INDUSTRY- July 2000 Feature Article
by Deanna Mascle

Beyond Coal
Business parks are helping Kentucky coal counties create new jobs, enlarge tax base

IN 1999, Kentucky received top economic development rankings including placing first in the U.S. for new jobs created, sixth for new and expanded facilities and seventh for capital investments as well as placing 10th for new and expanded global facilities, all according to Site Selection magazine’s annual expansion scoreboard.

This is good news for all Kentuckians, but those who receive the most benefits live within or near the "Golden Triangle" of Kentucky’s major cities. But what happens to those Kentuckians who live well outside those areas, especially those in the mountain regions feeling the effects of the dwindling numbers of coal jobs and lack of job opportunities?

It was precisely to serve those people that Gov. Paul Patton created the Office of Coal County Development in 1997 to assist coal producing counties with diversifying their economies beyond coal. A part of the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development, Coal County Development uses grants from coal severance tax revenues to assist with this development.

For Jerry Johnson, the executive director of the Office of Coal County Development, the goal is simple – to target regional development, rather than individual counties; to offer the combined strength of counties working together rather than against each other. That combined strength will be used to bring jobs to the region in the form of regional business parks. The plan is intended to bring all coal county citizens within commuting distance of job opportunities. "We want to have a regional business park within 50 miles of any coal county citizen," Johnson says.

"Where a county industrial park may attract dozens of jobs and a few small industries, a large regional industrial park can attract hundreds of jobs and many large and small industries," says Gov. Paul Patton. "This way economic growth will come not only to the county in which the park is located, but also to adjoining counties that have banded together to make this park become a reality."

Johnson estimated there are more than 6,000 acres of marketable property included in the program, with $75 million in funds committed to developing those business parks.

Once a regional business park is operating, all of the counties in that coalition will share in the tax revenues generated by the park.

"The problem is to get companies to look where they normally wouldn’t," Johnson says.
Johnson says the governor has committed to spending one week each month personally marketing the program.

Annette Napier, who works on the Coalfields Regional Business Park, says the program has many benefits to the counties it benefits, to Kentucky and to the companies that locate through it.
"The biggest benefit I see is that the funding makes it possible for communities in rural Kentucky to have a large industrial park at reasonable cost per acre, making them competitive with areas where industrial property is abundant," she says.

"Industries benefit by finding competitive cost land in areas where labor is abundant," Napier says. "It benefits the community by providing good jobs in areas where the jobs are desperately needed."

Del White of MMRC Regional Industrial Park agrees. "This program offers first-class industrial sites in unlikely places," he says. "With unemployment so low there is a need to branch out further from population centers to where people live. We have the labor where others might not."

There is also an environmental benefit as well. In many cases, the developments are created entirely or in part on reclaimed coal properties, including Coalfields in Perry County, Honey Branch in Big Sandy and the proposed Pine Mountain in Bell and Harlan counties.

The program changed its goal from developing industrial parks to developing business parks in order to attract high-tech companies offering skilled trades versus traditional minimum-wage factory jobs.

Locating such high-tech companies as Sykes Enterprises here has gone a long way toward proving that Kentuckians have what it takes to compete in the new economy. In fact, Sykes is more than pleased with their facilities in Kentucky, according to Communications Director Conway Jensen. "Pikeville is one of our top quality centers. They have done an excellent job in that community," Jensen says. "All our Kentucky facilities have well-skilled and well-educated individuals."

Deanna Mascle is a staff writer for The Lane Report.

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