At the Pineville City Council meeting Tuesday, Main Street Pineville Director Jacob Roan introduced the council to David Jenkins who promises to be with the city of Pineville until they see the downtown project through to completion.

Mayor Scott Madon asked Roan to speak on the future of the project prior to introducing Jenkins.

“I’m going to ask Jacob to come up with him, and I’m going to let them talk about our downtown project that we’ve been working on for five years. (It) looks like we’re finally about to get real close on that,” Madon said as Roan stood at the podium. “We had a really good meeting with Sandy Donahue, commissioner of the Department of Local Government, and we think we are about ready to get the ball finally rolling.”

“We’ve stood at the gala the last three years and told everyone that they can expect to see ground breaking in downtown that coming year, but it’s when the wildlife center opening was pushed back a little bit and the state didn’t see it as urgent as they first did,” Roan explained of the downtown project and the time span. “It will still be finished before the wildlife center in the spring of 2021.”

According to Roan, they estimate a start date for the project in early next summer, most likely June 1 after the festival.

Roan broke down the grants and applications that have been sent off to Frankfort included in the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG).

“The CDBG is $1 million grant that you all approved resolutions on all three of these KIA (Kentucky Infrastructure Authority), $2.6 million with a million dollar forgiveness at 1%,” said Roan.

Then he explained the Appalachian Regional Commission grant, which they recently met with Commissioner Donahue about. “The ARC, which we spoke about at the last meeting, is close to $700,000, which is what we met with Commissioner Donahue about and we are going to have to tweak that application just a little bit, but it’s all good news from the state.”

According to Roan, they are expecting everything they have asked for to be fully funded and he explained that would leave them somewhere in the ball park of $1 to $1.5 million to finance.

“We’ve met a great friend over the last few years at some of our conferences trips that we’ve grown close with David Jenkins at Ross Sinclair and Associates,” Roan said as he introduced Jenkins to the crowd. “He’s going to help us to finance that last part of the project that will completely change our downtown to make the business environment friendlier and more conducive for the influx of tourists that we are going to see in 2021.”

Jenkins thanked the council for allowing him to come speak and introduce himself. His title is Cooperate Business Development with Ross Sinclair and Associates and explained that he has been involved in and around government projects and is thankful to get to work with the mayor, council and Roan.

“We’ve been talking several times about when was it an appropriate time to come, and we thought just an introduction tonight would be enough for right now,” Jenkins said. “In the near future, we’ll be passing some resolutions and things of that nature once you get a little more down the road.”

He said that Ross Sinclair and Associates also handles the League of Cities bonding pool.

“We are welcome there and have a long relationship it the Kentucky League of Cities,” he explained. “We’ll be working with them through your project so everything is cohesive. Everybody knows what everybody is doing.”

According to Mayor Madon, they haven’t nailed down the final plans for the project, but he says he feels comfortable with moving forward at this point

Madon said that one of their biggest goals is creating community parking spaces around the square and they are really pushing for 80 to 90.

Two more items on the agenda was the appointment of three new Bell County Community Development Agencies and declaring the 2009 Ford Cruiser that the fire department has as surplus.

The next regular meeting for the Pineville City Council will be held on Oct. 9 at 6 p.m.