Bowling Green, Kentucky

BOWL ING GREEN, KENTUCKY The five-star, local Chamber of Commerce has been around for 80-plus years and is recognized in the top one percent of Chambers in the country. They’ve competed in the U.S. Chamber of the Year competition five years in a row and made it to finalist in three of those years. The Bowling Green business community is very engaged with the Chamber. Ten years ago, they helped raise the funds for construction of the Chamber building, and $2 million to invest in education. In an effort to train and encourage skilled talent to stay and work in the community, the Chamber created the SCK (South Central Kentucky) launch initiative for students to learn about unique and new careers. It’s a national go- to career model that enhances the curriculum of the two exceptional school districts with opportunities to learn skills that will be viable for employment in local businesses. Bowling Green has plentiful jobs available in a variety of sectors. According to Bunch, “We do a demand report every month to identify the open jobs, and at our peak in the 10-county region on a monthly basis, there are about 9,000 open jobs. Probably 75 percent of those will be in Bowling Green and Warren County. Even with COVID-19 going on, there are still between five and six thousand open jobs in the 10-county region - all different pay levels, all different sectors, it’s a pretty wide array. That demand for open jobs, and the quality of those jobs is continuing to drive people to move here and buy and rent real estate.” Bowling Green is not completely built out but it’s close. So, there is a lot of rehabilitation and demolition of older houses and developers building new single-family and multi-family inside the city, which is helping revitalize neighborhoods and making them stronger. The downtown core is a work in process. The city has spent close to $4 million on the central downtown area in the first phase, and that will be continued on for a couple of blocks. Meisel notes, “We have Fountain Square Park and Circus