SKyPAC will soon begin work on an expansion of its facility in Bowling Green, after the organization received an allocation from the state totaling $8.5 million.

In a press conference on Thursday, Jeff Reed, president and CEO of Arts of Southern Kentucky, said the increase in events at SKyPAC necessitated the expansion.

“We have more than tripled the number of activities going on in this building in the last three years,” Reed said. “Because of all that growth, we had no place to build sets for our Ramsey Theatre Company or BG OnStage.”

The addition will sit next to SKyPAC in an area Reed called the “grassy knoll,” which is currently used as part of an outdoor movie theater. The project will add a 20,000-square-foot, two-story building, which will provide space for storage, set construction, rehearsals and administrative offices for the Ramsey Theatre Company.

Reed said set construction, rehearsals and storage are currently spread out “all over Warren County.” A storage unit is rented on Campbell Lane and members of the Youth Orchestra rehearse inside a church.

“We saw a need for the future to be in one location,” Reed said.

Reed said the total cost of the project will fall within the $8.5 million budget.

“We don’t want to take away from any of the programming or anything else that we have raised money to do,” Reed said.

Arts of Southern Kentucky estimates it is losing at least $750,000 each year in potential revenue by not having space available, according to a statement from the organization provided before the conference.

Reed credited the allocation to the work of state Sens. Mike Wilson, R-Bowling Green, and Max Wise, R-Campbellsville, and to state Reps. Mike Meredith, R-Bowling Green, Robert Duvall, R-Bowling Green, Kevin Jackson, R-Bowling Green and Shawn McPherson, R-Scottsville.

“Through building relationships and working together, you’re able to get something very, very special,” Wilson said. “The money we’re able to invest, it’s going to make a huge difference for something that’s already beginning to soar.”

Gary Ransdell, chairman of the board for SKyPAC and former president of Western Kentucky University, described the expansion as “magnificent.”

“It’s going to allow so many things to flourish in our arts community,” Ransdell said. “It’s going to give us dimensions that we have not had before and make things not only convenient, but profitable.”

He said work gathering proposals and bids for construction will begin “soon” with construction of the building eyed for a start “this fall, at the latest.”