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Lodge development back on table

Local News

Somerset — The search for a private developer to build and operate a lodge on General Burnside Island State Park is back on the table.

Gil Lawson, spokesman for the Tourism, Arts and Heritage Cabinet, said proposals have been received from the private sector in response to the state’s most recent Request for Proposals (RFP) to develop a lodge at the state park in Burnside.

The proposals are currently being reviewed by the Finance Cabinet, Lawson said. “I can’t say how many proposals we have ... all I can say is that it’s more than one.” He said the proposals will be “...under review for the next few weeks.”

At least two previous prospective developers are in the mix.

“We’re still very much interested,” said Mike Czer-wonka, president of Czerwonka and Associates, Louisville. He said his group submitted one of the proposals the Kentucky Finance Cabinet is currently considering.

“We believe this is a huge opportunity for both the Commonwealth of Kentucky and General Burnside (Island) State Park,” Czerwonka commented. And, according to Czerwonka, his group has a grandiose plan for a resort at the Burnside state park.

Czerwonka said the proposal he presented is for a four-star resort. He didn’t specify, but generally a four-star rating means amenities such as conference or banquet facilities, good restaurant, and plushly furnished guest rooms, among other luxuries. Czerwonka has told the Commonwealth Journal he is prepared to invest $100 million in the project.

If successful, his group would operate the entire park and its facilities, including the newly renovated golf course. Residents of this area apparently would get special attention at the resort’s facilities, if developed according to Czerwonka’s plan.

“We did make a proposal for local residents and golf fees,” Czerwonka revealed. He also said he has assured the state that all employees of the park will be American citizens, “...something we feel very strongly about.”

Czerwonka believes a four-star resort at Burnside would be a financial success.

“This would be the first state park in history that makes money,” Czerwonka predicted. “With professional operation, we think it would make money and we would pay a significant amount to the Commonwealth of Kentucky for the privilege of operating the resort,” he said.

Czerwonka said his group has no problem with paying the prevailing wage rate, a hourly pay scale with benefits and overtime paid in the largest city in each county. This court-ordered requirement cooled the project during the latter days of Gov. Ernie Fletcher’s administration.

The Louisville developer said his group’s proposal is not predicated on the $4 million originally promised by the state for infrastructure and then allegedly shifted to the horse park in Lexington.

Lawson told the Commonwealth Journal Wednesday afternoon that “...there are no $4 million in the current proposal (for the lodge at General Burnside Island State Park).”

A copy of the most recent RFP was not available, but Czerwonka said the scope of the proposal has not basically changed. Previous RFPs called for lodge and attendant facilities to be developed on a 22-acre site on the north end of the 430-acre island.

Kentucky Department of Parks, based on previous RFPs, wants a lodge with at least 50 rooms, a swimming pool, gift shop and other features found at state resort parks. Burnside Island State Park currently has a newly renovated 18-hole golf course and campground.

The Webb Companies, a Lexington-based con-glomerate, has expressed intense interest in building and operating a lodge at the park for 30 years. The Webbs are currently developing CentrePointe, a $250 million skyscraper in downtown Lexington.

“We submitted an official proposal with a deposit,” Dudley Webb said Wednesday afternoon. He said the project hasn’t changed much except the state has deleted all incentives, including the $4 million for infrastructure.

“It’s a bare-bones project,” Webb said. However, he expressed confidence that the “resources are out there” and it is going to take a concentrated effort to find the assistance.

“We submitted a proposal because we believe in the community ...we believe in the project,” said Webb. “That golf course is beautiful,” he added, referring to the recently renovated facility.

“We got to the point (in the late 80s) where we submitted a proposal (for the lodge),” Dudley Webb recalled. “But we never heard back (from the state).

“I don’t know what happened. ... It was sort of weird. ... I don’t know if the politics changed down there,” he said.

The project appeared dead late in the Fletcher administration. Interest waned when the state deleted $4 million for infrastructure and a Franklin Circuit Court’s temporary restraining order demanded the prevailing wage rate be paid.

Prediction on growth of Somerset is realized

Former area development district director hit it on the head 30 years ago

He didn’t miss it much.

“I told my son as we drove along this strip (four-lane U.S. 27): Look at this ... one of these days you will see a city here!”

Patrick R. Bell, then executive director of the Lake Cumberland Area Development District and now mayor of Columbia, made the statement 30 years ago while speaking to the Somerset-Pulaski County Chamber of Commerce.

Noting the population of Pulaski County in 1978 was just over 40,000, Bell predicted this county’s population would balloon to 66,000 by the year 2000.

Bell’s estimate may have been slightly high, but he had his finger on rapid growth. The 2000 U.S. Census in Pulaski County showed the population at 56,217. Growth has been steady during the eight years since the turn of the century and Pulaski’s population had shot to 60,148 in 2007.

You can find lots of folks who will argue that some federal census takers lose count after they run out of fingers and toes. It’s difficult to find a piece of land in Pulaski County’s 677 square miles without a house on it. Usually there’s “smoke” coming out the chimneys.

In other words, it’s hard to believe Pulaski County’s population is not more than 60,000 when the county has 42,570 registered voters. Since 22.5 percent of Pulaski’s total population is under 18 and too young to vote, these kinds of figures suggest most everybody over 18 is a registered voter.

It’s been 30 years since Bell made his forecast, but he was saying what the chamber of commerce wanted to hear. “Growth is coming,” Bell declared. “And we had better plan for it.”

Bell was correct. His demographic projection in 1978 may have been more on the mark that census counts indicate. And community movers and shakers did the planning.

The four-lane highway Bell and his son were riding on 30 years ago has now expanded to six lanes. U.S. 27 has nearly 40,000 traffic movements a day in some spots. A bustling metropolitan-like area stretches a dozen miles through 30 signaled intersections between University Drive in northern Somerset to the city of Burnside at the south.

U.S. 27 has been widened to four lanes from Somerset through Science Hill to Ky. 452. The wider highway will extend to Eubank by the end of the year.

Really, Somerset is a mini-metroplis, just as Bell predicted. The fact that the official population within the corporate limits is barely over 12,000 means little. The city’s sprawling hospital and medical specialties, an expansive and varied retail center, and the lure of Lake Cumberland attract thousands of people into the county every day.

Road development has been unbelievable. The face of the landscape has changed. Pulaski County has more than $190 million worth of new road projects either recently completed or under construction.

Kentucky Department of Highways’ engineers say Pulaski County has more road construction under way than any rural county in Kentucky. There are so many road changes that lifelong residents get confused with directions. The serene landscape of Pleasant Hill, often called Possum Trot, has been virtually wiped off the face of the earth by construction of I-66, the northern bypass of Somerset. Recently completed or under construction are four-lane highways that complete a circle around Somerset. A major thoroughfare is being built from Ferguson through Cedar Grove to a partial cloverleaf interchange in northern Burnside.

Gone are the days when everybody knew the manager of every store by name and the people who worked there. Today, the chamber of commerce has more than 600 members and new retail outlets pop up every day. Somerset is “Lexington” to a large surrounding area, particularly to the south as far as Scott County, Tenn. Retail sales in Pulaski County are more than $680 million annually.

Downtown Somerset, abandoned when businesses took flight to the bypass during the 1960s, now has a new look. The magnificent Pulaski County Public Library is a new landmark and demolition is under way for a new judicial center that will be the legal heartbeat for the county.

Bell, making his predictions three decades ago, must have seen something special. He compared it to a barn raising. “Working together (like neighbors building a barn) we can accomplish more,” he concluded.

Today, Bell would say, “Well done!” Somerset is no longer a Saturday town.