Council addresses $42M State Road 37 cost overrun

Reporter Publisher 

Five years into the State Road 37 project, the City of Fishers and Hamilton County government are $42 million over budget, and construction has not been completed on any of the five intersections scheduled for renovation.

According to Hamilton County Highway Department Director Brad Davis during a Wednesday presentation provided by representatives from the City of Fishers, the original $24 million, split equally between Fishers and Hamilton County, has been exhausted. Davis further explained INDOT contributed $100 million toward the project, of which approximately 75 percent has been committed.

Following the presentation, during the regularly-scheduled council meeting on Wednesday, District 2 council member Amy Massillamany expressed her frustration with the City of Fishers. “Of the 37 meetings open to the public, that was the first time outside of the decision made four years ago that they [Fishers] were here giving a breakdown of what the overruns looked like.”

At the meeting, Council members explained the county is only responsible for $21 million of the overrun due to cost sharing with Fishers.

District 4 representative Ken Alexander explained the cost overrun, saying, “Those estimates were based on construction cost coming out of a downturn in the economy. You probably had lower construction cost. As the economy improved you are now buying things that had higher escalation costs than anticipated. The issue is how do we stop it from going forward. What are we doing to look for scope reduction? We don’t have all that information today.”

According to Council member Fred Glynn, the $21 million will likely increase as the project moves forward.

“It is a bigger cost overrun than any of us have ever seen. It is an ongoing project and it ain’t done,” said At-Large member Brad Beaver.

Beaver continued, saying, “The City of Fishers is the lead agency on a combined effort. We are not extremely happy about it either. It is a big project and big projects sometimes go over. I’m not happy with it, but we are going to hold up our end of the log.”

Glynn wants to see a stopgap put in place on the project.

“His [Beaver’s] vote is to hold up the end of it. Just for the record, that’s his vote, one vote,” Glynn said. “I am not supporting it in its current form. We need some type of stopgap because there is no guarantee that even that number is not going to get hit. For me to go forward supporting this, I need to see a reduction on the county end. We could commit to this, and in another year, they could want another $10 million dollars.”

Council President Rick McKinney also expressed his concern with Fishers. “I’m highly disappointed with the lack of progress and lack of communication between the council and Fishers project coordinators.”

McKinney asked Davis about 126^th Street, the first intersection scheduled for completion. Davis indicated motorists should expect to see that intersection open in early November.

The county will continue discussion on the overall project in upcoming meetings.