Harrodsburg Community Center Will Close Jan. 1
Robert Moore
Herald Staff
rmoore@harrodsburgherald.com
The Harrodsburg Community Center campus is shutting down and the building, formerly Harrodsburg High School,
While the future of the former Harrodsburg High School may be in doubt, the future of Mercer Transportation, who have operated the building since 2016, is not, said Mercer Transformation President Pam Sims. “We will be marching on and moving forward,” Sims said.
will be put up for sale at the first of the year.
The owner, Keith Currens, purchased it from the Mercer County school district for $200,000 in 2016. Currens, a 1983 graduate of Harrodsburg High School, said operating the building was too much.
“It’s such a big building,” he said. “I think it needs a property manager. I can’t do it every day.”
Currens asked Mercer Transformation, who had a lease-to-own agreement, to cease operations at the school by the Jan. 1, 2018.
Pam Sims, president of Mercer Transformation, praised Currens for his work to keep the building open. She said he had been carrying the organization for a while.
“He’s been wonderful,” she said. “He has gone above and beyond to make this go.”
Sims said the expense of running the building had grown too big for the Mercer Transformation, who were trying to convert the former school into a community center modeled after Cincinnati’s CityLink Center and Newport’s Brighton Center.
The expenses really mounted after the Conservative Mennonite Teachers Institute met there in September. The event drew 1,200 members who busied themselves making repairs and cleaning the building.
However, all the activity created a spike in power consumption which led Kentucky Utilities to double their rates.
“It was too much for us to handle,” Sims said.
To learn more, check out this week’s issue of the Harrodsburg Herald.
