WQXE News

The summer closure of Interstate 65 through downtown Louisville is just over two months away. 

Five miles of I-65 will close between Interstate 264 (Watterson Expressway) and Jefferson Street on Monday, June 1, with a scheduled reopening to traffic on August 1. Kentucky Transportation Cabinet District Five says the complete closure of the interstate will allow for accelerated work replacing the I-65 bridges over Kentucky and Brook streets; Hill Street, a CXS rail line, and Burnett Avenue; and Bradley Avenue.

The KYTC says the old bridges, which were part of the original construction of the interstate in the 1950s, will be removed and new bridges will be built in their place. Sidewalk improvements and the installation of modernized lighting under the bridges will also be part of the construction work.

Traffic will be detoured to I-264 on the west side of Louisville, with work to prepare the detour for expanded traffic ongoing. Traffic accessing downtown Louisville will use the Jefferson Street exit from southbound I-65. Traffic will also be able to access downtown Louisville via I-64. Traffic leaving downtown will use the ramp from East Liberty Street to access northbound I-65.

The KYTC says the full closure was determined to be the most cost-effective option, and the full closure will save about a year of work compared to temporary closures. Visit the project website, www.I65CentralCorridor.com, for more information.

Elizabethtown/Hardin County Industrial Foundation President and COO Andy Games says after his conversations with Ford Motor Company officials he believes “we are, possibly, in a better situation than we were prior” with the BlueOval SK property in Glendale.

“It’s Ford Motor Company,” Games said. “They’ve been in Kentucky for 100 years. The legislature has been very good with the Ford Motor Company people. They keep in touch with me. They’ve already got an existing relationship with Ford Motor Company, so the transition has been very good.”

Games was the featured speaker during the Hardin County Chamber of Commerce’s Business at Breakfast event at the Colvin Community Center in Radcliff Thursday. While Games briefly discussed other activities the Industrial Foundation has been involved in recently, he said “I know why everybody’s here.”

Games said if things go according to plan, the partnership between Ford and SK On will be formally dissolved by the end of next week, with SK On keeping the BlueOval SK company and the battery factory in Tennessee and Ford Energy LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ford Motor Company, retaining the Glendale property.

“Our situation is we’ve got Ford Motor Company, and Ford Motor Company is taking all 1,500 acres, both 4.2 million square foot facilities, and all the liabilities associated with the incentive package,” Games said.

Games said Ford wrote off $20 billion to end the BlueOval project, and they will invest $2 billion over the next 18 to 24 months to convert the Kentucky One plant to produce energy storage system batteries. While Games said the Kentucky Two building is “basically a shell” with nothing in it, he said he believes Ford has “active plans” for Kentucky Two and the property as a whole.

“If you do research with Ford Motor Company, they’ve got a lot of places in the country where they’re landlocked,” Games said. “They don’t have a lot of land to expand. They just bought some land at KTP, which is their number one facility in Louisville, but they don’t have a lot of places where they can do anything in the country. They now have 800 open acres on the CSX railroad with all the sewer, all the water, all the gas, and a potential of 500 megawatts power.”

Games also said Elizabethtown Community and Technical College will retain their training facility in Glendale with an eventual shift in focus to the production of the ESS batteries, and based on his conversations with the company he anticipates Ford will continue community partnerships and sponsorships that were started under BlueOval SK.

“BlueOval SK did a lot of great things in Glendale,” Games said. “They extended all the sidewalks there before the Great Crossing Festival in 2022. They sponsored the Crossing Festival every year. When they were tearing down all the trees and brush on the property, they donated all that to the fire department to the tune of around $60,000 or $70,000, so I think we’re going to see maybe more of that with Ford as we get going.”

Games also credited the work of local and state officials to assist BlueOval SK employees who were laid off following the announced transition, and said based on unemployment figures officials believe more than half have found new jobs.

Visit www.eifky.org for more information on the Industrial Foundation.

All students are safe but bus routes were delayed after a fire alarm was pulled at Bluegrass Middle School Wednesday.

Hardin County Schools Community Relations Specialist John Wright says the alarm was pulled at approximately 2:45 p.m. on March 25.

“The school administration called 911 and the Radcliff Fire Department responded immediately,” Wright said. “In the meantime, school staff and students evacuated the building, and after an investigation by RFD and the Hardin County Schools Buildings and Grounds team, it was found that a piece of equipment had malfunctioned and overheated.”

Students returned to the building to gather their belongings at around 3:20 p.m. The delayed release of the middle school students then created a domino effect.

“Wednesday’s dismissal occurred 20 minutes after the normal dismissal time, therefore buses that normally take Bluegrass Middle School students home and return to the campus to take John Hardin High School students home after that school’s dismissal were late returning to John Hardin,” Wright said. “That caused a delay for some John Hardin High School students’ arrival at home.”

Wright says at no time were students and staff at Bluegrass Middle School ever in any danger.