Bowling Green’s plans for a combination fire station and public safety training center have taken a big step forward.

The Board of Commissioners on Tuesday approved a $16 million bid to Scott, Murphy & Daniel to construct a new fire station No. 5 at 250 Porter Pike, which will house a training facility for police and firefighters.

The hope is the facility will provide the Bowling Green Police Department some breathing room for its law enforcement training academy.

“We share the same space at the police department, which we are very thankful for, but there is a constant juggling of rooms, there is a finite amount of space,” said BGPD Deputy Chief Penny Bowles. “Our training staff is growing, the needs of our community are growing and the number of officers that we can train is growing.”

Bowles said that, just this week, the Department of Criminal Justice Training has been doing an in-service class at the police department, leading to cramped quarters.

“There’s 50 officers in that class in our community room, so during this week the academy had to move out of that room and move to another room,” Bowles said. “…It really is needed and it would really take our training to the next level.”

Some of the planned amenities include classrooms, a physical fitness area, a police map room and server space. The station, which will serve the Northside fire district, will feature six four-fold bay doors and an emergency radio communications enhancement system.

The city broke ground on its other major public safety project, fire station No. 8 in the Transpark, earlier this month. The bid also includes the demolition of the existing fire station No. 5 once the new structure is completed.

The commissioners also renamed the city’s West End Park to honor the Rev. H.D. Carpenter, the founder of Warren County’s first Rosenwald school for Black students that opened in 1923.

Funded by Julius Rosenwald, part owner of Sears, Roebuck and Co., Rosenwald schools were built throughout the segregated South in the early 1900s to provide education to Black children.

A total of 158 such schools were built in Kentucky, and three of them were placed in and around Bowling Green in the Delafield, Rockfield and Bristow neighborhoods.

The Rosenwald school in Delafield was the first of the three to be built. It became known as the Carpenter School after its founder and first teacher.

“Renaming the West End Park to the H.D. Carpenter Park is a big tribute to this remarkable man and his contributions to our city,” Commissioner Carlos Bailey said.

The Rev. Ron Whitlock Sr. helped in the effort to rename the park in Carpenter’s honor. He is also a member of the Warren County Public Schools Rosenwald Exploratory Committee, which is working to put up Kentucky State Historical Society markers at the school sites.

Whitlock attended the Carpenter School from 1960 up until Bowling Green’s schools were desegregated in 1963.

He said that in the early 20th century, the Black church was so important to Bowling Green’s segregated community that “everything” ran through it – and by extension through Carpenter, then pastor of historic New Bethel Baptist Church and leader in the city’s NAACP.

“It got to the point that (Carpenter) was so powerful that the police department depended on him to make sure things were run right,” Whitlock said. “In fact, the people would call him first before they called the police department. That’s how important he was to that community … such a strong person.”

Whitlock said the Delafield neighborhood used to be Bowling Green’s industrial area, the “only integrated section of the city and Warren County” where Blacks and whites lived next door to one another.

“I’m so excited about this,” he said.

City Manager Jeff Meisel said the new name is far better than the current one, joking that “we weren’t very creative at the time when it was put together.”

The city will also be adjusting its approach to public transportation management in the hope of saving money and potentially expanding services down the line.

In 2020, the city signed a three-year contract with Community Action of Southern Kentucky to handle transit operations for its GObg service and RATP Dev USA to handle management.

“We separated this management and operations piece in 2020 with a three-year contract that is set to expire June 30 of this year,” said Brent Childers, director of neighborhood and community services.

Childers said the city has had conversations with Western Kentucky University, which runs its own transit system, about “co-purchasing” full management and operational services through RATP Dev as a joint effort between the two entities.

“Separate, but joint,” he said, “meaning that they still have an independent transit system, there is still Topper Transit that will be paid for wholly by WKU. And there will be a GObg public transit system that will be wholly paid for by the city of Bowling Green with our federal dollars that come along with it.”

Childers said Bowling Green’s transit service operates about 18,000 hours per year, and WKU runs its system for 12,000. The two will be paying their own share for services and not “mixing the two pots.”

The commissioners approved the bid for RATP Dev’s management and operational services at a cost of $97.31 per revenue hour. The company’s proposal runs for three years, beginning in July of 2023, and features an option to renew for two additional years after 2026.

“We are excited to provide a campus transit solution that will enhance options for our students, faculty, staff and guests,” Jace Lux, WKU’s director of media relations, said in a statement. “Contractual details are still being finalized, and we expect the Board of Regents to vote on a new contract this summer. WKU and the vendor will work with the current transit staff during this transition.”