The Zionsville Town Council voted 6-0 during its July 6 meeting to approve an appropriation of $38,500 from the Motor Vehicle Highway Fund and $160,000 from the Road Impact Fee Fund for the County Road 800 East and Oak Street roundabout project.
The sum from the Motor Vehicle Highway Fund will be used for land acquisitions. Public Works Director Lance Lantz said the council originally earmarked $1.2 million for land acquisitions across the project’s timeline.
Lantz requested a reduced appropriation of $600,000 at the beginning of this year based on 2021 spending but said he underestimated.
“Should you approve this appropriation, we will actually only spend $953,823.10 of that original $1.2 million that you appropriated and earmarked for this purpose,” Lantz said at the meeting. “So, while this is an ask for additional money, technically we are about a quarter million dollars under budget on this particular phase of the project.”
The appropriation from the Road Impact Fee Fund will be put toward a clearing contract to allow for utility relocation ahead of the construction phase. Typically, utility relocation happens at the same time as construction, Lantz said.
“Since we have a significant closure to accomplish this roundabout, we want to make sure anything we can do reasonably in advance to make sure there aren’t any hiccups during construction (is done),” Lantz said.
The roundabout, which will replace a traffic signal at the intersection of County Road 800 East and Oak Street, requires a full closure of both east-west and north-south traffic. The closure will be for approximately three months, according to the Town of Zionsville’s website.
“We are in the process of developing a maintenance of traffic and detour plan,” Lantz said. “It will likely be two tiered, one for trucks with larger transportation needs and one for the smaller passenger vehicles.”
