The Kentucky Democratic Party has sold its longtime headquarters near Interstate 64 and plans to move to a new office in downtown Frankfort.
The state party, which has seen its power dwindle in recent decades, will move to an office on Ann Street Friday, Dec. 5, in hopes of being more accessible to lawmakers, advocates and reporters working at the state Capitol.
The KDP finalized the sale of the building on Tuesday to a business, Means Drive LLC of Nicholasville, for $540,000, according to Franklin County property records. The company is a real estate investment company owned by Caris Suffoletta.
Democrats bought the site on Democrat Drive near I-64 in 1973 for $25,000. The building was named in honor of former Democratic U.S. Sen. Wendell H. Ford, who represented the state in Washington until 1999. He was governor at the time the party bought the property.
KDP moved out of the Wendell Ford building four years ago and has been working out of an office on St. James Court.
The Republican Party of Kentucky, which celebrated the grand opening of an expansion of its party headquarters in November, called the Democrats’ move “another sign of their continual decline.” Around the turn of the 21st century, Democrats began losing ground in Kentucky, as Republican nominees regularly won the state’s electoral votes in presidential elections and the congressional delegation became a majority of Republicans. The GOP eventually took an overwhelming majority of seats in the state House and Senate.
“Since Governor Beshear took office Kentucky Republicans have flipped voter registration, expanded our supermajorities and now hold nearly every federal and constitutional office,” said RPK spokesman Adam Hope in a statement. “The Beshear playbook is simple. Ride Republican success while ignoring the collapse happening inside your own party.”
However, KDP said the Republicans should have bigger concerns than where the Democrats’ headquarters is.
“The Republican Party of Kentucky should be more concerned about Kentuckians losing jobs, food and health care as a result of the GOP-backed federal budget than they are about KDP headquarters,” said KDP Executive Director Morgan Eaves. “But we haven’t seen a GOP press release on those issues in a long time.”
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Written by McKenna Horsley. Cross-posted from the Kentucky Lantern.
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