Huntingburg Heritage Trail connects city like no other
The beauty in Huntingburg’s application for a Stellar Communities Grant is the connectivity it creates for a city considered split in half by a moving steel line at least 30 times a day.
The catalyst to creating a better connected city was revealed last summer by Mayor Denny Spinner, Lt. Governor Sue Ellspermann and Indiana Department of Transportation officials when they announced the Huntingburg Overpass project. Expected to be complete by 2018, the overpass will eliminate the divide the railway has caused for the 176-year-old city.
Addressing the connectivity of the city has been a concern for lifelong-resident Mayor Denny Spinner. And as the city completes an application to the state for consideration as a Stellar Community grantee, he sees the tentatively named Heritage Trail system as being the key part; but it wouldn’t be possible without that overpass.
“When you look at all of the projects included in the Stellar Community application, they are all based on the Comprehensive Plan and the Downtown Revitalization Plan,” Mayor Spinner said. “But the one that has really sprung up and been exciting is the Heritage Trail. It is the first time we can really make a physical connection between the north side and the downtown.”
As depicted above, the trail runs from the potential senior living development all the way downtown. Mayor Spinner also alluded to further connecting the trail to the schools, creating a truly citywide trail system.
In the package being submitted to the Stellar Community Grant board the city has identified a large swathe of the city that will be impacted by the trail. It is the string that ties several major projects together, some already slated for development and others for potential development.
Those in the works include the repair of the over 100-year-old water main on Fourth Street and the development of a 37,000 square foot street department maintenance and storage building that would also be used as an emergency shelter during inclement weather.
Potential developments that could be spurred by the trail include a community gateway, improvements to 9th and 14th Streets, a park behind the Old Town Hall, and an affordable family housing development on the city’s north side. The 14th Street improvement will be necessary as the overpass project moves forward but under the Stellar Community plan, the improvements would include a walking/biking/running path.
But what is important in all of this is how that string goes unbroken by the railway.
“When Ed (Curtin) spoke to us about the project and what Huntingburg wanted to accomplish, I was just sitting there struggling how to fit it all together,” Ron Taylor of the design firm Taylor Siefker Williams said. “You are talking about a lot of individual things that aren’t very sexy. But what really pulled it together was the trail. I can see how the pieces started falling into place around that trail.”
The plan not only connects the northern potential developments but also is aligned with the Huntingburg Housing Authority’s Friendship Village along North Van Buren.
“These are things you usually see happening in larger cities,” Taylor said.
Indiana’s Stellar Communities Program is a collaborative effort by the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT), the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority (IHCDA), and the Office of Community and Rural Affairs (OCRA) seeking to engage two communities to achieve a three-year revitalization strategy.
No specific amount of funding is guaranteed for the grantees, but cities have averaged about $10 million in funding for their submitted projects, Spinner said.
Ed Curtin’s firm, Latitudes, and Taylor Siefker Williams have been involved in the submission package since December. Curtin assisted Bedford in their winning application last year.
The first submission is due today and it consists of a 5-10 page explanation of the city’s plans. They will learn if Huntingburg has been shortlisted for the second round of the selection process within 30 days. At that time, according to Taylor, the city and two firms will begin to create more comprehensive plans and designs for the improvements.
The process is highly competitive; only six cities of the 60 applicants have been chosen since the inception of the program in 2010. Huntingburg is hopeful that since their plan ties elements of all three state departments together into a comprehensive community project it will be green-lighted.
“The bottom line is that even if we don’t get the designation as a Stellar Community grantee, we have a plan,” Mayor Spinner said.
