By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
At the end of 2018, Bowling Green officials decided to no longer hold out for big businesses in the Bellard Business Park.
Officials shifted gears to allow smaller businesses to build in the acreage located at the southeast corner of Brim and Bishop roads. The 23.5-acre park was split up into smaller lots – rather than waiting for big users.
The sale of another 2.5-acre lot was approved by the Bowling Green Board of Public Utilities last week. The city’s Community Development Foundation will be paid $60,000 by a daycare owner wishing to move the business there, explained Brian O’Connell, director of the city’s public utilities.
As in the past, the city will receive $10,000 per acre from the sale to the daycare as a credit on the city’s future community development foundation dues. O’Connell said this practice helps the foundation continue its mission of economic development, job creation and electric load growth.
The shift from big to small lots was made so the business park would be easier to market, according to Sue Clark, director of the city’s economic development commission. Clark said she kept getting requests for smaller lots of one or two acres.
The city still has plenty of larger lots available for manufacturers in the Woodbridge industrial park off Dunbridge Road, Clark said.
The first buyer was Schwind Electric Co., which bought 2.2 acres in the southwest corner of the Bellard Business Park.
There are currently four remaining parcels for sale at the Bellard site.
The recent expansion of the Woodbridge Business Park, plus the 36.9 acres the city economic development foundation owns near Brim and Newton roads, allow plenty of room for larger users.
At one time, there was a plan to construct a new city electric division facility on the north side of Bellard park. However, there is no longer a plan to do that, O’Connell said. The property has been maintained as farmland, with the city receiving farm rent revenues.
The city may still reserve about four acres in the northwest corner of the Bellard Business Park for a potential electric substation in the future.
