Shoppers, diners, and patients along Buttermilk Pike will have new destinations as the 26-acre Fort Mitchell Gateway takes shape on the former Drawbridge Inn site, with retail space, restaurants, and two St. Elizabeth Healthcare medical office buildings planned alongside the senior living community whose financing was approved in late July.
The commercial components are part of the broader mixed-use redevelopment that Fort Mitchell greenlit at a special city commission meeting on July 25, when it approved up to $250 million in tax-exempt bond financing for The Ormsby, a 203-unit luxury senior living community and 48-bed health center. That bond deal carries no financial liability for the city, according to LINK nky.
The Gateway is far more than a senior living project.
The full site plan includes retail space, restaurants, and two St. Elizabeth medical office buildings, according to a LINK nky government roundup published August 3. St. Elizabeth is also a party to road-closure agreements on the site, per Fort Mitchell city commission minutes from August 2025, when the city closed portions of Royal Drive and Grace Avenue to accommodate construction.
The developer is Brandicorp, led by principals Mike Brandy, Rudy Kreutzjans, and Chuck Berling, operating through Buttermilk Pike Development Company, LLC. The Greenbrier Group is handling the senior housing component.
The project has been years in the making. The Drawbridge Inn site sat vacant for more than a decade before the Gateway plan took shape. The Kenton County Planning Commission approved the development in August 2024. In April 2024, Fort Mitchell authorized three series of bonds totaling up to $120 million for vertical construction and infrastructure, with Kenton County's Port Authority depositing $2 million for storm and sanitary improvements.
Fort Mitchell itself has a $2 million obligation for street infrastructure, payable when streets are installed and the first base coat of asphalt is laid, according to city commission records from April 2024.
"The special meeting today was called because Fort Mitchell does not want to delay the project," City Administrator Edwin King said at the July 25 special meeting, as reported by LINK nky.
No specific retail or restaurant tenants have been publicly named. At an October 11, 2021 city council meeting, Brandicorp's Mike Brandy listed possible tenants including a grocery store, hotel, pharmacy, and coffee shop, though that aspirational list predates the current development agreement. A hotel appeared in city records as recently as October 2023 but was absent from the most recent 2026 descriptions of the project.
Square footage for the commercial spaces and opening timelines for the retail, restaurant, and medical office components have not been publicly disclosed.
The next Fort Mitchell City Council meeting is August 17, at 6:30 p.m. at the Fort Mitchell City Building, 2355 Dixie Highway.
