INFORMATION AGE PARK OPENS IN PADUCAH

PADUCAH, Ky. The new Paducah Information Age Park has its first tenant CSI, a computer firm from Paducah.

Executives and officials from South Central Bell, the Commonwealth of Kentucky, University of Kentucky and the Tennessee Valley Authority, met with representatives from CSI, and other representatives from Paducah and McCracken County here Wednesday to announce the launching of a high-tech communications park at Paducah.

The project, known as the Paducah Information Age Park, and developed by the Greater Paducah Economic Development Council (GPEDC), will encompass a 600-acre tract west of the city.

Plans call for installation of state-of-the-art, high volume, information processing capabilities and related technology for use by future park tenants.

"The project is expected to bring a plethora of communications and information processing enterprises to our community," said Harry Ruth, executive director of the GPEDC.

The project is designed to attract companies that need advanced communications equipment to Paducah, and when completed, is expected to create more than 2,500 jobs.

"There will be no manufacturing or warehousing in the park," said Ruth, executive director of GPEDC. "Tenants to be recruited are ones that move volumes of information via telecommunications, such as data processing companies, credit card companies, payroll centers, catalog companies and other information-intensive businesses."

Officials announced that several million dollars from public and private sources have been committed to the project, which studies indicate could employ between 2,500 to 7,500 people within a decade.

The land for the project was acquired recently, but the project wasn't formally announced until Wednesday.

A master plan for the project was designed by a national architectural and engineering firm, and a comprehensive feasibility study was conducted by an Atlanta, Ga. consulting group specializing in the telecommunications industry.

The project is a fruition of two years of exhaustive studies and strategic planning by GPEDC, city and county officials, and the project's corporate and government backers. The park will be developed in a campus-like fashion with a lake, teleconference center, hotel and other support facilities.

Ruth added that about 40 percent of the acreage will be dedicated to areas for such facilities as a multi-million dollar resource center and centralized services for the companies and employees.

Partners, such as Bell South Services, predict that Paducah will become a prototype for many other non-metropolitan communities as they seek to participate in the growth of the telecommunications industry.

"Paducah is the first non-urban area to get this type of service," said Joe Mefford, South Central Bell directors of economic development in Kentucky. "Centers such as they are usually found in the big communities Chicago, New York, Atlanta, and other major metropolitan areas.

South Central Bell has spent $500 million in upgrading its equipment in the area, and SCB regional director Dwane Tucker talked with the GPEDC leadership to discuss the concept for such an info park.

Ruth and Tucker attended a conference on the telecommunications industry asking how ideas could be adapted to rural areas like Paducah. The two men then got together and formed the Greater Paducah Economic Development Council. The GPEDC then launched the drive to start the information park.