TERRE HAUTE —
The washboard effect motorists feel driving down much of Wabash Avenue may soon be a thing of the past.
On Monday, the Terre Haute Board of Public Works and Safety accepted a bid for $1,128,798 from Wabash Valley Asphalt to resurface the city’s main street from 13th Street to 25th Street.
The roadway has a “washboard” effect due to old Terre Haute interurban rail lines buried beneath the surface, city officials have said.
The bid approved Monday calls for the removal of the rails and resurfacing of the road, said Larry Robbins, assistant city engineer.
The work should begin sometime this month, Robbins said speaking after the Board of Works meeting in City Hall. The job is expected to take 90 days and will involve temporarily rerouting some traffic to Poplar Street.
Wabash Valley Asphalt was one of two companies bidding for the project. The Terre Haute-based company’s bid was the lowest responsive and responsible proposal and received the recommendation of the city’s Department of Engineering, said Bob Murray, president of the Board of Works.
The city has received $2.68 million in cash from the State of Indiana for maintenance and repairs on Wabash Avenue. At the same time, the city also received more than $4 million in engineering credits and the forgiving of past matching-fund debt from the state.
It was all part of a deal to help the city take over maintenance costs of Wabash Avenue, once the responsibility of the State of Indiana.
The $2.68 million was placed in a special “non-reverting” fund by the Terre Haute City Council in late 2010 over the objection of Mayor Duke Bennett, who wanted the funds to be used to assist the city’s cash flow situation in the short term while remaining pledged to the roadwork in the future.
• Also Monday, the Board of Works approved a request from the city’s Department of Redevelopment to declare as “surplus property” Memorial Park near Union Hospital for a possible economic development project.
The park, which includes a softball diamond and about 5.7 acres of land, is not owned by the Parks Department but rather the Board of Works, said Rhonda Oldham, attorney for the Department of Redevelopment.
The land is currently “under utilized at best,” Oldham told the board.
The park is bordered by Third Street to the west, Sixth Street to the east, Eighth Avenue to the north and Seventh Avenue to the south.
Once the property is declared “surplus,” the Department of Redevelopment “will basically enter negotiations with a party that’s interested in developing this for a compatible land use” and then bring the matter back to the Board of Works, Oldham told the five-person board.
Declaring the park surplus will allow it to be sold and developed only for purposes compatible with the surrounding area, Oldham said. The park is within the city’s Rural Health Innovation Collaborative (RHIC) zone, meaning it will be developed for medical purposes, she said.
Arthur Foulkes can be reached at (812) 231-4232 or arthur.foulkes@tribstar.com.
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