Look for re-paving to begin in the Town of Chesterton’s tax increment financing district sometime next month.

At Monday’s meeting of the Redevelopment Commission, Street Commissioner John Schnadenberg said that he’s hopeful the season’s two big TIF-district road projects will be done in May: the southbound lane of North Calumet Road between Grant Ave. and Indian Boundary Road; and East Porter Ave. from Ind. 49 to Cherry Hills Drive.

The northbound lane of North Calumet Road will be re-paved by Indiana-American Water Company (IAWC) as part of its installation of a new water main there.

Schnadenberg told the Chesterton Tribune after the meeting that he’s still compiling a list of other, non-TIF district road projects for the season, likely to be funded by some combination of CEDIT and Major Moves moneys: a joint project with the Town of Porter to re-pave Woodlawn Ave. between Ottawa Trail and Waverly Road; Fifth Street between 1050N and 1100N; and 15th Street from Broadway to the Norfolk-Southern grade-crossing.

While on the subject of re-surfacing, Member Jim Ton asked Schnadenberg when motorists could expect the road cuts along East Porter Ave., east of the Coffee Creek Bridge, to be repaired, inasmuch as the patches made there this past winter by IAWC to fix a couple of main breaks “aren’t holding up well.”

Probably pretty soon, Schnadenberg replied. The asphalt plants are opening this week and when IAWC gets around to it those patches will be saw-cut, dug out, and re-paved.

In other business, members voted 4-0 formally to remove the South Calumet District project from the Old Business portion of its agenda.

The project has been completed. “And a job well done,” Member Ed Schoenfelt noted.

Ton, for his part, remarked that the lighting of the signage at the northwest and northeast corners of the intersection of 100E and 1100N now “seems to be adequate.” And, Ton added, the landscaping is looking “very nice.”

Meanwhile, Ton—a member of the Executive Board of the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission—told his colleagues that the town is now “trying some new approaches” to get the Dickinson Road extension on NIRPC’s radar as a project eligible for federal or state funding.

“We’re going to back up and try again,” Ton said. “We’re going to keep going until we hear something definitive.”

Members voted 4-0 to approve one claim: $4,685 submitted by Harris Welsh & Lukmann.

Member Mark Singer was not in attendance.

Posted 4/27/2011