Bowling Green is Kentucky’s third largest city – and it’s moving up quickly. Now sitting at just under 80,000 people, the population of the Warren County seat is expected to double over the next 25 years.
That level of growth would be the envy of many communities. But officials in Bowling Green and Warren County want to be prepared for the opportunities and the challenges such rapid expansion may bring.
“I’m a planner and I want to start thinking about how can we plan for this growth and manage the growth rather than just have it happen to us,” says Warren County Judge-Executive Doug Gorman.
What Could BG Be?
Growth in Bowling Green isn’t new. The city’s population has increased by about 30,000 people since the year 2000. Census data shows a similar trajectory for Warren County, which went from a population of 92,000 in 2000 to nearly 149,000 last year. Easy access to I-65, close proximity to Nashville, a strong manufacturing base, and a respected regional university have made the area ripe for development.
“Our goal is community led, service driven, powered by growth,” says Bowling Green Mayor Todd Alcott. “It’s about investing in what the people want and what the people need.”
Alcott says the city has grown its workforce to 600 employees to better serve the needs of the community. The city also joined the Barren River Area Development District to coordinate its growth along with the 10 south central Kentucky counties that surround it. And Alcott says city leaders have listened to and invested in ideas provided by residents on how to address the issues of affordable housing, health care, and homelessness.
Earlier this year, local leaders launched a project to solicit more input from residents about their visions for the future of the community. What Could BG Be? garnered about 4,000 ideas from nearly 7,900 residents during a month-long online conversation.
“This thing took off,” says Gorman. “What we accomplished was the largest townhall in the history of America.”
The responses to the campaign were collated by artificial intelligence and then divided among eight teams of community volunteers that will help focus future planning efforts around topics like economic development, tourism, infrastructure, and public health.
“The survey wasn’t an end. It was a beginning,” says Rodney Goodman of Habitat for Humanity Bowling Green/Warren County. He is one of the listening partners who are reviewing the public input. “This isn’t a roadmap of where we’re going, but it’s a compass.”
Among the many services a growing community needs are doctors and hospitals. Mike D'Eramo, president and CEO of Graves Gilbert Clinic, says Warren County is falling short in that area.
“Health care in Bowling Green is stressed,” he says. “Are we keeping up with the need? The answer is no.”
Part of the challenge, argues D’Eramo, is high physician turnover. Since doctors can find a job just about anywhere, he says health care providers in Bowling Green need to improve their efforts to attract doctors to the community and then keep them once they are here. He also wants to see more specialty services offered locally so that patients don’t have to travel to Louisville or Nashville to get the care they need.
Western Kentucky University recently launched an online program to help registered nurses earn a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree. WKU President Tim Caboni says the school also partners with the University of Kentucky College of Medicine Bowling Green Campus to provide medical training to students from the region.
“I’ve been at a lot of places in the country and what I’ve noticed about Bowling Green and Warren County is that we are all on the same page in terms of the future of this community,” says Caboni. “It’s the reason we are growing so quickly and will continue into the future.”
Education as an Economic Driver
WKU and other local educational institutions are poised to play a critical role in developing the talent that Bowling Green will need to fill new jobs and create new businesses in the region.
“We started on a talent-led economic development strategy years ago,” says
Ron Bunch, president and CEO of Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce. “We’ve systematically built relationships with the business community, and invested in our public schools, and then worked together with the university, with (Southcentral Kentucky Community and Technical College) to really build more of an approach to better meeting demand.”
Bunch says the chamber is partnering with WKU to promote research and development activities that can lead to new technologies and a more diversified business base for the community. Caboni says the school is adding new degree programs, including Western’s first PhD offering, which will be in data science. He says the school is working with local companies to develop other course offerings that will meet their needs.
One example of those efforts is WKU’s Innovation Campus. It’s a place that brings faculty and students together with entrepreneurs and local business partners in a creative environment that can generate new solutions and technologies to drive future growth.
“We need to think about our innovation campus... as the next driver of the economy and how do we get there, what are the things we need to build, and how do we attract the next generation of companies to diversify our economy,” says Caboni.
Southcentral Kentucky Community and Technical College in Bowling Green also works to help students prepare for jobs in the region. From low-cost associate degrees to certifications in a wide number of trades, SKYCTC President Michelle Trawick says the school is uniquely positioned to quickly respond to changes in the regional workforce and prepare students to fill those jobs.
“We’re able to make sure we have programming that meets that need,” says Trawick. “As a two-year institution, we’re typically more agile than some of the larger, four-year institutions at meeting that low-level, early-entry need.”
Trawick says the school expects to have a 12.5 percent increase in enrollment for the fall semester. SKYCTC also offers a range of dual-credit courses that allow younger students to simultaneously earn high school and college credits. Trawick says if a student takes at least nine hours of dual-credit courses and earns at least a B average, they will receive a $5,000 a year scholarship to SKYCTC. She says that means a student could earn an associate degree without incurring any student debt. They can then seamlessly transition to WKU or another state school to continue their studies.
“There are many other ways to fulfill individual prosperity, create generational wealth, and economic development for the community,” she says. “At SKYCTC, we’re focused on all of those.”
At the secondary level, Warren County Public Schools is set to open a new Impact Center for Leadership and Innovation next year. This $84 million facility will ultimately serve selected students in grades 7 through 12 with high-tech, project-based learning experiences in partnership with WKU, SKYCTC, and companies like IBM.
“What they are doing is really groundbreaking not only for Kentucky, I think, but nationally,” says state Sen. Mike Wilson (R-Bowling Green). “It’s a national model.”
Another component of the Impact Center curriculum will be leadership training provided to all students in partnership with the renowned FranklinCovey organization.
“It’s going to help children really discover what they can be and to be a leader in every facet of their life,” says Bunch. “That will change lives and change families, and we’re very excited about that.”
Transpark and Tourism
One of the older economic development initiatives in Warren County continues to be one of its most important. Some 25 years ago, city and county officials acquired 1,100 acres northeast of Bowling Green for an industrial park called Kentucky Transpark.
“That was very fertile farmland once upon a time,” says state Rep. Michael Meredith (R-Oakland). “It has been very fertile land to grow businesses now, too.”
Today the park boasts about 8,000 jobs at companies ranging from manufacturing to logistics, according to Meredith. The complex also features a SKYCTC campus and job training programs through the Green River Regional Educational Cooperative. It will soon be the site of a new $60 million Veterans Administration nursing home. Meredith says Transpark has provided a great foundation for Warren County, but he adds that such large-scale development opportunities are much harder to pursue today.
“We don’t have the land for the industrial sites that we once had,” says Meredith. “As we run out of that inventory, we need to grow in a different way, and so it’s how do we grow those start-up companies, those tech companies, bio-medical companies, things of that nature.”
One way to help land such businesses and the entrepreneurs who start them is through tourism efforts. Sherry Murphy, executive director of the Bowling Green Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, says her job isn’t just to help people find fun things to do around Bowling Green, but to also show them what it would be like to live in such a safe, vibrant community.
“Tourism doesn’t just touch our visitors, but we’re also that first handshake to the community for a lot of future residents,” says Murphy. “We want people here. We want them to come and live here and share in the prosperity of our community.”
Tourism is also a significant driver of the local economy, generating some $480 million in revenues and about 4,000 jobs, according to Murphy.
