COVINGTON, Ky. — Years after the city purchased the old 23-acre Internal Revenue Service site, work is now underway on a mixed-use development project that will culminate in the creation of a fifth neighborhood in Covington's landscape.
City officials joined local legislators, stakeholders and construction crews in a groundbreaking ceremony Tuesday.
"It's the creation of a new neighborhood that would reintegrate with the urban fabric. A neighborhood that would compliment Mutter Gottes, Mainstrasse, Roebling Point and Licking Riverside. A neighbrohood that would be authentic, that would reestablish the urban grid to ensure connectivity," Mayor Joseph Meyer said.
The IRS' Covington offices, which spanned Fourth to Third streets and Johnson Street to Madison Avenue, comprised a major job hub for Northern Kentucky's largest city for decade. But in 2016, the federal agency announced it would be closing the site due to technological obsolescence.
The city acquired the 23-acre site in 2020 nearly a year after the IRS vacated its staff from the facility.
"We immediately got to work and said, 'This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity and we need to look at that way,'" said Tom West, director of economic development. "And we demolished it on Tax Day back in 2022 and that entire time since then we've been working on designing and engineering all the public infrastructure so that a new neighborhood will be born there — where a neighborhood existed up until the 1960s."
Once developed, the area will be known as Covington Central Riverfront and should include a 670-car parking garage, 200,000 square feet of new office space, 177 new hotel rooms, nearly 90,000 square feet of retail space, 348 residential units and green space.
It will also expand the nearby Northern Kentucky Convention Center by 111,000 square feet.
During this first phase of construction, crews are laying the framework for development, not only installing utilities but also restoring the street grid, including streets, sidewalks, alleys, and the “Russell Street Commons” promenade.
In a 2022 interview with WCPO, West said the area will be subdivided to allow for smaller developers to stake a claim.
"We talk about multiple developers, creating smaller size lots, parcels that are reflective of downtown and the village. If we’re going to weave this into the fabric of the city, we have to use the same size thread," he said.
West said the first few townhomes will start going up along Fourth Street before the end of the year. There are other plans in the works, but those details will be shared in the coming months.
