The city of Covington received a total of $1.4 million in state funding on Jan. 19 for two projects that have been in the works.
The two projects are the Town Center Project and the SoCo (South Covington) Park project.
The funding was proposed to the legislature in the beginning of 2017, and the city is just now hearing that they received the funding.
According to Karla Slate, the communications and marketing manager for Covington, $820,000 of this funding will go towards the Covington Town Center project, and $592,000 will go towards the SoCo Park project.
Slate said with $2.2 million in reserves and combined with the money they received, the city is hoping to purchase about eight acres from the Kent School District for the new Town Center and a few acres for the new park as well, in the downtown area of Covington (17081 SE Wax Road).
“Both sets of funds are going to be used right now for equity acquisition, so we’ll be using the $592,000 to assist in purchasing the final two parcels for the park and then the $820,000 will go towards buying — it’s a few acres, of the Covington Elementary site, once that school is no longer there,” Slate said.
The Town Center is still in the beginning stages of planning, and according to Slate will not be done for a while.
“We are currently working with the school district on preparing a short plat on the property so we can buy our desired eight acres from the total 15 acres they own. That will be done this year, in 2018,” Slate said. “Our five-member Town Center Team is currently working with a private developer consultant on potential preliminary design plans for the future town center site. Nothing can proceed until we actually purchase the property.”
She went onto to say that beyond buying the property, the city has no funding to start building a new City Hall or construct the new plaza for the new Town Center.
Slate said finishing the Town Center may involve bonds and votes in the near future.
Nothing will be built on the site for the next few years.
For the SoCo Park project, Slate said there is a “best-case scenario” timeline for this project and assumes there will be enough funding.
• 2018: Complete the acquisition phase with the $592,000 appropriation to acquire two parcels to add to the one parcel that the city purchased in 2016
• 2019: Planning phase (master plan, funding/implementation planning)
• 2020: Grant applications and secure funding
• 2021-2022: Design and bidding phase
• 2022-2023: Construction phase
Slate said the park development is important for the residents there because there hasn’t been a community park in that area.
“I think for SoCo Park, what’s really important for that one is it’s in our downtown area and now that we have two new sets of apartments there, those folks that live there, they have literally no parks property that’s close to them so this is going to be the first real park in that downtown area,” she said.
To complete both of these projects, Slate said the city will definitely need more money, but the plans are all there and they are taking both these projects one step at time.
