opened Covington Plaza, a new stretch of the Riverfront Commons trail, an attraction for more passive recreation.
Now, as more downtown buildings undergo renovations and new businesses continue to open there, the city’s economic development agenda is turning south of 12th Street/Martin Luther King Blvd, the traditional southern border of the central business district.
“Other areas need to benefit from the energy going on in Covington,” Economic Development Director Tom West said during a presentation Tuesday night before the city commission.
The area of focus has been dubbed the Eastern Corridor, an amalgamation of four neighborhoods: the Eastside, Wallace Woods, Helentown, and Austinburg, with boundaries from Bush Street at the north, 21st Street at the south, Madison Avenue at the west, and the Licking River at the east.
West explained that this section of town suffers from being underserved, lower median home sales, lower home ownership, and vacant commercial buildings.
The area also saw the most police calls in 2020.
But there are signs of hope, indicating that the corridor is already somewhat primed for redevelopment and a resurgence of its own.
The city and affiliated partners own parcels of land there and there is a plan forming that city leaders hope will lead to activation.
The most prominent structure, arguably, in the corridor is the former St. Elizabeth Hospital building, an historic landmark where the large local health care provider once operated before moving to a new location closer to I-75 and MLK Blvd.
West referred to “the old St. E.” as “the elephant in the room.”
The sprawling structure is 300,000 sq. ft., of which, only 50,000 sq. ft. are used currently, or about one-sixth of the total space.
The site faces challenges with access, developer interest, and construction costs, West said.
“Developers haven’t shown a whole lot of interest in it,” he said.
But, “We see a lot of opportunity here,” West added.
The city and the Center for Great Neighborhoods are working on a potential project focusing on the building’s fifth floor, which doesn’t have as wide of hallways as the rest of the former hospital space.Â
“One of the challenges you get with an old hospital building is the corridors are designed very wide,” West explained. “The great thing about this floor plan is you don’t have that same design as you do in other parts of the old hospital.”
He said that there are a variety of rooms, ranging in size from 200 to 1,200 sq. ft.Â
It offers “some really incredible views”, and the city sees the fifth floor possibility as a potential anchor project for the rest of the corridor, West said.
The Center applied for a grant from Duke Energy and received $26,000 to conduct pre-development activities for the floor.
There is not a whole lot of official news about the space, but there is hope with an idea.
“We haven’t worked out all the details on the St. E. project yet, but we are looking at how we can create some low-cost office space for start-ups, particularly around creative firms like graphic design and media,” West said.
West pointed to the Hamilton County Development Center in Norwood, Oh. as an inspiration. It is similar in style and size and has been converted to fifty offices with flexible leases, and nearly all of them are occupied, he said. West also argued that Covington has seen success elsewhere with creative firms locating and expanding in the city, such as Durham Brands, Spotted Yeti, Scooter Media, Strange Stock, and noted that there is a wait list for the creative spaces available in the Center’s office building, also a converted historic structure.
The framework for the St. E. site is to create low-cost office space targeting creative firms and artists, ideally serving as a feeder space for growing businesses.Â
West said that the hope would be to see this project create momentum for other spaces in the neighborhood.
City staff is planning a meeting with neighborhood residents and others to explain the vision in mid-July, and a trip to Lexington’s NoLi, a community development corporation as a sort of fact-finding mission.
A mobile headquarters is expected to be announced at a later date.
-Michael Monks, editor & publisher
Photo: Former St. Elizabeth Hospital in Covington (RCN)