PADUCAH — After Rep. James Comer announced a $24 million grant supporting the Paducah-McCracken County Riverport Authority’s Riverport West Project, McCracken County Judge Executive Craig Clymer shared his hopes for the project.
Clymer said he was thrilled for the project to receive the grant, as the new port has been a priority for him throughout his time as McCracken County Judge Executive.
McCracken County Judge Executive Craig Clymer is hopeful the project will have significant benefits for the region.
Tayjon Bumphus
“I’ve been in seven and a half years now, never would have dreamed all of this could come at once. Like I say, we dream big, we swing for the fence, but my gosh, how many home runs can you have in a game,” said Clymer.
The new port is set to be near the 1,000-acre Triple Rail Site and will allow a higher volume of manufactured goods and agricultural products to be shipped by local domestic barge companies.
“We just got so much going on out in the county, so I can understand how people are excited about it — I am,” Clymer said. “The wealth that that’s going to bring as these businesses come to fruition, thousands of construction jobs over multiple years to build these buildings out, and then hundreds of long-term, decades-long jobs, high-paying jobs that will be here.”
Clymer estimates the total cost of the project to be in the neighborhood of $70 million dollars — however, he is optimistic that the funding will be raised as McCracken County’s economy continues to grow.
“I’m confident that the nation — and certainly the state in this region — sees the need, the benefit, the investment that this is. This is not just putting money into something, hoping it’ll, it’ll work. We have a well-deserved reputation in McCracken County for planning, designing, thinking big,” said Clymer.
A rendering of the upcoming Riverport West Project.
BFW/MARCUM
In a letter from Comer to U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, the representative highlighted the project’s proximity to Paducah’s two planned uranium enrichment centers and an upcoming AI data center. Clymer stressed that the riverport project is part of a bigger plan that will bring jobs and make a meaningful difference in shaping the future of the commonwealth.
“These jobs are going to be enriching uranium for the entire nation’s nuclear fuel needs. We’ll see nuclear reactors out there, I would guess, in the next four to five years, somewhere in that range,” he continued. “It’s just making us a really economic development center for the entire state and region, and this port plays a major role in that.”