Project to start

A bridge replacement project is scheduled to get underway next week.

Sewer work in downtown Portland will wait a bit longer.

Indiana Department of Transportation’s project to replace the Indiana 26 (Water Street) bridge over the Salamonie River on the east edge of Portland is scheduled to start during the final week of June.

The project — road closure signs for “on or after” Monday have been up for about a week and a half — involves removing the existing steel truss bridge and constructing a new bridge using pre-stressed concrete beams. The work will also include installing new concrete approaches to the bridge, guardrail end treatments, asphalt paving on each end of the bridge and other features.

The bridge work was originally planned to begin in mid April, but Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) pushed back the date by two months shortly before it was supposed to start.

The project had been the subject of some local opposition that led to an offer from INDOT to dismantle the bridge and have it moved to be stored if a local government unit would commit to covering the cost, estimated at almost $500,000. Both the county and the city declined to do so, with local officials saying there are other financial obligations.

The official detour for the project will utilize U.S. 27, Indiana 67 and Ohio 49.

It is expected to take seven months to complete the bridge replacement.

The City of Portland had hoped to move forward on its downtown storm sewer project shortly after the start of the bridge project, but Mayor John Boggs said at Thursday’s board of works meeting that another detour change will push that work back again. Boggs explained that work on Indiana 1 has forced a change to the planned detour, with the new one to utilize Indiana 67 and Indiana 28, routing traffic through Albany.

That change is expected to delay the start of the sewer work until mid July.

The storm sewer project, which will be handled by Watson Excavating of Redkey, calls for the installation of about 2,000 feet of new line from the north end of the city’s downtown area to the Salamonie River. It will drain Meridian Street catch basin systems that cover the area between Main and North streets and take them off of the Millers Branch line — it experienced issues with being overloaded and having water back up onto the streets over the last decade-plus — that runs about a half-block to the east.

The work will begin between the river and Water Street, with Meridian Street (U.S. 27) closed during that portion of the project. Two-way traffic will be maintained as the work moves block-by-block north of Water Street.

Portland is using all of its $1.355 million in federal coronavirus relief funds from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) for the $2.42 million project. It also received a $780,450 State Transportation and Stormwater Grant from the State Water Infrastructure Fund and $350,000 from the city’s redevelopment commission.

An INDOT project to pave U.S. 27 in Portland is scheduled for 2024.