North Graves County Kentucky site identified by Lockwood Greene a national consulting firm and they recommend that the site be developed into a world class site to provide jobs for workers in the West Kentucky region.

Florence Hutcheson, Inc. performs Phase I Engineering Study including infrastructure, environmental, geology and hydrogeology, property issues, hazardous waste, archeological and transportation.

All eight counties of the Jackson Purchase sign an Interlocal Agreement; creating a 501(c)(3)  corporation Purchase Area Regional Industrial Authority, Inc. (PRP) and each of the counties appoint a board member to this new organization. The Agreement includes revenue sharing among the eight counties.

A formal request for $10,000,000.00 is presented to the Kentucky General Assembly Interim Joint Committee on Appropriations and Revenue. The primary focus for the initial start-up of the park will be engineering and environmental with major emphasis on land acquisition.

Paducah Area Reuse Organization gives PRP a grant of $250,000.00 to be used for payments to landowners for three year options to purchase. With the assistance of Senator Mitch McConnell, Senator Jim Bunning, Congressman Ed Whitfield and Governor Paul Patton, PRP receives a $1,020,000.00 grant from the US Department of Energy and in 2003 PRP received a $1,000,000.00 grant from the Delta Regional Authority and a $510,000.00 grant from the state of Kentucky.

The Kentucky General Assembly passes legislation for $5,000,000.00 bond on behalf of PRP.

PRP completes options to purchase for 2500 acres of land.

Lockwood Greene and Geotech completes the Master Plan for the park and presents to PRP, legislators and local officials.

PRP receives the Kentucky Department of Local Government First Place Award for Best Economic Development Project for 2003.

PRP was featured in an article about megasites in the Site Selection magazine.

Governor of Kentucky places $2,225,000.00 into the state budget for purchasing land for the Regional Industrial Park.

Received commitment of $2,500,000.00 from the state of Kentucky; money to be used to finalize purchase of land for the park.

Metropolis, Illinois joins the PRP Marketing Committee in an effort to show that broad regional support for the regional industrial park.

PRP hires interim manager to direct park management and in March 2008, names a president and CEO to manage marketing and administration of the regional industrial park.

PRP completed a Wetland Delineation Assessment for the 2200 acres in our industrial park. 5H Technology has submitted on our behalf a report to the Corp of Engineers for the permitting phase. Once a permit is granted we will begin working on a mitigation plan for the 23 acres through stream mitigation, in-stream enhancement, channel restoration or creation of a riparian buffer.

PRP and PREDF boards met with TVA representatives who gave a presentation to 52 officials from city, county, state, federal, education and regional organizations. The program was an overview of a study that TVA did for PRP and included workforce, education attainment, growth trends and business indicators for a nine county area including Metropolis, Illinois. TVA will share this information with McCallum Sweeney Consulting to be included in the Mega-Site certification Program.

PRP and all of the regional economic development organizations met with McCallum Sweeney Consulting representatives for an Alignment Meeting to review site criteria requirements for a Mega-Site Certification Program. One of the fastest growing trends in the site location business is the demand for "project-ready" industrial sites therefore PRP needs to be prepared to market our site with a wealth of site-related information and data on our regional communities. We have included each of the counties in the region and the City of Metropolis in our Mega-Site evaluation by McCallum Sweeney Consulting.