Business View Magazine | March 2020

285 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE MARCH 2020 CLARKSV I LLE , INDI ANA Director, outlines three large-scale redevelopment areas that are currently on the town’s agenda. “They all offer opportunities for interested businesses partners to relocate and invest in our community,” he observes. “The first one is what we call the South Clarksville Redevelopment Area. It’s a 320-acre area on the Ohio River waterfront, directly across from downtown Louisville, at the foot of the 2nd Street Bridge. Of those 320 acres, 160 of them are what we call the transformation area, which is where we’re looking to ‘scrape, rebuild, and rehab’ old brownfield sites.” The redevelopment of South Clarksville revolves mostly around three properties — the Colgate- Palmolive building, the Marathon Petroleum Oil Terminal, and Water Tower Square. The more than 40-acre Colgate-Palmolive property has sat vacant since the consumer products company left Clarksville in 2007. Two years after that, Marathon left another 20-plus acres in Clarksville, empty. The 28-acre Water Tower Devonian period occurred from 416 million to 358 million years ago, and when the Ohio River is not at flood stage, there is a large exposed fossil bed on the Jeffersonville Limestone bedrock, which people can actually walk upon to see the prehistoric fossils. In 1937, the Ohio River did, in fact, exceed its flood stage, and the entire town of Clarksville was decimated by what become known as the Great Flood, after the river submerged the town beneath as much as 12 feet of water in some areas for over three weeks during January and February. With almost all of the old town destroyed, Clarksville was rebuilt with a new modern city plan. The post-World War II housing boom and new jobs brought growth to the city, and its population increased from 2,400 in 1940 to 22,000 in 2000. Today, the modern town of Clarksville, with a population of 21,724, continues to revere its past while moving confidently into the future. Dylan Fisher, Clarksville’s Redevelopment