Avoid, minimize and mitigate: The destruction of Westfield’s historic downtown

Submitted by Westfield Preservation Alliance

This is a call to action for any resident of Hamilton County or Indiana or visitors from other parts of the United States who have an interest in historic preservation, downtown Westfield, the Underground Railroad, historic architecture, road diets, planning and zoning, or building strong, walkable cities that are pedestrian and cyclist friendly. We need you to join us and ask that you reach out to the Westfield Preservation Alliance by email for more details at westfieldpreservationalliance@gmail.com.

More than a decade ago, in October of 2010, American Structurepoint completed a study which identified and evaluated “transportation improvement alternatives” on State Road 32. It should come as no surprise to anyone then that their recommendation today is exactly the same as it read 10 years ago. Including roundabouts at Shamrock Drive/Poplar Street and East Street, they “recommended a four lane divided roadway … based on evaluation of traffic operations, safety, community impact, right-of-way acquisition and construction costs.”

Evidently, the best way to make something sound new in Westfield is to repeat the same story year after year and call it “news.”

• In March of 2017, Chris Sikich at IndyStar wrote that Mayor Cook updated some residents and business owners about the city’s plans for the highway, “which were developed by a group of stakeholders in 2011” in an article titled, “Westfield eyes Ind. 32 expansion downtown.”
• On Oct. 9, 2018, WRTV 6 reported “Westfield City Council votes to move forward with $15M SR 32project.”
• In January 2019, IBJ’s Samm Quinn penned an article about the expansion, and in August, WISH-TV ran “Multimillion-dollar project on State Road 32 in Westfield, Indiana” claiming the City and INDOT were revealing these plans for “the first time.”
• In December 2020 the Westfield Current reported Westfield finally figured out a solution.

What’s missing is any information regarding the Section 106 Review Process (a requirement to consider adverse effects on historic properties) which began almost two years ago since Westfield was seeking Federal funding for this project. A recent article shared about Noblesville in the Hamilton County Reporter stated Mayor Chris Jensen said:

“It is our understanding following extensive consultations with State and Federal government representatives [the plan] which cut through the middle of the Plum Prairie Historic District, would disqualify Noblesville from not just state and federal funding for all three phases of this project, but could also disqualify Noblesville from state and federal funding for all future projects, a risk we do not believe is appropriate or in the best interests of our residents.”

Since SR 32 runs right through the heart of Westfield’s Historic District and detailed plans call for the destruction of several historic properties, shouldn’t the same theory apply? Perhaps it does since Westfield, in agreement with INDOT, recently pulled away from seeking federal funding. However, the process now goes before the State Historic Preservation Review Board for them to have an opportunity to protect historic downtown Westfield as INDOT and American Structurepoint are still encouraging the State to give the City of Westfield funds that are proposed to be used to tear down the historic buildings targeted by the widening project.

In IBJ’s article by Kurt Christian, Westfield, INDOT identify preferred route for State Road 32 reconstruction, Westfield City Engineer John Nail said, “We’re just trying to bring the current road up to a level of service that helps our citizens. Of course, it’s a balancing act. You want to have good mobility with the traffic, but at the same time, we have to be respectful of our past.”

Having already torn down approximately 40 buildings/homes in the immediate area, including five that were designated by the city for preservation in the Grand Junction Implementation Plan Addendum, oddly, an alternative never considered what is popularly called and presented by the Federal Highway Administration as a “Road Diet” or a four-to-three lane conversion. Click here to watch a video.

A simple Road Diet would avoid the outright destruction of Westfield’s downtown, but INDOT, Westfield, and American Structurepoint argue this whole issue is about Level of Service (LOS).

“The irony of the LOS system is that it hasn’t solved congestion at all. In fact, it’s just the opposite: LOS keeps making traffic worse. The fundamental reason is that state and local government often only view new or wider roads as the right intervention to improve LOS,” according to the Brookings Institute. If total avoidance can’t be achieved by a road diet, it would, at the very least, be an acceptable pursuit in consideration of minimizing the damage to our historic downtown. Road diets have been proven effective on roads with traffic up to 23,000 to 28,000 ADT with fewer accidents and fatalities as vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists share the road.

The current plans for mitigation add insult to injury. Right now, we have the ability to see, visit, and touch a building built in the Civil War era, other commercial buildings, an historic bridge, and homesites of historic interest stand in our downtown that were deemed significant based on their architectural style or the time-period in which they were built. In fact, they were significant enough to earn a place in the National Register of Historic Places. Harkening to last summer’s removal of monuments across the country, these plans call for them to be razed (or removed) with no clear plan for preservation whatsoever.

What’s the offer to mitigate the damage you ask? An app and/or a mural in place of buildings. But without the south side of our Historic District it could mean the loss of the Westfield Historic District’s prestigious listing on the National Register of Historic Properties received Jan. 31, 2019, after significant cost and over five years of work and wait. (Part of that process was the acknowledgment by the State of Indiana for the listing on the state registry October 17, 2018.)