Commissioners seek input as pavement crumbles

Jun. 8—Two main challenges stand between better roads and crushed pavement at the Eli Lilly and Co. site.

And all county taxpayers will have to fund repairs if the issues aren't resolved, Boone County Highway Director Nick Parr warned Boone County Commissioners on Monday of this week.

Lilly will be part of the LEAP Lebanon District under development by the Indiana Economic Development Corp., IEDC.

LEAP stands for limitless exploration advanced pace. The district is known informally as a hard-tech corridor, and Lilly is the anchor tenant. The district is the largest economic development in the state's history.

Lilly's construction traffic is projected to reach 3,000 vehicles a day during its peak and has already climbed significantly.

The IEDC offered to improve three roads that will experience unprecedented traffic and weight loads as a result of the construction and build an entirely new bypass around the site.

The IEDC has no road construction crew of its own and hired a private company to resurface, widen, and build the roads, and to add turn lanes to Witt Road to alleviate congestion and improve safety at its intersection with Ind. 47. The Indiana Department of Transportation controls state highways and will add turn or bubble lanes to Ind. 47 at Witt Road to improve safety.

It's also unprecedented for a private company to build or improve a Boone County road, Parr said. As a result, the county developed a set of conditions the contractor, Pure Development, must agree to meet before the county will approve permit applications for the projects.

The permits submitted for commissioner approval Monday included work on:

* Witt Road (County Road 150 West) from C.R. 450 N. to Ind. 47;

* C.R. 450 N. from Witt Road to Ind. 39;

* C.R. 375 N. from Witt Road to Ind. 39; and

* A new bypass road from C.R. 300 N. to C.R. 450 N.

Commissioners did not approve the permit applications Monday because a woman who lives on the affected part of Witt Road complained that commissioners' meetings are in the mornings when many affected property owners can't attend.

Commissioners unanimously chose to table the permit requests and schedule a meeting for 7 p.m. June 13 in the Boone County Annex, 116 W. Washington St., Lebanon. A night meeting, Commissioner Tim Buyer said, will give more taxpayers a chance to ask questions about the project and give input. The special conditions will also be available for public view.

The week's delay until the next meeting may push the state's start date into July. In the meantime, pavement on Witt Road south of C.R. 375 N. continues to crumble, and potentially jeopardize motorists' safety, Parr said.

Witt Road south of Lilly is closed to through traffic at present while water lines are installed but is expected to reopen at week's end and expedite pavement deterioration. Construction traffic, though, is still using that stretch of road and crushing the pavement, Parr said, adding that the state would repair it if permitted, eliminating expense to the county, Parr said.

"We either approve the permits and let them improve the roadways, or the county foots the bill and takes care of it ourselves," Parr said. "The traffic is going to happen. And until the roads are improved, Boone County and the highway department are responsible for those roadways."

Challenge 2

The second major obstacle is that the owners of one property on Witt Road, north of Lilly, have not sold the permanent right-of-way necessary for the road to be reinforced and widened with shoulders and improved drainage. And time is short until the project is to begin.

Michael Watts, Pure Development senior development manager, emailed Parr and Bob Clutter, attorney for the commissioners, on June 1. Watts said the Fahrenbach property on N. Witt Road is not under contract but officials spoke with Jack Fahrenbach's attorney in late May and made "some progress." The right of way for all remaining properties on Witt Road is under contract, according to the email.

One property on C.R. 375 N. was also not yet under contract, but the contract was in the final stages, Watts reported. And C.R. 375 won't be repaired until Witt Road north of Lilly is complete.

Witt Road north of Lilly is the project lynch-pin. Once it's reinforced, most construction traffic is expected to use it and keep heavy loads off of the southern portion of Witt Road and nearby gravel roads, which are not robust enough to handle it. The remaining roads will be strengthened one by one after Witt Road north of Lilly.

But the one holdout on Witt Road may ultimately cost taxpayers, Parr said.

A city, county, or state can ask a judge to force the sale of the property at market value via imminent domain, but the state and private contractors cannot.

If the Fahrenbach property owner won't agree to sell the right of way, the state will probably widen and improve N. Witt Road from Ind. 47 southward of the Fahrenbach property and begin again on the south side of the property to continue to Lilly, Parr said.

That will leave a lone stretch of unimproved Witt Road that will still endure heavy construction traffic but lack the pavement depth and width to handle it. And the road in that section will likely be narrower and without the shoulders and drainage the rest of the road has.

The pavement there is expected to crumble as the pavement on Witt Road south of Lilly already has in just a few weeks, and the county will have to deepen the pavement and improve the road at Boone County taxpayer expense in the name of safety, Parr said.

Jack Fahrenbach on Wednesday declined comment on whether he intends to sell right of way for the project.

He said he lacked important information to make the decision and was not aware of who among his neighbors has or has not sold right of way to the state.

"We do hear things in the rumor mill, of course," he said. "But I don't have anything authoritative."

The IEDC estimates the entire road improvement project to cost at least $15 million. And that's before C.R. 300 N. is improved.

The county highway department's entire annual budget is $10 million, Parr said.