Photo provided An overhead view of the low-head dam in the East Fork White River which would be removed as part of the proposed Riverfront Project.
City officials are going back to assess their options after a planned remake of the riverfront continues to be costlier than anticipated.
The Columbus Redevelopment Commission on Wednesday was going to consider allocating tax-increment financing (TIF) funds to the “Our River…Our Riverfront” project, but will no longer do so because bids have come in higher than anticipated for the second time, according to Redevelopment Director Heather Pope.
How much in TIF funds were going to be considered remains unclear.
The riverfront project, which has been in the works since 2016, is proposed to address safety issues related to the deteriorating low-head dam in the East Fork White River. The initiative has a goal of improving the appearance, recreational function, environmental quality and economic benefit of the area of the river between the Second and Third street bridges.
City officials have previously proposed building overlooks of the river, connections with the People Trail system and an in-water recreation area.
Columbus City Council members in December 2023 approved $11.5 million in TIF funding for the project. But the following month when Indianapolis-based firms Zurbuch Inc. and EDCO, who is construction manager as constructor on the project, began to seek bids for it, they came in higher than anticipated, officials said at the time.
“We’ve opted to withdraw those bids and do some value engineering and try and get more bidders to bid on it the next time,” Director of Redevelopment Heather Pope said earlier this year.
Pope told The Republic on Monday that they had hoped the rebid would yield better numbers, but that didn’t turn out to be the case.
Taylor Brothers had given the project an overall cost estimate of $14 million, which the TIF funding city council approved last year was based on.
The project was estimated to cost $8.9 million in 2017 but the price has climbed due to increased construction and labor costs, as well as additional costs associated with environmental mitigation requirements imposed by state and federal regulators, officials have said.
In May of this year, redevelopment reallocated $5 million in reimbursable Regional Economic Acceleration and Development Initiative (READI) funds that had been earmarked for a downtown hotel conference center project towards the riverfront project.
Plans for a potential downtown hotel conference center had hit an impasse due to a downturn in the hospitality industry, according to redevelopment, and rather than have those funds disappear, they were shifted to the riverfront project.
As of now, $7.4 million in non-TIF dollars have been directed to the remake of the riverfront, made up of $5.6 million in READI funds and $1.8 million from various funding sources including a $1.72 million Next Level Trails Grant from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, along with contributions from Duke Energy and the Columbus Park Foundation.
The Next Level Trails grant and READI funds have to be expended by December 2026 or they expire, according to redevelopment.
Had the additional funding been approved by redevelopment and city council members, a construction contract for the project was going to be issued this year with site preparation getting started this summer. If the latter had happened, the project was expected to be completed in July of 2026.
An economic analysis done by James Lima Planning + Development in 2023 predicted that the project would contribute to greater economic output and new net tax revenue during construction and after the project is completed.
The estimated short-term benefits of the project, referring to benefits during the project’s construction, include the creation of 116 jobs and economic output of $19 million, $100,000 in local tax revenue and $280,000 in state tax revenue, according to the analysis.
