Wellness center team hopes to have answers yet this week

There was no dapper Tom Cruise, perfectly tailored as a ship-shape JAG officer lawyer.

No smug Jack Nicholson as the Marine colonel on the hot seat on the witness stand.

Nobody cried out, “I want answers!” Or screamed back, “You can’t handle the truth!”

But Greencastle Redevelopment Commission members, led by Gary Lemon, engaged in a pointed exchange with members of the team designing and building the wellness center/YMCA off State Road 240 at Calbert Way. In no uncertain terms they left the impression that RDC members, most city officials and a good share of the public aren’t too happy with the progress of the $27.9 million project that signage on site touts as a “coming summer 2024” arrival.

“From my perspective, we’ve lost a year,” Lemon reasoned. “Winter is coming ... I’m a big ‘Games of Thrones’ fan (from which the “Winter is coming” tagline emerged).

“I thought we were going to have a ribbon cutting in March,” Lemon continued. “I’m glad we didn’t or I’d really have egg on my face.”

Fellow RDC member Brian Cox agreed, saying the project was becoming the “laughing stock” of the community.

Representatives of the construction team, including Eric Wise of Tonn and Blank Construction, wanted to share information on a suggested future course of action in regard to the wet soils issue that has put the project on hold most of the summer thus far.

“We also want to hear why it’s taking so long,” Lemon urged.

Despite Putnam County being in a severe drought designation through almost the end of June and essentially no rain in May, soils tests showed the subsoil was too wet for proper compaction for the building’s construction pad. Five test pits were dug and showed water levels higher than expected.

“When K & S did the permeability report, it was supposed to include whether more (test pits) were needed and how far apart,” Calvin Tims of Engineering Resources, Fort Wayne, said.

Unfortunately, he noted of the test pits, “you could put one here and another one there and have a dinosaur skeleton in between them.”

Original soil borings didn’t show the water table as high as it now appears, it was noted.

“When we built Calbert Way (the extension south of State Road 240), we didn’t run into this problem,” Mayor Bill Dory said.

“It hadn’t rained out there in months,” Cox noted, “and we’ve still got water filling up.”

The K & S Engineering report of July 18 failed to shed any light on the issue, yet K & S still turned in three claims for work it had done totaling nearly $30,000.

“We have invoices from March 7 to now with basically nothing to show for it,” longtime RDC member Gwen Morris said of the K & S issue.

Cox made the motion to table rather than reject for now the K & S claims, a move which received unanimous support from the remainder of the commission.

Meanwhile, Wise said the recommendation of Tonn and Blank and others is to “move forward without further delay,” digging trenches around the building perimeter and drilling subdrains at the 73-acre site purchased from the Ballard family east of the Walmart store and west of Ballard Lane along the south side of State Road 240.

“That’s the quickest way to find out if there’s some weird underground aquifer that we don’t know about,” Wise offered.

Wise also stated a recommendation for the City of Greencastle to terminate its contract with K & S and contract with Alt and Witzig for engineering, materials tests and inspections at $93,182.

“Thousands of dollars later and we’re still sitting here and still haven’t made any progress,” RDC member and City Councilor Stacie Langdon said. “Can we move the building 50 feet or something? We know there is some dry land out there, right?”

Wise and others discouraged any ideas of moving the building site, adding of the soils tests and more, “I’ve never seen anything like this in 25 years. It’s not typical.”

The site was further characterized as “good soils that are just saturated with water.”

“We have to have a good site to move forward, we know that,” RDC Chairman Erika Gilmore interjected.

Wise added that 8,000 feet of under drains have already been designed at a cost of $24,000, which he indicated is “the most cost-effective way to move forward.”

In doing so, Wise said the construction team should know by this Wednesday whether the new plan for drains and all will work.

He said the idea is to pump out the subdrains and see if they fill back up, while moving the water until the building pad is “locked in.”

“We’re going to get a bunch of information in the next week,” Wise said. “Then we’ll know, is another 800 lineal feet necessary? Did it fill back up? We could know soon.”

Lemon urged another meeting this week to update the RDC, which was set for 5:30 p.m. Thursday at City Hall.

“We need to have updates every week,” he stressed. “I don’t want to wait a month to find out. I want to stay on top of this. I don’t have any particular expertise, but if I’m out there and see people working, I’ll feel better.”

Alt and Witzig is already on site. Some seven or eight tri-axles loaded with stone are ready to be part of the drains. Weather permitting, that should be done this week.

“We’ve got to get to Wednesday and see what develops,” Wise said. “As we start to move that soil, it’s going to tell the story.”