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67 F(i) Community & Economic Development 1200 County -City Building, 227 West Jefferson, South Bend, Indiana 46601 -1830 Phone 574/235 -9371 Fax 574/235 -9021 To: Redevelopment Commission From: Bill Schalliol, Economic Development Planner Subject: South Bend Avenue /NE Neighborhood Corridor Enhancement Project Date: September 7, 2011 Over the next several months, the City of South Bend will begin working with the NNRO, South Bend Heritage, and other groups to finalize a corridor master plan for the Eddy Street corridor from Colfax Avenue to the current Five Points intersection. The planning and preliminary design work has been done by an outside consulting group working with the neighborhood stakeholders and all work has been done in coordination with the State of Indiana's design and planning for a soon to be reconstructed section of State Road 23 /South Bend Avenue from Edison /Angela south of the current Five Points intersection. The Commission's role in the future South Bend Ave /Eddy Street project will be to use NNDA TIF Funds to help implement the infrastructure development plan including right -of -way acquisition, hiring an engineering firm to develop construction plans and to fund the construction work. One strategic use of these funds will be to provide targeted blight removal or provide incentive grants for property upgrades along the corridor to help further reinforce and upgrade the aesthetic features of the corridor. One early example of this is the request before the Commission today. As part of the State's design work on South Bend Avenue, the plans have created a modified alignment of the current roadway to allow for a better connection of the network at the current Five Points intersection. To accomplish this plan, the State has been purchasing property along the corridor to push right -of -way one direction or the other (north or south) from the current alignment to meet all engineering standards. As a result of this new plan, one of the off - premise sign structures owned by Burkhart Advertising will be orphaned in a location with minimum view exposure from the new roadway but will be located at a point where bike trail connections and new development parcels could be assembled but for the presence of the sign. The City has approached Burkhart about their potential interest in removal of this impacted structure and consideration for replacement of new signage along the corridor where appropriate and where the signs would meet development requirements. By removing this sign, it would allow Burkhart to be able to recalculate spacing distances along the corridor without having this structure in place. The proposed cost of sign removal and site clearance is $31,000 and this would be a very opportunistic use of funds to remove a billboard structure, allow for a better reprogramming and reuse of site area for the new development and to improve the aesthetics of the corridor. Staff would request your favorable consideration of this request to allow funding to remove this billboard structure on South Bend Avenue east of Eddy Street. What We Do Today Makes A Difference!