Are the World Peace Bell's best years ahead?

NEWPORT – Wedged between a parking lot and a White Castle, many had expected more for the World Peace Bell.

When shipped from France to Newport in 1999 to an awaiting crowd of 15,000, the world's largest swinging bell was meant to crown a 600-to-1,200-foot "Freedom Tower" that would also have contained the world's largest carillon.

Instead, 16 years later, the 66,000 pound bell remains in a two story cage, but some hope its best years are ahead.

With its central location in Newport, something will likely get built on the adjacent parking lot at Fourth and Monmouth streets in five years, said Jack Moreland, president of the economic development agency Southbank Partners, which runs the World Peace Bell. That's where the Freedom Tower was supposed to go.

He said Southbank Partners, the city and the owner of the property, Wayne Carlisle, continue to talk about the possibility of an underground garage where a commercial structure would be built on top. Carlisle commissioned the World Peace Bell and still owns it.

"I think it's a prime piece of real estate that connects Monmouth to activities on the Levee," Moreland said. "In the next four or five years, a meaningful structure will be built there."

The problem, however, is that it remains private property. No one can force Carlisle to build on the property.

Carlisle did not respond to messages seeking comment.

Since the Freedom Tower plan fell through, nothing has happened with the site. Concrete pillars were put in underneath the parking lot in preparation for the foundation of the tower, Moreland said. That could be an asset for any prospective developer, he said.

Residents would like to see it become more than a parking lot. Newport resident and urban forester Rachel Comte created the web site entitled Can You Picture It Newport? last year that shows renderings of a central park. She started a Change.org petition that garnered 150 signatures from Newport residents. City officials seemed receptive, but she never heard back from Carlisle.

Comte said it could have a similar impact as Washington Park in Cincinnati.

"You just can't argue with economic development around Washington Park," Comte said. "It was just outstanding. It is hard to dispute that. We like the idea. It is a huge plot of undeveloped land right along Monmouth Street.

Newport City Manager Tom Fromme said he doesn't see that property becoming a park and hasn't heard any new plans for Carlisle to develop it. A proposed $1.3 million transit center for buses proposed by the Transit Authority of Northern Kentucky across the street hasn't moved forward, said Fromme.

But that doesn't discourage people like Moreland and Comte. The peace bell still attracts 15,000-20,000 a year, mostly through group functions that rent out the World Peace Bell Center, Moreland said. Weddings and military reunions regularly happen at the two-story facility.

"My sense is that there will be a development there," Moreland said. "I don't know what it will be, though. It's too early in the conversation."