Officials dedicate GRITS expansion
Local officials and state and federal transportation officials covering much of the south and southeast joined with leaders from Audubon Area Community Services and the Green River Intra-County Transit System Tuesday, to formerly dedicate the new GRITS office expansion on St. Elizabeth Street.
The 4,790 square-foot office expansion was built onto the existing GRITS offices and parking garage, and culminates a project that began with then U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning secured a $3 million grant to begin building the GRITS parking garage downtown in 2003.
“This is like a perfect act of federalism,” Candance Castlen Brake, president and CEO of the Greater Owensboro Chamber of Commerce, told a small audience at Tuesday’s ribbon cutting ceremony. “You have federal, state and local government all coming together to make something super-cool for our community.”
The project received more than one injection of funds, and was also supported by local dollars from Daviess Fiscal Court.
GRITS provides low-cost or zero-cost rides, including rides to medical appointments for Medicaid recipients.
“You all change lives every day,” Brake told GRITS Director Dan Lanham. “I see that in my own neighborhood for the people who are homebound who get to get out because of what you do and the services you provide. They’re game-changers.”
GRITS is a part of Audubon Area Community Services.
Rob Jones, Audubon Area’s CEO, said “it has been a long journey” to get the expansion built.
“I can tell you it was quite a job” working through with the contractor to get the project completed.
“(Bids) did come in above cost, and it was only because of the flexibility of our state and federal transportation partners that we were able to handle that, and still get that work done,” Jones said.
Lanham said GRITS has grown from four vehicles up to a fleet of 115 vehicles today, which cover 22 counties. The agency’s growth required more space, Lanham said.
When GRITS moved into the office space built into the parking garage, the space was completely filled, Lanham said.
“The day we moved in, we realized we had grown and it was too small,” Lanham said.
“Now we have a workable facility,” Lanham said. The expansion will “work for our folks and help us serve the public for years to come,” Lanham said. “The interesting thing about this project is we never moved out. We stayed her the whole time.”
The project included both building the new addition and then renovating the existing office space, including enlarging the ride dispatch center.
Yvette Taylor, regional manager of the Federal Transportation Administration’s Region 4, which covers Kentucky and much of the southeast, said the project was supported by $400,000 in federal construction dollars and by $1.5 million in federal covid-19 relief dollars.
“If it weren’t for the support of the Biden-Harris Administration, projects like this would not happen,” Taylor said. “They have endured and invested a lot of money across our nation to improve our infrastructure.”
Having the GRITS system “promotes equity,” Taylor said.
“It helps to give people more opportunity to touch more parts of their community, so we are thankful for your commitment to transit,” Taylor said.
By James Mayse Messenger-Inquirer