Horses, housing, and healthcare—common threads in the challenges and opportunities facing Lexington’s business community
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland president and chief executive officer Beth M. Hammack toured the heart of the Bluegrass State.
Cleveland Fed president Beth Hammack made her first official visit to Kentucky on Monday, October 7, for a roundtable discussion with regional business leaders and a tour of the Kentucky Horse Park.
Housing, healthcare, and childcare costs were recurring topics at both venues, as were elevated prices overall.
The horse business
The total value of equine and equine-related assets is $27.7 billion in Kentucky, which has more than 31,000 equine operations and is home to about 210,000 horses, ponies, mules, and donkeys.1
Sometimes referred to as the “horse capital of the world,” Lexington is famously home to Keeneland, the globe’s largest thoroughbred auction house. Lexington is in Fayette County, which has the largest equine inventory in the state.2 It’s also the location of the Kentucky Horse Park, a 1,224-acre working horse farm, international equestrian competition venue, and educational theme park that opened in 1978.
“Tourism is a significant contributor to the park,” said Lee Carter, horse park executive director, telling Hammack on a tour that the park annually attracts about 1.4 million visitors. “We are consumer driven, so we’re very affected by high prices.”
President Hammack gets to know Jace, a draft horse at the Kentucky Horse Park, with Lee Carter, horse park executive director.
President Hammack talks equine issues with some of the industry’s leaders. From left to right: Cleveland Fed president Beth Hammack; Will Daugherty, manager of BlackRidge Stables LLC; Lee Carter, Kentucky Horse Park executive director; Chauncey Morris, executive director of the Kentucky Thoroughbred Association and member of the Cleveland Fed’s Eastern Kentucky Business Advisory Council.
Urban issues
Lexington is home to the state’s flagship university, the University of Kentucky (UK), which, when including its healthcare system, is the largest employer in the region with nearly 26,000 employees. Lexington has a higher percentage of residents who have college degrees compared with the national average,3 though per capita income in Lexington trails the national average.4
At a lunch discussion at Zim’s Café in downtown Lexington, roundtable participants said foot traffic in the downtown neighborhood adjacent to UK has waned since the pandemic, and the unhoused population has grown. Private-sector leaders are working with nonprofits and others to address the root causes of poverty while driving economic development in the city center.
The roundtable discussion also focused on the challenges of recruiting and retaining employees in an area where high healthcare, housing, and childcare costs, among other costs, pose a challenge to people’s livelihoods.
Noting that house prices in Lexington have surged in recent years, workers earning upward of $70,000 per year still struggle to get enough money together for a deposit.
Participants in a roundtable discussion with President Hammack. From left to right: Ouita Michel, owner of Holly Hill Restaurant Group and member of the Cleveland Fed’s Eastern Kentucky Business Advisory Council; Bob Quick, CEO of Commerce Lexington, Inc. and member of the Cleveland Fed’s Eastern Kentucky Business Advisory Council; President Hammack; Holly Wiedemann, founder of AU Associates, Inc. and a Cleveland Fed director; Mary Meixelsperger, CFO, Valvoline, Inc. and a member of the Cleveland Fed’s Cincinnati Branch board of directors; Patricia Knight, VP, VisitLEX; Tucker Ballinger, president and CEO of Forcht Bank.
About President Beth M. Hammack’s Around the District tour
President Hammack is visiting communities across the Fourth District as part of her Around the District tour to meet and connect with the people who live and work in all corners of the region and to gain a better understanding of how the economy is working in different communities. The Cleveland Fed, with branches in Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, serves an area that comprises Ohio, western Pennsylvania, eastern Kentucky, and the northern panhandle of West Virginia. Hammack will use this information to inform her policy views and better represent the Fourth District around the Federal Open Market Committee table.
Footnotes
- Kentucky Equine Survey | Equine Programs (uky.edu) Return to 1
- https://equine.ca.uky.edu/sites/equine.ca.uky.edu/files/2022%20Kentucky%20Equine%20Survey%20FOR%20ONLINE_2.pdf Return to 2
- American Community Survey (ACS) (census.gov) Return to 3
- https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LEXI421PCPI Return to 4
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Beth M. Hammack
Beth M. Hammack is the president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, one of 12 regional Reserve Banks in the Federal Reserve System.
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