TERRE HAUTE —
The former “Family Y” building in Terre Haute’s Fairbanks Park may get a new lease on life as soon as next month, Mayor Duke Bennett announced Wednesday.
In a preview of his “State of the City” address, Bennett told members of the Terre Haute Chamber of Commerce that the city and the Clay County YMCA are close to an agreement on using the former Family Y building as a “Vigo County Y.”
“It’s something that we’ve been working on for about a year,” Bennett told about 100 local business leaders meeting at the banquet room in The Meadows. “I think we’ve got a great opportunity to have what we had in the past and more,” he said.
Bennett also said he hopes the city can break ground next year on a new police headquarters at the site of the current police station at 1212 Wabash Ave. “Our goal would be to build on that existing site [south of the existing police station] and tear down the existing building and use that [former headquarters site] for some redevelopment activity,” he said. Bennett said he hopes the new station could be completed by the end of 2013.
Local business leaders also learned that the city will have almost twice the usual funding in 2012 for sidewalk repair. For the past several years, the city has had $500,000 in wheel and gasoline tax dollars to spend on sidewalk repair. This year, thanks to federal funding obtained through the Metropolitan Planning Organization of the West Central Indiana Economic Development District, the city will have an addition $400,000 for sidewalks, the mayor said.
Other topics Bennett covered:
• The City of Terre Haute is looking into the idea of a health clinic for city employees similar to one provided to employees of the Vigo County School Corp. Such a clinic could help the city save on its health care costs, he said.
• The Emergency Responder Training Academy classroom building should be set to open for use in about 30 days.
• City officials should begin in the “next year or so” working on an organizational plan for the Terre Haute Fire Department. The downtown fire station on South Ninth Street “will need to be replaced,” Bennett said, adding that the city also will look at the need for additional fire protection in the newly-developing area around the east-side Walmart store.
• Ivy Tech Community College, the City of Terre Haute and the Terre Haute Humane Society are working on a plan that could provide additional space for stray animals at a new Ivy Tech facility in the southern Vigo County industrial park.
• Bennett also told business leaders that work to clean up the former Toney Petroleum site near the Indiana State University campus is moving forward despite several obstacles that have emerged over the past four years. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to remove leaking diesel tanks from the site, Bennett said, adding that the number of difficulties encountered in the clean up effort has been “unbelievable.”
• Clean up continues at 500 Maple Avenue, where the city plans to open a new park later this year. Three environmental “hot spots” remain to be dealt with on the property, Bennett said. He added that – thanks to a “levy cut” made nearby – the park should never flood as it has done in the past. That levy cut had been suggested more than 50 years ago by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Bennett said.
Mayor Bennett’s official “State of the City” address will be Feb. 9 at 11 a.m. at the Vigo County Public Library.
Arthur Foulkes can be reached at (812) 231-4232 or arthur.foulkes@tribstar.com.
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