Chesterton Street Commissioner John Schnadenberg has released this year’s list of possible projects in the town’s tax increment financing district.

The big-ticket item, as usual: paving, as much as $228,000 of it, depending on the cost of asphalt.

Schnadenberg recommended four paving projects specifically:

•East Porter Ave. from Cherry Hills Drive east to the bridge, past the entrance to Sand Creek Drive.

•1100N from Pioneer Trail east to Dickinson Road.

•1100N from Dickinson Road to—and including—Sand Creek Drive South.

•Lois Lane, behind the South Calumet Road block of businesses.

Other projects:

•The continued installation of decorative poles along North Calumet Road from Grant Ave. to Indian Boundary Road, along Indian Boundary Road to Ind. 49, and along East Porter Ave. from South Calumet Road to Ind. 49. Estimated cost: $25,000.

•The replacement of sidewalk—with ADA compliant ramps—on the west side of South Calumet Road from West Morgan Ave. south to the alley; and on the east of South Calumet Road from East Morgan Ave. to a point 300 feet to the north; and the review of other areas in the TIF district for ADA compliance. Estimated cost: $25,000.

•The replacement of a sidewalk on South Calumet Road at Lincoln Ave. in front of the Marathon gas station, along with the installation of a stormwater drain from Lincoln Ave. south to the alley. Estimated cost: $15,000.

•The thermal striping of roads in the TIF district. Estimated cost: $15,000.

•The crack sealing of Venturi Drive, Dickinson Road, and Roberts Road. Estimated cost: $15,000.

Total estimated cost of Schnadenberg’s recommended projects: $320,000. “You can do one project or none,” Schnadenberg said. “It’s totally up to you.”

Members voted 4-0 to take the list under advisement, although Member Jim Ton strongly urged an expenditure on sidewalk replacement and ADA compliance.

Member Sharon Darnell, on the other hand, noted that the Town Council’s decision earlier this winter to earmark 100 percent of the town’s share of the riverboat tax might be sufficient to cover all sidewalk work this season.

In other business, members voted 4-0 to hold the first—perhaps the only—meeting of the so-called Dickinson Road Stakeholders Committee, from 9 to 11 a.m. Monday, March 11, at the municipal complex at 1490 Broadway.

The purpose of the meeting: to crystal-ball the future development of the Dickinson Road Extension area, 20 years hence, with an eye to kinds of businesses and volumes and patterns of traffic. Those projections will be forwarded to the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission, in the hope that the project may be added to NIRPC’s 2040 plan, which would make it eligible for federal funding.

Meanwhile, Town Engineer Mark O’Dell reported that wet weather has been making work on the Ind. 49 utility corridor rather a slow slog but that, even so, “they’re making progress.”

Pipe casings are now in place beneath the Indiana Toll Road although the pipe has not yet been installed, O’Dell said, and work continues on the water line at the south end of the project area.

Still left to do: the access road, the wet well, and the lift station building.

Members voted 4-0 to approve the following claims: $273,893.07 from LGS Plumbing Inc., general contract on the utility corridor project; $10,161 from Harris Welsh & Lukmann; and $5,043 from Anton Insurance Agency.

Posted 2/28/2013