One East Kentucky Receives Grant to Fund Downtown Redevelopment Plans

One East Kentucky is pleased to announce a partnership with Retail Strategies that will help to strengthen downtowns throughout eastern Kentucky. The organization received a $270,000 grant from Kentucky Power to fund the initiative. “We look forward to partnering with Retail Strategies to develop plans for revitalizing downtowns throughout our region,” said Colby Kirk, President & CEO of One East Kentucky. “Thriving downtowns are vital to having a strong sense of community and for growing our local economies. Before we can invest in their redevelopment, we need to have a solid action plan. Retail Strategies will provide us with one for each community they work with.”

As a national company, Retail Strategies brings real estate expertise and industry best practices to their creation of strategic plans. When put into action, their plans are used to attract business and investment.

Retail Strategies is expected to begin their work at the end of 2022 with the research and plan creation phases going into 2023. The following communities have been selected to participate. 

• Inez in Martin County
• Prestonsburg in Floyd County
• Jenkins in Letcher County
• Whitesburg in Letcher County
• Hazard in Perry County
• Pikeville in Pike County 

Community stakeholders are invited to participate. Retail Strategies may issue requests for participation as the process unfolds. 

“We want to thank Kentucky Power for awarding One East Kentucky the Kentucky Power Economic Growth Grant. Kentucky Power is a committed partner planying a key role in the economic development of our region,” said Kirk. “Without their support we would not have the funding to engage Retail Strategies and begin the work of redeveloping the downtowns throughout eastern Kentucky.”

“Investing in our downtowns and small businesses is an investment in our future and we look forward to starting this important work,” said Kirk. For more information on One East Kentucky and the downtown revitalization initiative, contact Colby Kirk.