Clark County celebrates opening of new government building

May 20—CLARK COUNTY — The Clark County government celebrated its official opening on Friday with a ribbon-cutting after unofficially opening to the public during the first week of May.

County officials and members of River Ridge gathered at 300 Corporate Drive in Jeffersonville to welcome the public to the new facility.

One Southern Indiana hosted the ribbon-cutting and CEO and President Wendy Dant Chesser introduced each of the speakers at the event.

Dant Chesser said she remembers when she was in high school and the property that now makes up the River Ridge Commerce Center was surrounded by a chain link fence.

"If you got too close to the inside of that fence, there was somebody with a machine gun on his hip would come out and ask you what you were doing here," Dant Chesser said.

The CEO asked the crowd to remember what the property used to be like in comparison to what it is now.

Dant Chesser said she remembers her first meeting in the new building with California business principals who became speechless as they watched the sunset over the cityscape of Downtown Louisville.

"They never expected that from Southern Indiana," she said, "It gives us a way to showcase the best of what we have."

Not only does the location of the building provide a beautiful view of the region, but Dant Chesser said having the government building combined with River Ridge is an attractive factor to businesses looking for a place to land.

"As we look at the collaboration needs between business and government, Clark County moving their offices into this facility, in the center of River Ridge, really does an efficiency or a synergy to our business services," she said.

With everything being located together, Dant Chesser said that businesses can see how settling in Southern Indiana would be convenient as they can meet with River Ridge directors and county offices all in the same building.

From the county employee perspective of the building, some noted that they liked the space for its organization.

"We didn't have very much space at all in the old building," the executive director of the Planning and Zoning Office, Cathy Denison, said.

The organization, beauty and quiet have shown to be very conducive to a good work environment, Denison said.

County Commissioner Bryan Glover highlighted interior designer Amanda Hunsucker for her work on the building.

"Amanda went to every individual department head to make sure that their office was laid out exactly like the way it should or the way they wanted it to make it efficient, to make it feasible, to make it environmentally-friendly," Glover said.

Glover also thanked the Clark County Council for its collaboration and guidance as they planned the move into the building.

Council president Barbara Hollis said that though all of the decisions were approved by the commissioners, everything was really a cooperative effort between the two governing bodies.

"We had regular update meetings and they kept us all in the loop, asked our opinions, which was very, very welcoming," Hollis said.