The Terre Haute Coke and Coal site was a 52-acre coke and manufactured gas production facility that was in operation between 1926 and 1988.  It manufactured 150,000 tons of high-carbon coke, with about 70% of the coke shipped to gray iron foundries.  The City of Terre Haute currently owns 49 acres of the brownfield site.

The remediation plan calls for a total of 80,000 cubic yards of soil to be removed.  The soil is contaminated with tar, arsenic, lead, naphthalene, benzo(a)pyrene and other hazardous substances.  Between 1,800 and 2,000 tons of soil will be removed each day.  The project also includes the demolition and removal of any sub-surface structures, such as foundations, bricks, pipes or pits.

In addition to cleaning the brownfield site, an asphalt trail will also be installed on location.  Martin says that the 1/3 mile, 10 foot wide trail, will not only be a very cost-effective way to cap the ground that is near an underground natural gas pipeline, but will also provide an excellent bicycle and pedestrian facility as well.

A soil sample is tested at the former Terre Haute Coke and Coal site.

(Thank you to City of Terre Haute Chief Planner Pat Martin for his helpful assistance in preparing this blog post).

Congratulations to each of the 2013 APA-IN award winners for your excellence in planning!

Outstanding Plan:  City of Fort Wayne Community Development Division

Honorable Mention:  City of Goshen, Development Concepts, Inc., Urban Collage, Inc. and Shrewsberry & Assoc., LLC

Outstanding Best Practice:  City of Columbus-Bartholomew County Planning Department

Outstanding Student Project:  Ball State University – Fall 2011 PLAN 541 Class

Outstanding Marketing Project:  Kentuckiana Regional Planning & Development Agency, Taylor Siefker Williams Design Group and Williams Randall Marketing

For more details about this year’s 2013 APA-IN Awards, please click here.

All of the presentations were very timely, informative and educational. Some of the conference’s highlights included the APA-IN Awards Presentation, an AICP exam review session, and a walking tour of redevelopment projects in downtown Columbus. Additionally, Karen Valencic, an engaging guest speaker, taught us all how to utilize “spiral impact” techniques in confronting change in our careers, organizations and communities.

Thank you to all of the conference speakers and the APA-IN organizing committee for another great professional development conference. We also certainly appreciate the hospitality of our colleagues from the City of Columbus for hosting us. We invite everyone to attend the Fall APA-IN Conference that will be held in October at the Ball State University campus.

Christy Langley, AICP, the Planning Director of the City of Noblesville, presented a case study regarding digitization and how that internal process enabled the Noblesville Planning Department to improve efficiency and customer service.

Mitch Barloga, AICP, a planner with the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission (NIRPC). Mitch presented a video and spoke about the 2040 Comprehensive Regional Plan: A Vision for Northwestern Indiana, which is a winner of the prestigious APA Daniel Burnham Award, to be presented to NIRPC at the upcoming APA conference in Chicago, Illinois.

As part of the BRAC realignment decision, the Air Force Reserve continued to retain a portion of the base for use by an air refueling wing. The remaining airfield and base property were declared excess by the Air Force and turned over to the Grissom Redevelopment Authority (which was later merged with the Miami County Economic Development Authority in 2005) for civilian reuse and redevelopment. The former base property was renamed the “Grissom Aeroplex” and contained many strong assets to attract future development. This included over 850 acres of land, a wide array of different types of buildings, large aircraft hangars, airfield ramp space and access to the longest runway in the entire state of Indiana.

Through extensive planning and outreach efforts, the Grissom Aeroplex is now thriving. According to Rachel Daily, Director of Marketing & Business Attraction with the Miami County Economic Development Authority, sixty percent of the former base property has now been successfully redeveloped. Governor Mitch Daniels led a ceremony in 2008 which opened the runway at the Grissom Aeroplex to civil aviation use, without the need for pilots to first obtain use approval from the Air Force. Montgomery Aviation opened a fixed-base operation at the airfield, providing services to both general aviation and corporate aircraft. Ms. Daily also pointed to a recent significant investment at the Grissom Aeroplex by Dean Baldwin Aircraft Painting, which paints commercial and military aircraft. The company will soon be opening a new aircraft painting facility in a formerly vacant 120,000 square foot hangar. This project is expected to generate 200 new jobs.

The Miami County Economic Development Authority is the primary economic and community development organization for Miami County. It is a public-private partnership organization with the mission of coordinating local efforts to attract jobs and new business investment, provide assistance to existing businesses to foster growth and retention, and assist in efforts to sustain and improve the quality of life for Miami County citizens.

For more information or additional details about the Grissom Aeroplex, please see the Miami County Economic Development Authority website at http://www.miamicountyeda.com/index.php, or contact their staff at (765) 689-0159.

(Thank you to Rachel Daily of the Miami County Economic Development Authority for her helpful assistance in preparing this blog post).

A Boeing 747 cargo aircraft seen inside a former U.S. Air Force hangar at the Grissom Aeroplex.

The first step for ImagineBloomington was to create a vision statement. This would be a broad-based statement of the community’s long-term vision for the future (approximately 20-25 year outlook). An extensive public outreach process engaged citizens and stakeholders to envision the future of their community over the next 25 years. Mayor Mark Kruzan called the visioning process “a unique and exciting opportunity for Bloomington citizens to play an integral role in defining the future of our community. This is a chance for us to create a common vision for Bloomington and start working together to achieve it.”

The visioning phase of ImagineBloomington was held between February and April of 2012. There were several ways for the public to participate. These included community workshops, an on-line survey, informal tabling events, and an interactive online forum called “UserVoice”. The Steering Committee and Planning Department staff then utilized the public input received from this process to create a draft vision statement.

Approved by the Plan Commission and the City Council in early 2013, the vision statement will now act as the foundation for drafting the policy guidance of the updated comprehensive plan. This stage of the ImagineBloomington process is just getting underway and is expected to run through early 2014.

For more information or additional details, please see the City of Bloomington “ImagineBloomington” webpage at www.bloomington.in.gov/ImagineBloomington, or contact Planning Department staff at (812) 349-3423.

A scene from one of the workshops held to solicit public input for the ImagineBloomington vision statement.