The long-discussed Ind. 49 utility corridor—the ultimate goal of which is the extension of sanitary sewer, water, stormwater, and fiber-optic services beyond the Indiana Toll Road and as far south as U.S. Highway 6 in unincorporated Liberty Township—got a lot more real on Monday, when the Chesterton Redevelopment Commission approved an engineering contract for the project.

Members voted 3-0 to retain the services of DVG Inc. of Crown Point for a sum not to exceed $176,500. Members Sharon Darnell and Mark Singer were not in attendance.

The contract only provides for Phase I engineering, that is, for the extension of utilities to the Town of Chesterton’s southern corporate boundary.

Tax increment financing moneys will be used to defray the cost of the contract.

Earlier this year the commission finalized the creation of a new TIF district south of the Toll Road, to include approximately 140 acres of recently annexed land on either side of Ind. 49: the so-called Rossman property on the east side, the so-called Pope property on the west side. The new TIF district was explicitly established for the purpose of capturing TIF revenues to fund the Ind. 49 utility corridor project, which is intended to open commercial and light-industrial development south of the Toll Road.

Jeff Ban of DVG told the Chesterton Tribune after the meeting that the plan for sanitary sewer service looks like this:

•A 15-inch main will be run south from an existing line—located on Village Point, north of Gateway Blvd., in Coffee Creek Center—under the Toll Road to the Rossman property.

•The main will then be run west under Ind. 49 to the Pope property.

•It will next jog south to a point just north of the CSX right-of-way, at the town’s extreme southern corporate limit.

•A lift station will be designed to pump wastewater to a point at which gravity will flow it downhill, under Ind. 49 and the Toll Road, and then north to the tie-in on Village Point.

The Chesterton Utility is currently intervening before the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC) in the petition filed by the Damon Run Conservancy District, which is seeking the IURC’s authorization to accept wastewater from the new Porter hospital facility at the intersection of Ind. 49 and U.S. 6. The Utility is arguing specifically that it is better positioned than Damon Run to treat the hospital’s wastewater and that Damon Run is in no position at all to accept wastewater from any further development likely to piggy-back on the hospital along the Ind. 49 corridor.

In other business, Town Engineer Mark O’Dell told Member Jim Ton—who has expressed a concern about the problem—that the two road cuts along East Porter Ave. cold-patched over the winter by Indiana-American Water Company after repairing water-main breaks should be permanently re-surfaced in the next couple of weeks.

Ton has taken note of the fact that the cold-patches are rapidly crumbling.

Meanwhile, members voted 3-0 to approve a single claim: $300 from UMB Bank for bond service fees.