City officials have approved funding relocation of utility lines near the new Bartholomew County Court Services center.
The Columbus Redevelopment Commission has approved a resolution to fund utility relocation “from overhead to underground” in front of the building, which is currently under construction. According to Redevelopment Director Heather Pope, the requested expenditure is a little over $150,000. The amount is based on a cost estimate from Duke Energy.
The change was influenced by the multifamily urban grocer project, which will be located at the southeast corner of Lafayette Avenue and Second Street, Pope said. The location is just a short walk from the new court services building, which is being built directly south of the Bartholomew County Jail.
“The multifamily urban grocer project is having to relocate some of their overhead utility lines to underground,” she said. “And when we started kind of backing off and looking at that whole area aesthetically, it just made sense to go ahead and engage Duke at the same time to relocate those overhead utility lines that are currently in front of the new court services center underground.”
She added that this is consistent with permitted uses of Tax Increment Financing funding.
In discussing the project’s progress, Heather said that officials still plan to have the building open in April, or at least ready for use by the probation department.
The new court services center is part of a larger arrangement for changes coming to Columbus’s downtown.
Plans call for the current court services building, located in the former Elks Club at 507 Third St., to be torn down. That would empty an entire county-owned block for the city’s new hotel and conference center between Second, Franklin, Third and Lafayette streets.
The city receives that property as part of a land swap. In exchange, construction of the new court services building will mostly be handled by the city.
While the new court services center is moving forward, Sprague Hotel Developers has put the hotel/conference center project on hold for the time being, due to the impacts of COVID-19 on the hospitality industry.
