The city has 900 tons of salt ready for the winter storm this week, the mayor updates his priorities on Statehouse legislation, and the dominoes are falling in place for the new conference center facility.
On this week’s installment of Ask The Mayor, Columbus Mayor Jim Lienhoop addresses these issues and more on a Zoom conference call. Listen to the full conversation with Indiana Newsdesk anchor Joe Hren by clicking on the play button above, or read some of the questions and answers below. A portion of this segment airs 6:45 and 8:45 a.m. Wednesday on WFIU.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
Hren: Everyone is talking about the winter storm that's approaching. It's still early, what are you hearing? And is the city ready?
Lienhoop: Rain on Wednesday, and then overnight temperatures will drop, and that will convert to sleet, and then to ice, and then to snow. And so we just have to wait and see in terms of the volume. But the bottom line is that our DPW folks are prepared. I mean, they've identified a number of contingencies. They've identified the people who would act or react as drivers. And not only folks in the Department of Public Works, but some utilities, crews and parks department crews.
They told me we got 900 tons of salt. And we've got 700 tons on order. The demand is pretty consistent across the Midwest and particularly out east. And it's a challenge, but I think 900 tons is good through this weekend, and then we'll see what happens.
Hren: We've been reporting, the final group of Afghan evacuees have left Camp Atterbury. Columbus is not far, have you heard anything about how that process went and how much the city got involved?
Lienhoop: Well, the city of Columbus really didn't get involved at all. For us, it was almost a non-event. And that really isn't where we had expected it to go, we expected to be involved, we expected to be asked to help.
Now there were a few churches here in town that reached out and adopted a couple families, if that's the right word. And these are folks who already have some level of English proficiency, and needed a little bit of help in terms of trying to figure out how to navigate life in Columbus, Indiana. But from in terms of the effect on our community, really was pretty minimal, we didn't get much in the way of the impact of reports.
Hren: Last time you did a good job of explaining the business personal property tax cuts that were being proposed at the Indiana General Assembly. Terre Haute Mayor Duke Bennett and Bloomington's John Hamilton agreed with you on not cutting taxes without replacement funds. So I know the House bill passed, but has anything else changed?
Lienhoop: Not that I know of. I think there were a few minor tweaks to the House bill. But my understanding is that in the Senate, there's a little bit more of an understanding, but everybody's got their own perspective.
We've been told and I don't know how accurate this information is, but it would cost the Bartholomew county taxing entity several million dollars if that went away. I mean, I spent a career in the tax area and I've seen it from the taxpayer side. And it's a difficult tax to administer, I must admit that.
From a practitioners perspective, it would make sense for it to go away. But we just can't end it in one year. I mean, that would be a severe dislocation, not only to the city, but the county, the schools, the library, you know, any place that receives tax receipts from the tax on business personal property. We've got a TIF district that is funded entirely by business personal property tax. And so, none of those questions were answered with respect to well, what do we do?
It looks like some cooler heads are going to prevail in the Senate. And we'll just have to wait and see how that all turns out.
Hren: From what I understand, the court services building, also known as the probation department has an opening coming up soon. And that frees up space for the new conference center.
Lienhoop: Yeah, the dominoes are starting to fall in terms of our downtown development. You're right, we have a building under construction right now that is south of the jail. And it will house a court services department or what we commonly refer to it as the probation department. The probation department is currently occupying a building at Third St. and Lafayette. So when the probation department moves into the new building, which we expect sometime around May 1, then we will demolish the old building.
We anticipate being able to move onto the Hotel Conference Center and parking garage on that block sometime this year. But, it's still kind of hung up in the COVID fog. Business travel is still a little bit of an unknown, and we expect business travel to be a big proponent or a big portion of what goes on in that facility.
Hren: Before we go just wanted to get an update on the urban grocer and apartments downtown. And, NexusPark?
Lienhoop: On the 26th of January, we were able to close on the transfer of land to the developer, Flaherty & Collins, and we were able to close on some bonds that we needed to help fund the construction of what will go on there. They will begin here within about a month.
We will get somewhere around 200 apartments in that facility along with a small grocery store. And when I say small, I'm talking 12 to 15,000 square feet. So we don't know yet who the operator will be that's Flaherty & Collins they're going to be the landlord.
And pretty shortly after that with what we call the 1821 Trail, which is the legacy project from the Bicentennial that we had, but really is just a rebuild of First Street west towards the railroad track.
You mentioned NexusPark, and yes, we're moving forward there as well. We have got several public meetings lined up that will start I want to say February 15 and go on out from there. We've got conceptual drawings. This morning at the Board of Public Works, we approved to issue a request for qualifications. This will go to companies that may be interested in a design and build contract. Once we get responses to the RFQ, we'll evaluate those and those responders who are deemed to be capable and for lack of a better word, they'll be asked to bid on design and build process that will build the field house and do some interior renovations there at the mall. So yeah, we're moving forward.
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