Gary approves last part of Airport Road upgrades
The Gary Redevelopment Commission approved a pair of resolutions that are meant to advance long-term repairs to Airport Road, the primary access to the Gary/ Chicago International Airport.
The commission voted 3-0 May 15, with board members Namon Flournoy and Eric Reaves absent, to authorize a consulting contract with American Structurepoint, Inc., the Indianapolis firm that has overseen past phases of the project. Already completed are the resurfacing of Airport Road directly in front of the airport entrance, and the removal of an old railroad access bridge to allow for widening the road to improve traffic flow.
Still to be done is resurfacing the road from the bridge to Cline Avenue. The contract calls for American Structurepoint to be paid $400,323.68 for the work.
Also approved was a resolution authorizing Gary financial officials to make a payment from the city’s lakefront tax increment finance district to the Indiana Department of Transportation to cover the city’s responsibility to pay 20% of the project cost. Redevelopment Executive Director A.J. Bytnar said city officials provide money to the state, which combines it with state funding to pay the contractor.
The entire Airport Road improvement project s expected to cost $3.292 million, one-fifth of which the city pays.
In other business, the commission is transferring ownership to the city of a plot of land at 441-43 Massachusetts St., which is part of the grounds of the Hudson-Campbell Sports & Fitness Center maintained by the Gary Parks Department.
Bytnar said the land transfer is to end ownership split between the city and the commission, making it easier for Gary to receive loans from the federal Housing and Urban Development to cover the cost of any future improvements.
Also at the meeting, commission president Kenya Jones was critical of Gary resident James Nowacki, whom she said distorted the circumstances surrounding the commission’s current structure. Nowacki pointed out that both Flournoy and Reaves appeared earlier this week before the common council’s boards and commissions committee about their reappointment to the redevelopment commission.
He said he hoped the commission would soon be back to full membership, which Jones took as some sort of accusation that the commission was acting improperly in conducting its business.
“We have a quorum here,” she said. “It says so in Roberts Rules of Order.”