Kentucky has clawed back a $15-million-dollar investment that was put into an aluminum mill that never came to be in eastern Kentucky. The Braidy Project was a deal made by former governor Matt Bevin. The site sat undeveloped for five years.
Jeff Knoll is the Kentucky Cabinet Secretary for Economic Development. He said people in the Ashland area were hoping for more jobs to come to the area.
“A local community in northeastern Kentucky sold 205 acres to the Unity Project, at a discount, to work on what could be and what might be, but never happened, a major employer in the region.”
He said they worked on what he calls a “win-win” scenario.
“205 acres with a 100-thousand square foot building is going to be donated back to the Industrial Authority for free. There is also some additional land and buildings that Unity acquired separate from what the authority did in that transaction, we have an agreement in principle to basically sell that land back for less than what Unity paid for it.”
The state’s investment has been returned to the Commonwealth Seed Capital. That group will now send the dollars to Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority.
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