Newport prepares for road, first buildings on Ovation site

NEWPORT – Buildings might soon come out of the ground on the long dormant Ovation site in Newport about nine years after the project was first announced.

The state of Kentucky in the spring will start construction of the extension of Ky. 9/AA Highway into Newport, a road that developer Corporex has said was necessary before starting the $1 billion commercial and residential Ovation project.

Newport City Commission on Monday night granted an easement to the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet near the Taylor-Southgate Bridge.

It's prep work for the portion of Ky. 9 that will go through the Ovation site. That part of the project, from Fifth Street to the Taylor-Southgate Bridge, will get bid in July, said Newport City Manager Tom Fromme.

Kentucky Transportation Cabinet spokeswoman Nancy Wood, spokeswoman for the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, said they hope it will get bid sometime in the summer, but it will depend on when the state can buy the land needed for the project.

The state will build roundabouts in that section.

Corporex hopes to finish construction on Phase 1 of the $1 billion residential and commercial project about the same time that portion of the Ky. 9 extension gets built, Corporex's managing director, Tom Banta, said in an email Monday to The Enquirer.

"The scope of the project has not changed significantly," Banta wrote in the email. "We have been delayed by the recession (which really killed the condo market) and all the delays related to the road project."

The Ovation portion of the road project could take two years, Wood said.

Banta didn't elaborate on what Phase 1 would involve.

Corporex's plan for the entire 13-acre Ovation site included 108 townhomes, 726 condos, 192 senior housing units, 1.2 million square feet of office, 300,000 square feet of retail space, a 3,000-seat showroom, two hotels and 6,200 parking spaces.

Corporex in 2006 beat out four other groups for the rights to develop Ovation on the former public housing complex behind the floodwall at the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers.

The site, however has remained a vacant grassland since the public housing complex was demolished in 2006. Corporex has said they will have to wait until the state brings Ky. 9 through Newport and the Ovation site to improve traffic.

Over the next three years, the state will extend Ky. 9 (also known as the AA Highway) into Newport, building a two lane highway with bike lanes and sidewalks along the Licking River connecting to the Taylor-Southgate Bridge by Newport on the Levee.

The first phase between 12th and Ninth streets will start in the spring and will likely get completed in summer 2016. Utility relocation is under way on that portion. The next phase will go from Fifth Street through Ovation to the Taylor-Southgate Bridge. The middle portion between Ninth and Fifth streets will be the last phase to start, Wood said.

City officials, residents and business owners want the extension to take commercial truck traffic off the residential streets and bring businesses to the city's impoverished west end. They also expect it will jump-start development.

"We've had a tremendous amount of developers doing things in Newport," Fromme said. "We have meetings on a weekly basis with developers who want to do something with the city. I would venture to say the Ovation project is another catalyst for more development."

The state has acquired all the property it needs for the southern portion of the project. The state has started the process to acquire eight properties in the northern portion from Fifth Street to the Taylor-Southgate Bridge, Wood said.