This is the latest version of developers’ overall plan for redevelopment stretching from Western Kentucky University’s campus to Sixth Avenue. The major change from earlier proposals is in Block 4. Most of that block - excepting Cecelia Memorial Presbyterian Church and the Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce - will be occupied by a 250-space parking garage encased by commercial and residential development. Though one corner is still marked “hotel,” the only hotel to be built in the district is visible in blue on Block 12, in the segment recently taken over by Investors Equity.

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Piecemeal changes to the plan for redeveloping downtown Bowling Green continue even as developers and local officials continue to haggle over financial details.

Digging restarted this week on the site for a minor-league baseball stadium, while planning commissioners unanimously approved rezoning two blocks for parking garages encased in bottom-floor commercial space and upstairs apartments - promising together to bring 1,071 parking spots to the center of town, all adjacent to the ballpark, new Circus Square Park and planned Southern Kentucky Performing Arts Center.

But attorneys for master developer Alliance Corp. and others for local governments, including the city and the county-created corporation formed to oversee redevelopment, are still working on the minutiae of bonds expected to pay for most of the work. They’ll be backed by hopes of higher tax revenues from within the redeveloped area, but their sale will come only after $25 million in city-backed bonds are sold to pay for the ballpark and larger garage - and that $25 million, though approved, won’t be sold until the details of the later issue are hammered out.

Mayor Elaine Walker said she expects almost continuous minor changes, acceptable so long as the basic financial proportions don’t shift.

“Everyone that I’ve talked to says this is nothing new with this type of big document,” with changes coming both in the financial and physical plans, she said.

For example, in revising the plan for the State Street block to include a second parking garage instead of a hotel, the city wants to make sure that parking rates in that building don’t undercut the larger garage next door, which the city will rely upon to help repay its bonds, Walker said.

There are frequent requests to expand the 106-acre redevelopment district to include other nearby projects, she said.

One project already in the plan changed plans this spring, when Investors Equity of Brentwood, Tenn., replaced Ohio-based Fairmount Properties as the developer of a mixed residential and retail area adjacent to Western Kentucky University’s campus.

The Fairmount proposal dubbed the development “The Boulevards at Bowling Green.” That name has been dropped, but no new name has been chosen, said Ted Sanders, vice president for development for Investors Equity.

The development next to campus is expected to eventually fill out the same total area as Fairmount proposed, but its initial phase should have higher density than originally discussed, Walker said. That doesn’t mean high-rise buildings, but more concentrated development at the start to generate more money for faster bond repayment, she said.

“They won’t buy as much land, initially,” Walker said.

That density will ultimately depend on local zoning, Sanders said. Though most of the buildings in the path of that project’s initial phase - around 13th Avenue between Center and Kentucky streets - are already boarded up, work there will wait on other people, he said. Alliance Corp. will be responsible for demolishing the buildings, and they’ll wait on proceeds from the eventual bonds to start construction, Sanders said.

He confirmed that an “Alumni Village” of townhouses, which Western had discussed eventually building across Kentucky Street, has been rolled into the Investors Equity project.

Kevin Brooks, attorney for developers, said this week that all the land for the ballpark and adjacent garage has been bought or is under contract. The majority of ballpark land has actually been purchased, while that purchase/contract ratio is reversed on the garage site, he said.

Demolition and digging started on the ballpark site June 18, but stopped for days as workers searched for a nonexistent sewer line shown on old maps. That sewer line will be needed to make up for the removal of one under the ballpark site, according to Bowling Green Municipal Utilities; so work may again wait on state approval of laying a new sewer line where one was supposed to be already.

Assistant city engineer Melissa Cansler is working with Alliance to deal with any more infrastructure surprises that turn up. So far, there haven’t been any more major issues, she said, but the scope of that search will only be known when final designs for the ballpark and surrounding development are complete.