Hey, folks.
Herve Francois here with DeRosa Group I'm so happy
to be with you on a windy day
here in Lexington, Kentucky.
We want to go ahead and come and shoot
some videos for you, show you why we like investing
in Lexington, Kentucky.
Hey, listen, there's a lot of industries
that drives the economy of Lexington.
One of the biggest.
Believe it or not, is the horse industry.
The horse industry in Lexington
is about a $5 billion
economy every year.
I mean, Jordan and I, we right here at the famous
Keeneland racetrack, which is about 5 minutes
away from the Bluegrass Lexington Kentucky Airport.
This racetrack has been around since 1936,
a very famed one.
You got a lot of popular racetracks here,
very well known for their thoroughbreds.
They come they auction
their thoroughbreds at a value of 150
to $200 million
apiece for a thoroughbred horse.
The movie secretariat
was filmed here years ago.
This is just an amazing industry when you talk about
how much of an input remember think about Lexington
being a huge dartboard where Lexington
is at the bullseye of that dartboard
and surrounded in the circles are those horse farms.
This is one of those horse farms words deeded
no commercial construction no residential construction,
no sprawling out of real estate.
They want to protect and preserve
the horse economy here at Lexington
because it contributes so much.
You have it also in Louisville.
You have it in other cities in the state of Kentucky.
But Lexington, number one,
when you talk about the amount of thoroughbreds
that are produced here,
as well as all the horses that are produced here,
stand here at Baptist Health
Care Center here in Lexington, Kentucky.
Hey, listen, it's really important to know
the health care industry overall for Lexington up
anywhere between 15 to 20% of the city's total economy,
Baptist health care here we're talking about facility
434 beds that employs over
3200 employees.
They're famous for their cancer center
heart center children's center
and it's a big research hospital as well.
This is a nice hospital that's only located about
10 minutes from Carmel Valley where the Russell Group
has a lot of its assets, a lot of its properties.
The other thing that we have to know about
is any time
we're in the midst of a health care center
like this, there's a big infrastructure that
goes ahead and supports it.
So right across the street, you have the offices
a lot of the doctors that work here
at this hospital, you have urgent care centers.
You have outpatient centers that all support
this Baptist health care infrastructure here.
That all generates
even additional jobs to this area.
And again, this center literally
only ten to 12 minutes from Cornel Valley,
where the Russell Group owns a lot of its properties right
behind me is Rupp Arena,
home of the famed University
of Kentucky Wildcats men's basketball team.
Right.
John Calipari led
many championships and so on and so forth.
The most important thing is, all right, university.
Kentucky's here in downtown Lexington.
Obviously, that falls in the category
of education and professional services.
A lot of workers here because connected to the Rupp
Arena is pretty much Lexington Convention Center.
They call it the central bank arena.
Last October 20, 21, the city announced
that the USL League went ahead and awarded Lexington
with a franchise to run a professional soccer team.
They're going to be excited.
Not only are you going to have a 6000 seat stadium,
you're also going to have a 150 unit apartment complex.
You're going to have a 250 room hotel.
There's a lot of expansion.
Again, talk about infrastructure.
We're talking about job creation.
We're talking about the economy expanding.
There's a lot to be excited
about going down here in downtown
Lexington again, only literally ten, 15 minutes away
from Cardinal Valley,
where we owned a lot of our properties.
One of my favorites, you guys know, survey
the day's not complete when you come to
Lexington, Kentucky, if you don't have a nice
cold glass of Lexington Bourbon.
90% of our country's bourbon is produced
right here in Lexington, Kentucky.
We're in an area called the Distillery District
where you see some many distilleries over here.
Of some local bourbons of Kentucky.
They're real good tasting if you guys make it down here.
You got to come to
the distillery district here in Lexington.
The bourbon industry itself
for the state of Kentucky
is a $9 billion
industry that employs
over 20,000 people
under Lexington, Kentucky.
You have a huge slate of wine.
Stone limestone is good to filter out iron.
And what do you need?
What's a key ingredient for making good
quality bourbon is water.
Very good filtered water.
That's what you get here in Kentucky.
You also get the corn.
You also get great temperature throughout the seasons.
All of those really make a nice base
of having a strong quality bourbon.
It is a huge part of the economy,
I think will forever be a great part
of the economy.
For the amount of growth that they see
and not only for Kentucky
in this part of the United States,
but also be for exports as well.
You can bet yourself after shooting these videos
today, I'm going to be having a glass of nice, cold
Kentucky bourbon to start warming me up.
All right, guys, we'll leave it there until the next.
You know, cities complete without having its own
Amazon delivery center.
This is the fourth
Amazon delivery center in the state of Kentucky.
This one opened up
November of last year, right in the middle of the pandemic.
This is a 141,000 square foot facility
that's going to add to the existing
18,000 employees that are already based here
in Kentucky, all employed by Amazon.
Amazon has been here in the city of Lexington
for the past 21 years.
Again, only the fourth
delivery center in the state of Kentucky.
A lot more to come.