By John Estridge
There will be a pedestrian bridge across the Whitewater River’s east fork and a trail up a ravine to the Franklin County Community School Corporation property.
It will cost about $3 million.
At their November meeting, Brookville Redevelopment Commission members voted unanimously to spend $600,000 by 2025-26 for the redevelopment commission’s part – a 20 percent match – for a $2.4 million federal Department of Transportation grant.
While a large part of the big price tag for the project will be the bridge across the river, the engineering problem is creating a 40-foot elevation change from the river to the school property while maintaining a 5 percent grade. The grade is necessary to make the trail wheelchair and ADA accessible. Between the bridge and the ascent up the ravine will be a trail along the river bank. The distance for the trail up the ravine, maintaining a 5 percent grade, is about 800 feet, BRDC President Todd Thackery, who is a practicing architect, said.
According to plans, the trail would connect to the school property between the transportation facility and the Franklin County Middle School, officials said.
Thackery introduced the project, its parameters and its cost to the other members during the meeting. HWC Engineering, the firm doing the current sidewalk project from Fairfield Avenue to the schools via Oxford Pike, will be in charge of applying for the federal grant, which will be administered by the Indiana Department of Transportation.
When the $600,000 match was first mentioned by Thackery, it caused a couple of gasps from members who were connected to the meeting remotely via Zoom. Thackery talked about the economic realities of the match. He said Brookville Redevelopment brings in about $250,000 a year in property taxes and will have until 2025 to have the total match in place as that is the goal for starting construction. It would be open for hikers and more in 2026.
Also, Thackery said the annual income figure should continue to grow as places like the Cobblestone Hotel are added to the property tax rolls.
Under questioning about the new hotel, Thackery said it is receiving a 50-percent abatement for 10 years on its property taxes, but should still bring in some property tax revenue in that time. There are also other improvements being made within the large Redevelopment area.
Thackery then explained the need for getting approval for the project during the November meeting. The deadline is December 11 for the grant proposal, Thackery said. The commission will learn if its grant application has been approved and the money awarded in February 2021.
Later in the meeting, Thackery called Cory Whitesell, HWC’s director of planning, and he then joined the meeting also by Zoom.
Whitesell also talked about the project and how difficult it is to get firm financial numbers especially concerning the engineering challenges of the elevation change with the needed 5 percent grade.
“My biggest challenge with this project is it is not a simple solution once you cross the bridge to get up that hill,” Whitesell said. “And that’s where this one really becomes tricky is how the world are we going to get up that elevation grade. We turn to our team to say ‘how in the world are we going to get this done?’”
He said there are many unknowns associated with the elevation change and that is why the costs have been driven up.
According to Whitesell, the company only goes through the exercise of submitting grant applications for projects the company believes will be competitive in the process. And the company believes this to be a good opportunity.
“We’ve funded a lot of projects just like this through INDOT (grant application processes), and we feel really good about it,” Whitesell said.
He said his company did a similar trail project in Batesville two years ago. According to an article on the WRBI website, the hiking trail and the three-acre park in question, Freedom Park, are on the east side of Six Pine Ranch Road across from Brookville Tool and Die. It opened in 2019.
Redevelopment members pledged to set aside $100,000 per year until the match is reached. That will leave the commission enough money to do other projects in town. Currently, besides the sidewalk project mentioned earlier, it is finishing a storm water project near Schirmer’s and the new Farmers Mutual Building. It is also working on making the vacant lot near the intersection of Sixth and Main streets into a small parking lot.
Thackery said the commission needs to reach out to the Franklin County Community School Corporation to find out if it is OK with the plan. Beth Foster, a retired teacher and athletic director at Franklin County High School, is a non-voting member of the commission. She is also a school board member. She was not present at the meeting but is expected to be the liaison with the school corporation.
“This is a large commitment on our part for a fledgling redevelopment commission but a huge opportunity also,” Thackery said.