After years of sitting vacant, the Turley building will be managed by the City of Owensboro as they look for new tenants. The move comes after the City adjusted its agreement with the RiverPark Center.
City Manager Nate Pagan and RPC Board Chair Scott McCain said the RPC Board requested the change, which was officially approved during Tuesday’s City Commission meeting. McCain said it had been an “exhaustive journey” dealing with the space.
The building was most notably home to the International Bluegrass Music Museum (IBMM) before the new facility was built at the corner of 2nd and Frederica streets.
“Since the IBMM moved into the new Hall of Fame facility and vacated what we now call the Turley Building (formerly IBMM), that space has been nothing but a sizable annual overhead cost for RiverPark Center and no offsetting revenue. Not to mention, the RiverPark Center raised and spent a considerable amount of funds subsequently to perform the interior demolition, which is the way it sits now except for the KY Guitar Works space,” McCain said.
Kentucky Guitar Works will be located on the first floor of the Turley building and is set to open later this month. McCain said that the cost of renovating the rest of the space into a “white box” that could be used for any tenant is upward of seven figures.
He noted that the organization had early talks with nonprofits, but none could finish by the necessary deadlines. Additionally, McCain cited post-COVID construction costs that inflated materials to prepare the space.
“I want to thank the City for its willingness to take this albatross off our necks when they really do not have to, and then do with it what they want to turn it into its highest and best use instead of being mostly vacant,” McCain said.
Pagan said that there are no plans for who could use the space.
“There was no plan for it. There’s not a tenant or anything. It was just something (the RPC) had requested not to be responsible for after not being able to find the tenant,” Pagan said.
Pagan said the City will now begin looking for tenants.
