Summertime and driving around Hobart might not be easy with a planned road closure for a portion of one of the city’s main arteries.
Mayor Josh Huddlestun at the Hobart City Council meeting on Wednesday said plans are to start the Wisconsin Street road improvement project on Monday.
That means closing a portion of Wisconsin Street from Lake Shore Drive at the north, ending at 10th Street to the south.
The work is expected to be completed by sometime in the fall, he said.
Work will include reconstruction of the road, replacement of sidewalks and storm sewers and the addition of a trail crossing speed table.
The cost of the project is being paid for through a 50/50 Community Crossings Match Grant.
Total cost of the project is $1.892 million with the state paying half and the city the other half, said Hobart City Engineer Alex Metz.
Work on the Wisconsin Street Bridge has been pushed back, Huddlestun said, noting that he would have liked to have both projects in tandem.
The Wisconsin Street Bridge project is being completed through Lake County and will mean the closure of the bridge for 12 months once the work begins, Metz said.
No date has been set for the Wisconsin Street Bridge project which will include replacing the bridge and reconstructing new guardrails, handrails and lights.
Metz said the project has not been let out for bids and depending on the resolution of some utility issues, could begin later this year or early next spring.
Rezone for potenial data center draws concern
In other business, City Councilwoman Lisa Winstead, D-4th, asked about the status of a request to be brought before the Hobart Plan Commission on Thursday.
The request, for rezoning from R-3 to M-1, would allow for a possible data center to be built on 400 acres south of 61st Avenue, east of Colorado and north of 69th Avenue.
“I’m assuming the request is for a data center as in the other area. That’s a hot topic,” Huddlestun said.
Huddlestun said the public hearing will have to be delayed until Aug. 7 because the petitioner, Wylie Capital, had failed to file a notice in the local newspaper.
If the rezoning is approved for M-1 or light manufacturing, the petitioner could build a data center or anything allowable in that zone, Huddlestun said.
Some of those options include warehouses, printing and publishing, offices, and plumbing.
“It doesn’t allow for heavy manufacturing or junk yards,” Huddlestun said.
Zoning approval from the Plan Commission and City Council has already been given for a data center to be built on an 168-acre parcel on 61st Avenue, roughly half a mile from the roadway’s intersection with Colorado Street.
Huddlestun said that the proposed project still needs to go before city officials with site plans provided by the petitioner.
“We haven’t seen anything yet,” he said.
That data center, proposed by Hobart Devco, LLC, will consist of six buildings and an 11-acre detention pond.
Plans also include a raised landscape berm and fence to screen the complex from the nearby road.
Opponents of the city of Hobart’s proposed industrial development on hundreds of acres of farmland south of 61st Avenue have continued to oppose any rezoning to light manufacturing or M-1.
The Facebook group calls itself No Rezone.
Deborah Laverty is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
