UNION, Ky. — The Boone County School District plans to breathe new life into the old Kroger store in Union.
During a Union City Commission meeting, Union Mayor Larry Solomon said the school district plans to turn the old Kroger at 8825 US-42 into a preschool.
“The old Kroger building is now owned by the school board. Kroger does not own that building anymore,” Solomon said. “Neither does it own the adjacent lot, where the old liquor store used to be. It (Kroger) doesn’t own that either. The school board owns that as well. There is going to be a preschool.”
A document issued by the Boone County School District from a June meeting confirms Solomon’s comments, as it details plans for “the site acquisition for a new 300-student Early Childhood Center.”
According to Boone County property records, an LLC linked to the Boone County School District purchased the property for $4.75 million on July 9. The Boone County School Board approved the sale during a meeting on July 10.
Solomon mentioned that after the school opens, buses will enter and exit the parking lot; however, overall traffic is expected to be significantly lower than when Kroger was open.
“There will be buses going into that place with less traffic than it was when it was open as a Kroger store, but it will be kids coming there,” he said. “That will be a real nice preschool.”
Solomon said there are plans to build a fenced playground on part of the parking lot in front of the building.
Commissioner Doug Bine added that the school district plans to establish a student registration center on the complex for new students.
The old Kroger closed in 2017. The new Kroger opened in September of that year at 9001 US-42. Currently, a Subway, Shanghai Garden Chinese restaurant, Valle Escondido Mexican Grill, Kroger Fuel Station, Kroger Pickup and a Western Union are still in operation on the campus.
During a school board meeting in October 2024, attorney Corey Gamm outlined the scope of the board’s purchase, along with some key contractual details.
“It consists of the main Kroger building that we’re all with, as well as the adjacent strip mall building located next door, so it would be two buildings on one parcel,” he said.
At the same meeting, school board member Jesse Parks said that the board and Kroger had decided it would be more cost-effective to refurbish the former grocery store rather than allocate funds toward purchasing a new plot of land and constructing a new building on it.
“There is enough room here to do a lot of things,” Parks said. “We all know what the cost of building a building is right now, and I think that’s the idea here, is that, for one, land in Boone County, because we are so fortune, is very expensive, and two, the cost of building materials–steel–all the things that go into a building is exorbitantly expensive at the moment, and so this is a good opportunity to get around some of that and house some of our important operations and house another Boone County education program.”
Boone County is the third-largest public school district in Kentucky, with over 20,000 students enrolled, according to the district’s website. It is the largest non-urban school district in the state and one of the fastest-growing.
As of now, there is no reported timeline, although Solomon presumes the project will open in the coming years.
