The nonprofit corporate board overseeing downtown redevelopment signed off Tuesday on expanding that 106-acre district to 383 acres, mirroring acts taken by the city and county.

Attorney Kevin Brooks passed out a map of the new district, saying it’s probably the same as a draft that members of the Warren County Downtown Economic Development Authority board saw some time ago.

“It’s changed and changed again, and changed back,” Brooks said.

The expansion doesn’t change the corporation’s job or authority, but simply expands the district in which it operates, he said.

The new district will encompass virtually all the old downtown area, from the L&N Depot and Historic Railpark on Kentucky Street all the way to The Medical Center’s frontage on U.S. 31-W By-Pass and crossing Barren River to include Mitch McConnell Park. It includes perhaps $40 million in bonds to pay for a new building at The Medical Center for Western Kentucky University’s nursing program and major expansion of Graves-Gilbert Clinic. The state would be asked for millions of dollars to construct a new home for Western’s business college in the area.

The city passed the ordinance to expand the district with two readings, most recently on Monday. The county has passed one reading, and magistrates are likely to give it final approval at their regular meeting Oct. 24. Backers hope to present the expansion for state approval Oct. 30.

Since the plan was first expanded, however, authorization for a series of public projects - a whitewater course on the river, an indoor ice rink and swimming pool, and new features for the L&N Depot and Historic Railpark - have been taken out, along with plans to issue $26 million in bonds in 2013 to build them, Brooks said.

A significant change would more quickly direct any excess money to repay some of the public bonds, especially the $25 million city issue used to build the minor-league baseball stadium now under construction, he said.

Work on the ballpark is on schedule and going well for the planned April 1 opening, said David Butler of master developer Alliance Corp.

“Just don’t let it rain,” he said.

Assembly of the playing field started Monday, supervised for adherence to the exacting standards of Major League Baseball - down to the diameter of sand particles and type of peat moss underlying the sod, Butler said.

The right kind of grass grows in Kentucky, but not on the right kind of soil, Butler said. Baseball authorities won’t allow sod based on local red clay, so grass will be trucked in from sandy-soiled New Jersey, he said.

The bid package for most of the remaining work is coming soon; when those bids come in, developers will know how close they’ll come to the stadium’s $25 million projected cost, Butler said.