Mayor thinks groundbreaking could occur in spring 2027
Additional funding to cover inflation-caused price increases to the Audubon Conference Center are included in the state budget recently approved by the Kentucky General Assembly.
With the approved $2.8 million, design work can continue with the hope of a spring 2027 groundbreaking, said Henderson Mayor Brad Staton.
The mayor, who has been working on the project with Hafer and Associates of Evansville—the firm that was awarded the contract from the state—as well as officials with the Kentucky Department of State Parks and local state legislators, said the $2.8 million brings the current approved funding up to $16.5 million.
Staton said the project will cost between $15 million and $17 million.
The Henderson County Fiscal Court has approved $2.5 million for the project, while the city has approved $2.7 million. Additionally, the General Assembly previously approved $8.545 for the project in the 2024 budget session, Staton said. The newest state appropriation brings the funding up to $16.5 million, he said.
Staton, as well as other local officials, made trips to Frankfort to lobby for the increased funding, he said. The mayor said he went four times. He credited local legislators state Sen. Robby Mills and State Rep. J.T. Payne both for their work to get the money and for setting up meetings for Hendersonians with other legislators while in Frankfort.
The conference center has been a priority for the mayor, who has mentioned it recently at Henderson City Commission meetings, saying that the funding appeared to be on the way.
But more than the mayor, the conference center has been one of the top priorities of every city commissioner and the Henderson Tourist Commission as well as the Henderson Chamber of Commerce and Henderson Economic Development.
They see the conference center as one piece of a plan that would bring more people to town. With the conference center in place, as well as the Deaconess Henderson SportsPlex, which attracts youth sports teams for tournament, a next piece is bringing more hotels so that visitors here stay in Henderson, and not Evansville, which is a scenario that happens often, they say.
Staton said the conference center project will include a grand room that will be able to seat 400 people, with three breakout rooms. It will be a two-story building that looks out on Audubon Park’s Scenic Lake, he said.
Mills said the funding comes from state parks’ bonds and “basically enables us to get going on the conference center and have it fully funded.”
Mills, the Senate Majority Caucus Chair, said the budget also funded $500,000 to expand the Audubon campground and do electrical work at the campground.
In addition to those pieces of funding, a planned access road from the park to Watson Lane also received funding, an amount of $2.7 million.
That road will connect the park road in the area of the levee at the Scenic Lake, past the backside of the campground, run behind the Comfort Inn and Holiday Inn Express on the 41-Strip and a row of houses before intersecting at Watson Lane, said Assistant City Manager Buzzy Newman. He said Palmer Engineering of Winchester will be the contractor building the road.
