In this week’s installment of Ask The Mayor, Columbus Mayor Mary Ferdon addresses this issue and more at City Hall. 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. Here are some highlights.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
Hren: We are not in the office we are out at the riverside project in downtown Columbus. What's all going on here?
Brown: We are standing right above the amphitheater today. They are driving sheeting, and that is for the retaining wall for the trail, which is going to connect into the amphitheater. A lot of people will see the stretch leading up to the amphitheater, and that's actually the access road, but what they're doing today is setting the foundation for the trail itself, adding some retaining initiatives along the way.
The trail connects into both sides of the amphitheater. What you see is the connection of our river system, it's poured in a decorative concrete in the middle. The amphitheater is also designed to flood, so this is a raging river, and it will flood from time to time. And the amphitheater is designed to withstand that, and it's also intended to help armor the banks from additional erosion.
Hren: We've had a lot of rain, lots of crazy weather these last few months. Are they behind schedule?
Brown: No, actually we are right on schedule. We have a great crew with Milestone. They've developed into their planning process several rain and poor weather condition dates, so we're tracking right on schedule to meet our October 23 ribbon cutting date.
Hren: This is more than just amenities. There's a lot going on with the river.
Ferdon: The primary reason that we're doing this project is around safety. We've got an old low head dam out here that will come out sometime in August, and that is something that we've been wanting to do for a long time.
We also will be armoring our banks, the sides of not only this side of the river and potentially the other side. We have an old EPA landfill site that we want to make sure is protected, and we've got a lot of current and potential erosion happening that we've got to protect.
And then, obviously, the trail is the last connector to a trail system that runs the entire part of Columbus. Over here to my left is Third Street, and it's probably the most dangerous pedestrian and bicycle crossing that we have and so being able to move the trail underneath the Third Street bridge and take it into Mill Race Park again is a huge safety feature.
Hren: Is it on budget? How much is all this costing the city?
Ferdon: It is on budget. This is something we started, I think, in 2015 or maybe even earlier than that, and as you know, we fought through what we call the permitting process, which took years and years and years.
We also had an in-river feature, which really drove the budget to a point where we couldn't afford it. We're using local dollars, but we're also using state READI dollars for this, and a number of grants.
We're right around $12 million, and at least about 50% of that is fully grant funded. The dam removal itself will also be about 50% grant funded or state funded as well.
Read more: Celebrate 250: Fourth of July Parade and Events Columbus Indiana
Hren: It's July 4 weekend already!
Ferdon: We started yesterday with a downtown event. We've got a big food truck festival, because I don't know if they had food trucks 250 years ago, but we have food trucks today. Tomorrow is Star Spangled Kids Day all afternoon in downtown Columbus.
Thursday, we've got the Bartholomew County Historical Society doing a lot of activities for kids and adults. Friday is our big blowout at the air park. We're expecting tens of thousands of people. And then Saturday, downtown, we have our Farmers Market, we have a non-motorized parade, we've got a hot dog eating contest, so if that's something that's really excites you, come on down Saturday or Saturday afternoon. We've got an apple pie contest, all kinds of activities, and then we've got a red, white, and blue kind of dance that we will end the afternoon with.
Hren: There was a death incident at Mill Race Park with an investigation ongoing, is there any more on that?
Ferdon: You know, it's just a tragedy that we saw at Mill Race Park, and so we are undergoing a master plan with Mill Race Park and all of our parks now, and so we will be addressing that within the planning stages to what the next steps are.
