Walking up the stairs with no railing, one gets a glimpse of a building’s past, present and future. The building is currently under construction, but the freight elevator and the vintage ghost sign on the building’s exterior indicates the building’s history as a paint factory (pictured top left). Tony Kreutzjans, Founder of Orleans Development, leads the tour and explains that it will be converted into 5 loft apartments with original brick, windows and exposed beams and a commercial space on the main floor.
As Covington thrives with new business activity, the Covington Business Council is proud to partner with various businesses to offer these tours exclusively to our members as part of the CBC Hard Hat Tour and After Hours series. With Covington’s history and robust economy, we’ve seen late 1880s buildings get a new facelift and new life, while keeping the historical richness intact. The Whitney Building that we toured in 2018, once housed a plumbing store. The CBC was the first public tour of the new Kenton County Administrative Building, formerly the Bavarian Brewery (pictured top right). Eating dinner at the Ripple Wine bar, you’d never guess that the building sat empty for 12 years, as we learned during the tour. In addition to redevelopments, CBC members got sneak peeks of new construction projects, including Duveneck Square, Dr. Anthony and Geraldine Zembrodt Education Center at The Point Arc, and a 40 million dollar luxury apartment complex, RiverHaus, located in MainStrasse. We’ve toured thriving businesses such as Integrity Capital who recently expanded and remodeled to better serve the needs of their customers.
After each tour, we walk to a CBC member establishment to kickback and relax. We’d like to thank our business partners and owners who welcome and guide us through the tour. We also want to salute our hard hat tour sponsor, Citizens Deposit Bank and our After Hours sponsor, NKY Contractor’s Association, an ABC Ohio Valley Chapter.
If you’d like additional information about the Covington Business Council, please contact Executive Director, Pat Frew at pfrew@cbcky.com.
Written by Molly Weaver, Capacity Coordinator, Covington Business Council
