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Newport continues development of Monmouth, approves hotel, parking garage near World Peace Bell


By Don Owen
NKyTribune reporter

Newport will add a Home2 Suites by Hilton hotel to the ever-growing list of businesses in its booming downtown area in the not-too-distant future.

The Newport Board of Commissioners authorized a memorandum of agreement with World Peace Hospitality LLC during Monday night’s meeting. The first phase of the development will be a Home2 Suites by Hilton hotel, a mixed-use building and garage, which will be built at 4th and Monmouth — right across the lot from the World Peace Bell that is at 4th and York Street.

“The Peace Bell is staying, but not the (Southbank Partners) building,” Newport City Manager Thomas Fromme said. “That whole block is the development site.”

The World Peace Bell has been a major tourist attraction in Newport since 1999. More development is needed near that location on Monmouth Street, according to numerous studies. It also allows Monmouth Street to connect with Newport on the Levee.

“Study after study says we have that open area, and it doesn’t connect Monmouth Street with the Levee,” Fromme said. “This is just a final piece of that puzzle that will make Monmouth Street all continuous. So you don’t have a block right down by the Levee as a vacant area. This fills in the whole area and it makes one continuous street of development.”

In addition to the hotel, a garage that will add 350 parking spaces will also be built as part of the development of the property.

“This is very impressive, and a well-designed project,” Newport Mayor Jerry Peluso said of the hotel and garage plans.

Home2 Suites by Hilton already has a hotel in Florence, just 10 minutes from the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.

-In other action Monday night, the Board of Commissioners authorized Peluso to execute an agreement with the Commonwealth of Kentucky Transportation Cabinet for the U.S. 27 South Monmouth Street improvement projects, Phases I and II.

Phase I is the area south of the intersection of Carothers Road and U.S. 27 to the Newport/Southgate city limits. Phase II involves the improvement of the Newport Underpass.

Jerry Peluso

“I believe that not only aesthetically we’ll have a visual positive impact, the main thing is it will become a lot safer in those areas,” Peluso said of the project. “If you go through that underpass corridor now, there’s really not a barrier between the sidewalk and the roadway. All that contributes to a really unsafe walking environment.

“I think this project will make it better for walking, and especially much safer.”

The Phase II project will address deficiencies of the Newport Underpass as a bicycle and pedestrian route by removing the obsolete stairs and walkway at the southwest corner of 11th Street and U.S. 27, and the obsolete stairs and walkway at the southwest corner of 15th Street and U.S. 27 and replace them with ADA Accessible sidewalks.

Fromme said Newport will hire an engineer to do the design, but beginning work on the project is still likely two years away. “We really want to look at removing the sidewalk at the underpass and make it safer for both pedestrians and vehicles,” Fromme said.

The Newport Board of Commissioners will convene in a regular meeting on June 10 at 7 p.m.


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