An elevator cage was removed Monday morning through the roof of the three-story building at Eighth and Main streets, where renovations are underway to create new offices for the Kentucky New Era and downtown investor Hal McCoy.
General Steel Contractors set up a crane in Eighth Street between Main and Bethel, and a crew extracted the elevator cage and portions of the elevator shaft.
The building, known best in recent memory as the home of J.C. Penney from 1942 to the early 1970s, was constructed in 1886 as a retail building. It replaced an 1850s building that was destroyed by fire.
McCoy bought the building late this spring. He is renovating two bays on the main floor. One side will house his offices.
The other side will be for the New Era, which will leave its offices on Ninth Street near Skyline Drive. The Hayes and Wood families sold the New Era last fall to Paxton Media, a newspaper chain based in Paducah. The paper is now printed in Owensboro, so the New Era does not need the larger print facility it has occupied since the early 1970s.
When Paxton announced plans to move downtown, New Era Publisher Brandon Cox said he hoped to be in the Main Street office by November.
In an interview in mid-May, McCoy said he’ll consider renovating the upper floors for residential space after the main floor is finished.
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. Brown was a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era, where she worked for 30 years. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board past president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. She serves on the Hopkinsville History Foundation's board.
