Demolition starts at the Boone County Jail

Maria Flora, The Lebanon Reporter, Ind.
·3 min read

Apr. 5—Demolition began this week on the Boone County Jail façade in Lebanon.

Crews are tearing up the parking lot in front of the building and will remove bricks from the main entrance, Boone County Executive Project Manager Mike Nielsen told authorities earlier this week.

The demolition is the start of the $60 million Boone County Justice Complex project that will expand the jail and add adjacent services, such as the Boone County Community Corrections, Probation, and Coroner's offices.

It means that the public no longer has access to the jail or its services, such as fingerprinting or paying bond. Those services are now provided at the Boone County 4-H Fairgrounds just south of the jail.

The Boone County Sheriff's administrative offices completed the move last week to mobile trailers at the fairgrounds annex building parking lot. The fairgrounds is adjacent to the BCSO property and accessible from one drive to the south of the jail property off of Indianapolis Avenue.

Contractors will soon move demolition work inside the building and focus first on the former administrative offices, Nielsen told Boone County Commissioners during a routine project update. Final project construction drawings were delivered last week, he said.

Excavation crews had been grading the land behind the BCSO shooting range and elsewhere on the site before this week.

Commissioner Jeff Wolfe, Nielsen, and other county officials recently met with Lebanon officials to coordinate utilities service and discuss erosion control, he said.

In other business, commissioners:

* Learned from their attorney, Robert Clutter, that the county still does not have a memorandum of understanding with the Indiana Economic Development Corp. concerning improvements the state will make to county roads near the Eli Lilly and Co. project site north of Lebanon. Clutter expects to have an MOU available to share during the commissioner's meeting at 9 a.m. April 17 in the Boone County Courthouse Annex;

* Were updated by Nielsen on lingering challenges with a new timeclock software that was implemented, but not successfully, before Nielsen took on his new role as project manager. Commissioners and the Boone County Council had become increasingly frustrated with a lack success in recent months. Department heads and employees were not properly trained to use the software, Nielsen said. He and Boone County Auditor Debbie Crum have met with county department heads, and all employees should have been trained and should be able to access and use the timeclock software by week's end. A second important step is to integrate employee information with the software so it tracks paid time off and other specifics, and Nielsen and Crum are also implementing that phase of the project, he said.

* Approved the closure of Witt Road and County Roads 375 North and 300 North as early as June 1 for a water line to be installed into the Eli Lilly property. The contractor chose that date to avoid interrupting school bus traffic. C.R. 300 will first close west of the intersection with Witt Road for a week or less. At least one lane is expected to be open during the majority of the closure. The intersection of Witt Road and C.R. 375 N. will then close completely for one week or less.

* Approved an agreement with Lebanon, which will pave and mark Big 4 Rail Trail crossings from C.R. 350 W. to Serum Plant Road south of Thorntown. C.R. 400 N., 300 W. and 600 W. will be temporarily closed during construction for pavement to set and paint to dry, City of Lebanon Engineer Kevin Krulik told commissioners.

* Learned that the Indiana Department of Transportation will soon close portions of Ind. 47. Traffic will be rerouted during the work to repair small structures, such as culverts, near Colfax and the Montgomery County line. Two sections of road will be involved consecutively, and the work will take about 60 days per site, Boone County Highway Director Nick Parr said.