This view from behind Leitchfield Health Care Manor is going to change in a major way in the coming years.

And Judge-Executive Gary Logsdon sees the first change as the construction of a new Judicial Complex atop the rise behind the health care building and in view of the old, now cramped, judicial building.

At the meeting October 19 with county magistrates, the Fiscal Court agreed to buy 50 acres of what's always been considered the rugged, steep strip between Wallace Avenue and Clinton Street -- the canyon.

With a price tag of $300,000 ($6,000 an acre), the purchase paves the way for a judicial building with an estimated cost of $11.7 million.

This cost, Logsdon said, was in last year's state budget, one that never passed, but he expects the money to show up in the upcoming legislative session.

"After all that's happened this year," he said, "I think next year's budget is going to pass."

But the state Administrative Office of the Courts would pay for the building. The land has to be furnished by the county, and Logsdon will be traveling to Frankfort searching for help with the land purchase. That loan, through the Kentucky Association of Counties is for 25 years at a 5 percent interest rate.

Logsdon said there is not yet a design for the new complex, because the architects will fit the design to the site, "and up to now, they haven't had that site."

"What we've got here, besides a site that will give the courts adequate room, is a lot of potential for the heart of Leitchfield," Logsdon said Thursday as he walked through the tangled underbrush at the judicial complex site.

"There's plenty of room here for the complex just west of Wallace Avenue," he said, "but the real thing we're looking at is the future. I can see walking tracks down there along Taylor Fork Creek, a bridge connecting East Market with Wallace, bike paths, nature trails, and it's a historic site. Big Spring, the water source for the first settlers here, is down there."

"We have green space for Leitchfield that will get more valuable as the years pass," he said.

Logsdon said citizens' grandchildren will be making decisions for what they want the area to do for them.

"That's what I mean by potential," he continued. "We'll be able to leave this for future generations to have options."