Stimulus sought for wider Adams Center
NEW HAVEN – New Haven is working with Fort Wayne and Allen County to widen Adams Center Road and hopes that federal stimulus funds will pay for the estimated $44 million project.
Keith Schlegel, New Haven engineering director, updated the city council Tuesday night about plans to improve the road. The project would accommodate a planned intermodal rail-to-truck facility near Adams Center and Paulding roads, inside Fort Wayne city limits.
The planned improvements to Adams Center, which becomes Marion Center Road, would create a four-lane road from just south of Indiana 930 to Marion Center and south to Interstate 469. The project would also construct a portion of the planned Six Mile Creek recreational trail, Schlegel said.
Schlegel said New Haven City Council will eventually need to sign a formal agreement with Fort Wayne and Allen County to work together on the project.
A truck ramp and logistics park were proposed in 2007; Fort Wayne continues to pursue that type of development, Schlegel said.
If the intermodal facility is built, it would generate additional traffic and send heavily laden trucks onto Adams Center. The current two-lane road can’t handle the expected weights of those trucks, which would receive shipping containers from trains and then transport those containers by highway, Schlegel said.
The project could also spur other industrial development in the area. The current road couldn’t handle the combined demand, he said.
Fort Wayne has offered to be the lead agency on the estimated $44 million project and has submitted an application for federal stimulus money, which would pay 100 percent of construction costs, Schlegel said.
Schlegel said New Haven currently owes $7,750 to Fort Wayne, but he does not know the total the city could expect to pay. Schlegel asked the council to hold off on signing a formal agreement that spells out the cities’ responsibilities.
He hopes to know in a month whether the Federal Highway Administration will approve the grant application, Schlegel said.
Widening Adams Center Road/Marion Center Road is a project listed on the long-term transportation plan for the county. City and county officials began discussing the project in earnest in the spring of 2009, and some preliminary work was completed last summer. No engineer has been hired, he said.
If the communities receive the stimulus funding, Schlegel said construction wouldn’t likely begin until 2013 or 2014.
State-funded homestead credits will go away next year, and several tax experts predict that property tax bills will rise, especially for rural homeowners who are unlikely to benefit from recently enacted tax caps.