Portland projects

Portland’s parks and most of its streets are covered with snow. By this summer they’ll be the focus of three major construction projects.
The west side sewer, Indiana 26 East and Portland Water Park projects are all slated for 2015, with the first bids to opened next week.
Portland Board of Works will review bids for the west side sewer work at its meeting Thursday, and plans to select a contractor the following week. Construction will begin as soon as possible after that, with the project expected to last about four months.
Specifications for Portland Water Park are expected to be complete this month, with bidding to follow and an award likely to come at the park board’s March 3 meeting. Demolition of Portland Pool is expected to begin during the winter, with construction on the new facility continuing through the summer and into the fall.
And this week Indiana Department of Transportation notified the city that it has moved up the start of bidding of Indiana 26 to March 4 with an award to come early in April. Work on the sewers and water lines is slated to start in March with completion expected late in the fall.
“It will be a very busy year,” said Mayor Randy Geesaman while giving an overview of the projects at Monday’s city council meeting.

West side sewer
Work to help alleviate flooding on the west side will be centered around replacing and separating sewer lines underneath Grand Street between Main and Race streets. It will get a new 24-inch storm sewer, and that stretch will be repaved when the sewer work is complete.
New 18-inch storm sewers will be installed on Race Street between Park and Williams streets, Arch Street between Charles and Grand streets and High Street between Grand and Alexander streets. Alexander and Williams streets, between Main and Walnut streets, will get new 15-inch lines.
Each of those areas will also get new catch basins, with 10 feet of curbing on each side, and manholes. Race, Alexander and Williams streets will be fully repaved in those areas.
The new lines are expected to help the flooding problem in the area, where Geesaman said most of the lines are currently only 8-to-10 inches and the 24-inch Grand Street line is broken in several places.
All of the water from those lines currently flows to a lift station near the intersection of Votaw Street and Industrial Park Drive and then is pumped back south to the wastewater treatment plant, explained wastewater treatment plant superintendent Bob Brelsford. After the improvements, the storm sewer will go north to a ditch near Industrial Park Drive while the sanitary sewer will flow south to the treatment plant.
“That will take a major amount of load off of that lift station,” said Brelsford of the $1.2 million project. “That will help that situation a lot by getting that storm water out of there.
“That particular lift station is not designed for that kind of flow, and ultimately we don’t want all that storm water at the wastewater plan anyhow.”

Indiana 26 East
Bumps and sizeable potholes, which were especially prevalent following the harsh winter of 2014, mark the stretch of Indiana 26 East (Water Street) between Meridian Street and the eastern edge of the city.
“We get a lot of phone calls on 26 East from people requesting us to fill the potholes. It’s in super poor condition,” said street and parks superintendent Ryan Myers. “I believe the … Greenfield District (of the Indiana Department of Transportation) calls this the second-worst stretch they have in their inventory.”
“It definitely needs some work,” said JoAnn Wooldridge, project manager for INDOT.
The project scheduled for this year calls for repaving that stretch of Indiana 26 — about three-quarters of a mile.
City officials also worked to include new 4-inch water and 8-inch sewer lines. Lateral sewer lines will also be installed so the city will not have to dig up the new road during any future sewer separation projects.
The current water lines are believed to be original to the city, dating back to the 1800s, said water department superintendent Doug Jackson. The same is true for the sewer lines, Brelsford noted, with those having been installed in the 1950s.
The area has had frequent issues with water main breaks.
“I can’t count how many times we’ve worked on 26,” said Jackson, adding that some of the water lines in the area are only 2 feet deep while he would prefer them to be at least 5 feet. “It needs to go. It’s been a long time coming.”
The project will also include Americans with Disabilities Act compliant sidewalks and new LED lighting.
INDOT is paying $2.7 million for the road work and $500,000 for the sewer lines while the city is responsible for the remainder of the estimated $4.6 million project.

Water park
Portland Pool has had maintenance problems for years, including leaks that amount to about a million gallons of water each summer, and in May city council agreed to pay for 68.4 percent (up to $2.25 million) for a new facility. Since then, a fundraising committee has been working to raise the remaining money for the project that is estimated at $3.3 million.
“What we had was so old and in such disrepair,” said Myers of the current 55-year-old facility. “This is going to make everybody’s job a little easier.
“This is going to be much easier to operate. We were constantly fighting with the equipment over there.”
The new facility — Portland Water Park — will be built at the site of the current pool and will have an area of zero-entry as well as a dump bucket, lily pad walk, 8-foot-wide lazy river and a walled-off children’s section in the main recreational area on the east end. The west section will be a lap pool, which will be constructed in a “hump-back” design with a depth of 6 feet on the north end (where the starting blocks will be), 4 feet at the south end and 3 feet, 6 inches, in the middle.
There will be a slide to the west of the lap pool. Also included will be a grassy sunbathing area at the northwest corner as well as a bathhouse and concessions stands.
The grand opening is scheduled for the summer of 2016.
“It’s a quality of life issue,” said Geesaman. “It’ll be something for every age, whether you’re elderly, or a young family, or teenagers or whatever. … I think that’s real important.”