ST. JOHN | Smoother roads and better drainage are in store for portions of St. John as officials there outline town projects that will be funded with stimulus money.
St. John was allotted $923,579 of the $18 million the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission had to distribute, Town Manager Steve Kil said.
The town plans to use the money on three road projects and two drainage projects.
Joliet Street east of U.S. 41, 109th Avenue west of U.S. 41 and the portion of Cline Avenue that runs through the town's corporate limits are identified for patching and resurfacing through stimulus funding, Kil said.
The town wants to substitute one of the projects with a repair project on 93rd Avenue. At first, officials didn't think 93rd would qualify under the guidelines of how the stimulus money can be spent. Later, they learned it would, Kil said.
Municipalities were limited to projects on primary roads, he said.
"We have a lot of roadway repairs we'd like to undertake in subdivisions and secondary routes, but those don't qualify," Kil said. "We were very limited with the projects we could submit."
The town also qualified for two drainage projects, one at Columbia and 93rd Avenue, and one at Joliet Street, from U.S. 41 east to the railroad tracks.
Kil, who said he is pleased with the amount of money St. John received, said the money can be moved among those projects, if needed, as long as the amount doesn't exceed the total allotment.
"There is some flexibility there, which is nice," he said.
On its end, St. John is working with Robinson Engineering on specifications for the projects, but the Indiana Department of Transportation will handle the letting, bidding and project monitoring, said Steve Benczik, senior project manager at Robinson Engineering.
St. John had a couple of other projects in mind, but the funding wasn't there.
"It seems like every community had to give up something, which is understandable," Kil said.
About 16 percent of communities' requests were cut once the final allotment figures came in, Benczik said.
