Covington Mayor Ron Washington says his first year at the helm of the rapidly changing city has been "a year of momentum and a year of affirmation."
But at his state of the city address to the Covington Business Council Thursday, he also acknowledged the city faces big challenges with housing, traffic, parking and accommodating new residents.
Washington started his speech mentioning accolades the city has gotten from national media outlets like HGTV and Food and Wine Magazine, as well as a statistic from the U.S. Economic Census showing the city's employees received $1 billion in payroll in 2025.
"That tells us that Covington's economy is strong, that our employers are thriving, and that our city is playing an increasingly important role in the regional economy," Washington said.
The mayor's address didn't unveil many new initiatives. Washington hinted at an international employer who could locate its first U.S. manufacturing facility in Covington soon, and he pointed to some adjustments to existing efforts. But he spent the majority of his address highlighting five big efforts he says the city focused on last year that will continue to be important in 2026.
Housing and recreation
The first was the Covington Housing Initiative. That's a series of programs Washington has said is aimed at increasing housing affordability and home ownership. Part of the plan has involved the city's roughly 200 vacant lots, about 50 of which are owned by Covington outright. Washington said an initial effort to sell 12 of those parcels and put the proceeds toward other housing initiatives could change somewhat.
"We were struggling a little bit in that area," he said about the plan. "I will tell you this though: We're working with a company, and we just received their drawings, to possibly build some houses on our vacant lots."
Washington said the price point for those houses would be roughly $180,000 each, tens of thousands of dollars cheaper than most new construction by other developers the city has heard from. The mayor said he hoped the city would be able to offer up to $10,000 in down payment assistance to eligible families buying those houses.
Washington said the Covington Recreation Committee, created in 2025, is another big priority for his administration this year. He said the effort is an attempt to strengthen opportunities for outdoor activity for young people in the city.
Bridge closures — and openings
Two big points of opportunity — and potentially headache — for Covington in 2026 are the Fourth Street and Brent Spence Bridge projects. Washington discussed the city's "Bridging the Gap" program, which is designed to help businesses and residents navigate the multi-year projects through signage, business promotion and other efforts. The Brent Spence companion bridge project will likely take many years. The replacement for the Fourth Street bridge should be done by fall 2028.
The latter bridge closed Jan. 12. That's already caused some snarls around the city's 12th Street bridge to Newport, Washington admitted. He noted the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet controls the road leading up to that bridge.
"Not only are you seeing the backup in the traffic, but a lot of these cars are coming onto our side streets, which our team is responsible for maintaining," he said. "KYTC is taking an approach of, 'Let's just see what happens,' kind of monitor it. They're encouraging the public to pull up your GPS and look for alternative routes."
A new form of government
Washington also mentioned the city's shift from a city manager form of government to a mayor-council model, which voters approved in 2024. He said that process is ongoing as a committee looks into how large Covington's city council should be and other details.
Other touch points
The mayor finished his speech by touching on new developments in Covington's urban core, including the opening of the One NKY Center last year and the coming expansion of the Northern Kentucky Convention Center. An attendee asked if that expansion will be part of the redevelopment of the city's former IRS site. Washington said that will likely happen.
"We anticipate that the convention center will purchase a parcel from the city of Covington," he said. "As we're meeting with developers on that, we talk about the expansion and we're looking forward to partnering on that."
Other questions from attendees touched on everything from getting national cornhole tournaments to Covington to issues like homelessness. Washington said his housing initiative isn't designed to address homelessness directly, but he acknowledged it is an issue the city needs to keep working on.
"We have found there are many people in our city who are sleeping on couches, or their parents' basement," he said. "We have high school students who are trying to get our diploma who have rooms in our homeless shelter. So it is an issue in our community."
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