COVINGTON, Ky. — Monday marked the end of tax season, and also the end of an era for filing taxes in Northern Kentucky.

The sight of a Caterpillar 365 excavator ripping into the old IRS building in Covington may have been cathartic to anyone who’s ever gotten a tax return they weren’t too happy about.

“We so much wanted to sell blows of the sledgehammer to people who wanted to take one out on the IRS. We just couldn’t get that organized,” said Covington Mayor Joseph Meyer with a laugh.

The plan is for the building to be completely demolished by the end of September. For 55 years, the site was home to Covington’s largest employer, with over 4,000 employees at its peak.

Patty Hoffman was one of them. She worked for the government for 30 years. Naturally, she kept a brick from the old building.

On tax days of years past, she’d be at the building working her tail off.

“I just remember everybody had to be on the phones. We have to answer all those questions. ‘Let’s get them done!’” she recalled.

But on tax day this year, she could stand back and watch the start of the building being ripped to shreds.

“It was neat,” she said. “I’ve never been this close to a building being torn down before. But being that I’ve been in the building, that makes it a little bit more unique.”

Sixty years ago this August, 161 homes were torn down to make way for the 23 acre site. In fall 2019, the IRS building closed, a victim of the trend toward electronic tax filings.

“It’s completely disconnected from the rest of the city. And it has been, really, for 50 years,” said Meyer.

That’s about to change, though. Along with kicking off demolition, the city announced the Covington Central Riverfront Project.

The city purchased the complex in 2020 after months of negotiation. It plans to use the space for offices, hotels, apartments, condos, retail, restaurants, parking garages, a public plaza and a park, to name a few of the current ideas.

It also plans to restore the street grid in that area of the city, and possibly expand the Northern Kentucky Convention Center.

“Generations from now, when people talk about Covington, this complex will dominate their impression,” Meyer said. “This site, in many ways, is going to be the heart of Covington. It’s certainly going to be a place of energy.”

Meyer said, in about three years’ time, the current eyesore will be the place people come to do things a lot more fun than filing taxes.

According to the city, the bulk of the site–about 20.5 acres–lies just north of Fourth Street between Madison Avenue to the east and Johnson Street to the west, with the adjacent 2.5-acre parking lot west of Johnson reaching the approach to the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge.

Covington expects to hire a design-engineering team this month or next to draw up plans for a restored street grid and sidewalks, upgraded utilities, and other “horizontal” infrastructure on the 23 acres.

That design will probably be finished in early 2023, with construction on that infrastructure to start soon thereafter and last approximately two years.

The demolition of the one-story structures will be controlled and — given that the buildings contain very little concrete—not a lot of dust will be produced. The asphalt pavement will be torn up last to reduce the mud that will be tracked onto streets. A sweeper on site will clean the entrances and surrounding streets daily. 

Items of value have already been removed, including decorative signs and other items wanted by city officials, hundreds of feet of oak railing, boilers, cooling fans and other such items.