The plan to create a non-profit center to celebrate Kentucky's agricultural heritage, look to its future and attract tourists is in jeopardy, because the heirs of the wealthy man who planned to donate the property have decided to make money on it by selling it for residential development. There was no explicit irony in the story by Greg Kocher in today's Lexington Herald-Leader, but it was implicit:
"Mercer County philanthropist Ralph G. Anderson intended to donate 50 acres of his Anderson Circle Farm north of Harrodsburg for the center. But when Anderson died last year at age 86, the formal transfer had not occurred, and his estate had other plans for the land. Last week, the Mercer County Joint Planning and Zoning Commission approved six preliminary plats that subdivide more than 4,500 acres of Anderson Circle Farm and other properties. Most of the land is zoned for agricultural purposes, but some is zoned for low-density and high-density residential. Included in those plats is the site . . . Anderson had intended for the Agriculture Heritage Center." The land will be sold at auction. (Google map; click for larger image)
Margaret Lane, the center's board chair, said it is trying to find another land donor. "Lane said the board hopes to announce a new site soon that would be 'very close' to the original," Kocher reports. Taxpayers have a stake in the deal; the state Agricultural Development Board has approved $1 million in tobacco-settlement funds for a market study, design and marketing of the center, and a state-backed bond issue would finance construction. (Read more)
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