The Ohio River Greenway could take significant steps forward in 2006, 13 years after the commission that oversees the project was formed.
Rick Dickman, the Greenway’s coordinator, believes it might be seven to nine years — depending on funding — before the $57 million project, which will run seven miles and link New Albany, Clarksville and Jeffersonville at the Ohio River, is completed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. But he sees this as an important year in the process.
The Indiana Department of Transportation has made $1 million available to Jeffersonville, to match federal funds for work there. Once the Corps of Engineers receives the state money, it could move forward with construction contracts, Dickman said.
While 95 percent of the proposed Greenway route is already publicly owned, Dickman said, this could be the year that Clarksville takes the first steps to acquire at least some of the privately-held property that is on the route.
The Napier Unrecorded Subdivision will have to be appraised, and offers made to property owners there, Dickman said. The subdivision, which is largely used as a summer camp by several families, is a short distance west of where a portion of Emery Crossing Road collapsed in 2004. The camp’s bank is already showing signs of erosion, he said, and must be bolstered before more of it slips into the river.
In New Albany, city officials are lining up meetings with project engineers Sasaki Associates, of Watertown, Mass., to further progress there. There is also a move under way to utilize the K & I Bridge as a pedestrian and bike path connecting to Louisville’s west end, just as the Big Four Bridge is planned as a similar path connecting Jeffersonville with Louisville’s downtown.
“It is really a grand idea,” Dickman said of the K & I Bridge’s use to complete a loop between Southern Indiana and Louisville. “It was not contemplated in the original design for the Greenway.”
Another key element in New Albany’s portion of the Greenway is the use of the Loop Island Wetlands, which is owned by environmental engineer and Washington County resident Al Goodman. The 47-acres has been established as a private nature preserve that is open to the public.
“The Greenway needs to happen,” Goodman said Friday. “If it was open tomorrow, it wouldn’t be soon enough for me.”
Goodman said an important aspect of the project will be shoring up the river’s bank, just south of the McAlpine Dam, as was done following the Emery Crossing Road collapse in Clarksville, where the Corps of Engineers spent $1.4 million on the bank.
He said it is not uncommon for his property’s bank to recede 50 feet in a year due to the pounding it takes from water released from the dam.
“We’re going to have to armor a lot of the bank,” Dickman agreed.
Once the Greenway is completed, it will be turned over to the participating municipalities as a park.
Dickman said any commercial development within the project will likely be limited to small vendors, such as bike rentals or refreshment stands.
Attractions such as the New Albany Riverfront Amphitheater, Jeffersonville’s Terraced Lawn and RiverStage, Clarksville planned archaeological park and the site’s natural beauty, will be the real draws, he said.
“There’s a lot of potential for getting a lot more people down here,” Dickman said.
Dickman, who also serves as Clarksville’s redevelopment director, believes his stint as Greenway coordinator will end before the project is complete.
“The Greenway is certainly bigger than one person,” he said. “Even the commission has changed dramatically” since its founding in 1993.
Pat Leist and Elmer Hoehn are the only commissioners to serve during the entire life of the panel, and architect Wayne Estopinal, one of the original commissioners, left the board for awhile before returning.
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