City receives grant for riverfront trail

Photo provided The new design for the Columbus riverfront incorporates a fish passage channel and a rock arch ramp structure using natural materials, which reduces the amount of grout required in the structure, accommodates boat passage and maintains the river water level.

The city of Columbus has received a $1.7 million grant for part of its riverfront project.

Redevelopment Director Heather Pope briefed the redevelopment commission about the award Monday. She also noted that federal officials have said there may be a need to examine the project site in case there are historical artifacts near the river.

The Indiana Department of Natural Resources has awarded the city a $1,727,000 Next Level Trails grant for the riverfront project. Grant requests under this program require a minimum 20% match — $345,400, in Columbus’s case. Monetary contributions, land value and in-kind donations of materials and labor are all eligible means to meet this requirement.

Pope said that the city learned in late April that it was receiving the full amount requested.

“That only pays for the actual trail itself,” she added. “It doesn’t pay for the removal of the dam, any of the fish passage area. It doesn’t pay for the removal of the landscaping and the fill that needs to be put … where it’s eroded. It doesn’t pay for any of that; it’s just for the trail. But it’s still a wonderful contribution, and we couldn’t be happier with that.”

According to the DNR, the project will add 0.86 miles to the People Trail, completing a loop along the south side of Columbus.

“The new trail begins near Mill Race Park at the existing People Trail terminus next to the 3rd Street bridge,” the project description states. “From Third street, the new trail travels east along the East Fork River, eventually connecting to existing trail at Lafayette Avenue.”

Key partners on the trail include the Columbus Parks Foundation and Flaherty & Collins. The latter group is the developer on the multifamily apartments and urban grocery under construction at Second Street and Lafayette Avenue.

In addition to the grant announcement, Pope also indicated in her update that that the city is still going through the United States Army Corps of Engineers’ permitting process for the riverfront project.

“The Army of Corps of Engineers has had their anthropologist or archaeologist look at the site, and they have some questions,” she said. “And so we are working to see if we need to have what’s called a Phase 1a or a Phase 1c of the site just west, immediately across from the (Upland Columbus) Pump House to see if there’s some digging that needs to be done there. They’re concerned about with it being along the river, that there might be some artifacts.”

The corps also wants the city to look at an area where it had planned to stage equipment and a site Pope referred to as the “DNR boat ramp area” off of First Street.

The city is working with the state’s historic preservation officer on this matter, said Pope. They may also engage an archaeology firm to see if there is a need to prepare a Phase 1a or 1c and what this would entail.

“The reason we work with the state historic preservation office is it’ll be their call to determine whether there has been significant disturbance already in the area, that a deep dig or something like that would not be beneficial because the soil has been disturbed to the level that we likely wouldn’t find anything,” she said.

She also noted that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is still compiling public comments that it received on the project as part of the permitting process.

“They said they received some for it, some against it,” she said. “They’re putting all of that together, and then we’ll get copies of that, along with any additional comments that they may have about our most recent filing.”