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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe Indianapolis Board of Public Works awarded a $2.6 million contract to locally-based Morphey Construction Inc. to rebuild a one-block stretch of Market Street west of Monument Circle, the city announced Wednesday.
The contract is part of $10.2 million reconstruction project to Market Street on both the east and west sides of Monument Circle, but it’s only the latest in the city’s wide-ranging list of major transportation and infrastructure projects.
“There is an incredible amount of construction work going on, and I appreciate that from time to time, commuters get annoyed,” said Mayor Joe Hogsett at a news conference Wednesday, before the contract was approved. “But, at the end of the day, we are very excited about the long-overdue and long-awaited overhaul.”
Construction workers will do a “complete reconstruction” of West Market Street from the Circle to Illinois Street, the Department of Public Works said. Work is expected to start by the end of May.
The project will resemble a more extensive one-block reconstruction project on East Market Street that runs from North Delaware Street to North Alabama Street, cutting off traffic since September.
That job will cost $7.6 million, according to DPW spokeswoman Hannah Scott-Carter. It’s a larger area, but also involves work on the entrance to the City-County Building, traffic signal replacement, and more landscaping and stormwater infrastructure, she said.
Unlike on the other side of the Circle, cars and people will still be able to get through the western spoke of Market Street during the new construction project, according to the department.
Bricks on the road had long been coming loose, said DPW Chair Dan Parker at the news conference.
“Part of that is because the concrete underneath is failing,” he said.
The original concrete is more than 75 years old, Parker added, and will now be replaced.
When the dust settles, expect diagonal parking, wider sidewalks, narrower traffic lanes, shorter crosswalks and a “plaza-like atmosphere,” he said.
Work on both projects is expected to wrap up by the end of the year, according to the department.
But they’re each only the first phase of an even bigger project, representing the “first leg of what we hope is a full reconstruction of Market Street and the Circle,” Parker said.
Eventually, the city hopes to re-do another few blocks of Market Street, and hit the northern and southern spokes of the Circle as well, according to Scott-Carter.
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Nothing says “government” like spending $7.6M to redo a road for 1 city block.
The work will be done by a private company, not city workers using city-owned equipment. Pretty sure the private company looked at the job and gave a market-based bid for it which of course included X-amount of profit. So your gripe seems irrational.
Bro I also hate it when the government fixes things! What am I paying taxes for?? I prefer it go straight into the pockets of billionaires. That’s why I vote Republican
The cost is actually 2.6 million for a block. The 10.2 million is the total amount of East and West Market Street reconstruction.
This is a, pre-COVID, very busy part of downtown with a lot going on. There’s brick on a good chunk of the street and all sorts of complications doing work in a downtown area that aren’t present in a rural or even sprawking suburban area.
When some of our suburbs spend 600,000 for roundabout art, I don’t see how 10 million to reconstruct a street that is brick in parts is some unreasonable cost.
If this was just a re-paving project, your gripe might have some merit. But if you looked at the work being done on Delaware Street, you might be a little understanding. They are blowing up the street all the way down to dirt. They are removing 75 years worth of unstable and crumbling paving material, along with installing significant drainage improvements. And again, this was a competitive bid, so I am sure they are getting what they asked for.
Nothing says I don’t understand how public works projects are out out to bid and I just reflexively spout nonsense I heard a few times on the Rush Limbaugh show like your comment.
The work is being done by private contractors and subject to a competitive public bidding process, and it involves replacing all the infrastructure going down several layers, some of which is a 100+ years old. It is not a simple repaving project.
But, please list your credentials in civil engineering and public infrastructure contracting and the specific analysts you have done on this project to support your comment….