GLENDALE, Ky. — Most people in the Bluegrass State learned of what Gov. Andy Beshear has called “the single largest investment in the history of our state” through his sweeping announcement Monday evening.
In the small unincorporated community in Hardin County where Ford plans to build a $5.8 billion electric vehicle battery production plant, though, the “Glendale McDonald’s coffee club” broke the news.
“If you want to know anything about Glendale,” longtime local antique store owner Don Baker joked, “attend one of those (meetings) in the morning.”
A week ago, the town of Glendale’s biggest claims to fame included the landmark Whistle Stop diner and the annual Glendale Crossing Festival, a popular arts and crafts fair taking place later this month.
That’s no longer the case. This week, the buzz in the community just south of Elizabethtown is all about Ford, and the more than 5,000 jobs the manufacturing plant is expected to bring to the region by the time it opens in 2025.
Beshear told The Courier Journal that Ford’s “planetary-size investment” will “transform (Kentucky’s) economy.” Residents of Glendale, meanwhile, are expecting that 1,500-acre production facility about two miles up the road by the Interstate 65 ramp to bring big changes to their small town.
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“The biggest story that we’ve had in this town since I’ve been here is the new battery plant coming,” said Millie Baker, who owns the Glendale Antique Mall with her husband Don. “And the second biggest one? I can’t remember.”
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From his family’s home a block away from Glendale’s historic Main Street retail strip, David Brandon and his wife Cathy will have a front-row seat to watch whatever comes next.
The Brandons have lived in town long enough to have heard plenty of rumors about the “Glendale Megasite,” a plot of land purchased by the state more than 20 years ago that will be home to the new facility. When sewers were installed a few years ago, they knew it was just a matter of time before the property was developed.
Last week when a couple of reporters showed up from Detroit, the “Motor City” and a landmark in the automotive industry, David had a feeling Glendale could be on the verge of getting a little busier.
“People have always speculated that (since) Toyota’s in Georgetown, Toyota might come down here too, or since Ford’s in Louisville, Ford would come here,” he said Tuesday morning. “That ended up being true.”
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Plenty of residents in Glendale pointed to the Toyota plant in Georgetown as an example of what could be coming to Hardin County. That facility near Lexington encompasses more than 1,300 acres and employs more than 7,000 people more than 20 years after it produced its first Camry in 1988. A study four years ago estimated that factoring in nearby spinoff companies and investment, that development has created a grand total of nearly 30,000 jobs.
Georgetown was on the mind of Emily Brandon, an economic and human development consultant who moved back to Glendale from Okinawa, Japan, at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. She was at home Tuesday morning with her parents, David and Cathy, in the aftermath of the announcement.
Toyota’s move to Georgetown, she noted, had an impact on more than just employment numbers. That town and the Lexington area as a whole grew, she said, which helped attract the World Equestrian Games in 2010, which led to the opening of the “Legacy Trail,” a scenic 12-mile bike path connecting the two cities. She pointed toward the latter as an example of human-focused infrastructure that can follow a massive new development.
Before that happens, though, Glendale has to answer how it’ll account for thousands of new families in the region. Right now you can frequently walk through the town’s narrow streets without worrying about speeding cars or oncoming traffic. Will that be the case four years from now?
“I think the infrastructure will need to be rethought a little bit,” she said. “There are some roads here that are not very busy, but add 5,000 people driving through and it’s not really going to work out. Certainly more housing somewhere in the area … (along with) some additional businesses that provide basic life amenities, things like small groceries.”
It’s more than accounting for the new residents, too. Glendale has its own history – Main Street can feel like a time capsule, with antique shops that can leave their goods outside overnight and two traditional restaurants, the Whistle Stop and Tony York’s On Main, that stand as community landmarks.
That old-time charm isn’t going anywhere, said Mike Cummins, a Glendale resident and WAKY radio personality who co-owned the Whistle Stop with his wife Lynn for 16 years before selling it earlier this spring. Main Street is protected through a buffer zone approved by Hardin County, he said, which prevents newer chain businesses from replacing those traditional storefronts.
“The Whistle Stop, all these antique and gift shops will still be here. We hope that they will flourish with the new people that are coming in. They already flourish anyway,” Cummins said. “… Living here personally, I am all for this opportunity.”
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Jewel-Beth Whidden, who owns Mountain Mike’s Coffee House with her husband Michael, said she went as far as sending a note through Gov. Beshear’s website urging state officials to bring more business into Glendale. She grew up in Hardin County and is confident the town will keep its character while welcoming in more neighbors – and more money.
“The community really makes up the community, you know? That’s what keeps it going. With something so valuable coming to town, that’s just going to help the community thrive,” she said. “… I think Glendale has been preparing for a while. Now, small business-wise? Like, all of us on (Main) Street? All right, that just means more people.”
A farming community goes industrial
The Brandons feel at home in Glendale, but David will warn you – “we’re not typical.”
The family bought its home in 1989 but spent the following decade working as agricultural missionaries in Africa before moving back to the commonwealth in 2000, bringing a chatty African gray parrot named Louis back with them. On many mornings you can find David tending to his sizable garden alongside his dog Bizi, with his daughter Emily nearby tuning in for a Zoom call in their backyard.
The work keeps him busy, with flowers, raspberries, tomatoes, cilantro, asparagus and passion fruit (it’s a weed, Cathy acknowledged, but “Louis loves it”), among other offerings. But his garden’s success, Cathy said, goes beyond his experience in Africa.
“He knows the soil well enough to know this soil is a great place to grow stuff,” she said.
“Valuable,” David put it. “It’s an asset.”
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The Glendale Megasite is prime farmland as well, which kept another car manufacturer from building on the space nearly 20 years ago.
Hyundai once said it hoped to open a plant at that site but the deal fell through in 2002, with then-Gov. Paul Patton blaming one farm family for refusing to sell its 111 acres to allow the car manufacturer to move in. Hyundai’s plant eventually opened in Alabama, where it currently employs more than 3,000 workers in Montgomery.
Land values will rise in Glendale, David noted, and the town likely stands to improve in other ways. But like other residents in the area, his thoughts were with Georgetown, where the opening of the Toyota facility caused valuable and prosperous farmland to be gobbled up by industry.
The land around Glendale has always been “prime agricultural land,” he said, and much of the nearby community is built around farming. Five years ago, according to the University of Kentucky’s Hardin County Cooperative Extension, the county ranked No. 10 in the state in soybean production, No. 19 in corn and No. 21 in wheat.
“They bought it because of that super-deep subsoil, so it’s going to be cheaper to excavate,” he said. “It’s like, we’re going to trade off our best land for industry. Well, economically that’s probably logical. But there’s a nostalgia with me – OK, we’re trading agricultural land for development.”
Hopes and expectations
Ford will bring a new era to Glendale and the region. Those in the community want a brighter future to come with it.
Everybody’s vision is a little different, but there’s plenty of common ground. Roads, for instance, will need to be widened, and adding more families means schools in Hardin County will need to account for more students.
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At the Whistle Stop, it means more employees will be needed to open the restaurant’s upstairs space for a buffet, according to director of operations Jamie Henley, so the diner can accommodate workers swinging by on their lunch break. She’s already thinking of opening an outdoor patio as well.
Nearby Elizabethtown’s town square, she said, could be a model for the future of “downtown” Glendale.
“It’s so cute with all those little locally owned businesses, and then out here (Glendale has) all the antique stores and locally owned businesses,” Henley said Tuesday afternoon over lunch. “People like that kind of stuff, and I think it’s just going to make (businesses) even busier and more profitable and it’s going to create more jobs around the area.”
Will Rivera can see the vision. He’s owned and operated the Running Soles shoe and fitness gear store in the Elizabethtown square for nine years, surviving the coronavirus pandemic by supplying locals with everything they need to explore the outdoors. An influx of people should be good for businesses all over the region, he said, in Glendale and in other nearby towns and cities.
“I’m sure there will be challenges along the way to get everybody to accommodate and all that, but I’m sure there’s a plan,” he said at his Elizabethtown shop. “I’m just a small business owner that’s being optimistic. I think this will be great for this whole region.”
Emily Brandon, meanwhile, looked beyond the impact on businesses and focused on lifestyle changes. Ford’s investment in Hardin County presents an opportunity to make some “really cool, really creative investments in the community” as Glendale grows.
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The streets are generally safe for cycling now, she said, but circumstances may change when thousands of new residents move in. Parklands, natural spaces and areas where pedestrians can feel comfortable on foot should be preserved where possible, Brandon added – the kind of town that will appeal to a talented workforce.
“Really, the sky’s the limit. In some ways, we have almost a blank canvas here,” she said. “We’ve got a nice historic town center with lots of open space around it, so I hope it doesn’t just become a cookie cutter. I hope it can be something that’s really integrated with nature and forward-thinking in terms of providing human-focused, human-centered lifestyle, along with well-paying, innovative jobs.”
Lucas Aulbach can be reached at [email protected], 502-582-4649 or on Twitter @LucasAulbach.
