Council makes Midway Station all industrial or highway business; keeps fish farm as is; talks streets and speed

EDA Chair John Soper pointed to an old map of Midway Station to indicate property that the council was about to rezone.

Midway Station no longer has any property that is zoned for residential development or professional offices, following the Midway City Council's approval of a rezoning ordinance Monday night.

Among other business, the council rejected bids for the old wastewater-treatment plant, leaving it under lease to a small fish farm, and heard from a potential new telecommunications provider.

Midway Station: "This gets back to where it was originally intended to be," Mayor Grayson Vandegrift said, referring to the development's original status as an industrial park. It also includes some tracts that are zoned for highway business.

Vandegrift recalled that after Bluegrass Stockyards abandoned plans to buy the property in 2007 due to opposition from some in Midway, the debt of the failed industrial park left the city and Woodford County "in a much more desperate situation," and they converted the property to residential and commercial to get Lexington developer Dennis Anderson involved.

For years, Anderson paid the interest on Midway Station's mortgage in return for an option on the property, but the Great Recession stymied his plans for development. Coming out of the recession, industries began buying tracts in the development and adjacent to it. In February, Anderson dropped his option, putting development back in the hands of the county Economic Development Authority.

Vandegrift said Anderson originally wanted to build 500 homes, and the city has only 600, so "You might as well have named a different city other than Midway out there."

Some in Midway had thought the residential property in Midway Station could answer the city's need for more housing, especially with the growth in jobs at the industrial park. Before passage of the ordinance, Vandegrift addressed those concerns.

The mayor said he is eager to get more residential development in Midway, but "It's got to go in the right place," inside the city's current urban services boundary.

The latest rezoning also eliminates all professional-office (P-1) zoning in the development, which Council Member Stacy Thurman questioned.

EDA Chair John Soper said there is "no demand" for such property, and "We're reacting to demand. "That doesn't mean we couldn't come back at some point with a user who could use P-1." He said Journey Church, which will get part of the current P-1 property, wanted to be in a highway business zone because it will have a coffee shop and day-care center open to the public. Churches can be in any zone, under a conditional-use permit.

In response to a question from Council Member John Holloway, Soper said the coffee shop would draw business from travelers on Interstate 64 and workers in Midway Station. "The church sees getting people into the building as their first mission," Soper said.

The day-care center would meet a longstanding need in the city. The church plans to employ 70 people, more than EDA's goal of 10 jobs per acre in Midway Station, Vandegrift said.

On another real-estate issue, Thurman asked the mayor about the status of the proposed ordinance that would crack down on owners of blighted property. "People have been asking," she said. Vandegrift said city attorney Phil Moloney is working on the ordinance, which would be "put out as soon as possible," followed by council workshops to discuss it.

Steve Mims feeds his fish at the old wastewater treatment plant.

Fish farm: The council decided not to sell the city's old wastewater-treatment plant, after both bids fell short of its appraised value. The bids were $20,000 from Buchanan Contracting of Mount Sterling, which EDA has hired to do work at Midway Station, and $13,100 from Advancing Sustainable Aquaculture Performance for Fish, owned by a retired Kentucky State University aquaculture professor who has leased the facility for four years.

Council Member Logan Nance moved to accept ASAP Fish's bid, saying he had toured the facility with lessee Steve Mims and talked with people in the community who want the city to retain a business, but after a discussion, only Thurman voted with him.

Council Member Bruce Southworth opposed a sale, saying the city would have to find a place for salt and equipment that is stored on the property. Mims offered to let the city do that under his ownership, but Southworth said his bid wasn't high enough.

Nance said the city should "get out of the landlording business," but Vandegrift said that if the property were sold to Buchanan for use as a staging area for equipment, it "wouldn't look as nice." He said earlier, "I think Steve's got the best use for it."

Vandegrift said he had no problem continuing to lease the property to Mims, as long as he got his own electric service and started using water from Lee Branch instead of the new plant across Leestown Road, which Mims told the council last month he was planning to do. "We're paying his electric bill now, so we're losing money," the mayor said. Mims' lease fee is 5 percent of gross revenues; those payments totaled only $800 last year, Vandegrift said last month.

Streets and speed: Holloway said the city needs to keep pressing the state Highway Department to lower the speed limit on Winter Street downtown to 25 miles per hour, because the agency has done so in similar situations in other towns, including a railroad crossing in Lawrenceburg.

Vandegrift said that when he formally requested a lower speed limit last year, highway engineers rejected it, partly because the downhill slope on northbound Winter would require drivers "to ride their brakes" from Bruen Street to the crossing.

He said the rejection was the reason he got the state to paint stripes on the sides of Winter and has proposed up to $50,000 for curb extensions or "bulb-outs" at the intersections with Bruen and Stephens streets. Both measures are intended to slow down motorists by narrowing the trafficway, but Vandegrift agreed that the city needs to keep asking for a lower speed limit.

Fiber-optic franchise: The council heard from Kathy Sholar of MetroNet, which plans to install fiber-optic cable in the city under a non-exclusive franchise agreement similar to the one the city has with Spectrum. "What we bring to your community is choice," as well as "the best technology available in the world" for internet, television and telephone," she said.

Sholar said the company is coming to Midway because it got a contract to serve the county school system, and is also pursuing a franchise agreement with the county government.

Vandegrift said, "I've been very impressed with MetroNet, and everything she said is true."

Other business: The council approved an event permit and street closure for the 175th anniversary of Midway Christian Church on July 7. "I think Midway Christian is the pillar of this community," said Nance, who attends Midway Baptist Church.

The council also heard a report from state Rep. Joe Graviss, D-Versailles, who reiterated that he is running for the seat of retiring state Sen. Julian Carroll, D-Frankfort. Graviss, who was elected last year, was praised by Vandegrift, who has said he may run for the House seat.

"You did a great job," Vandegrift told Graviss. "You're going to be great as our senator. . . . You stick up for what you believe in."

As Graviss left, he was asked if he and Vandegrift would endorse each other. Neither replied.