WFHB Bloomington Community Radio
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By: Elyse Perry
On February 5th, construction started on the final phase of the Hidden River Tunnel Project with the sounds of breaking concrete and scraping metal behind the Von Lee building on Kirkwood Ave. The project, which has been dubbed the Clear Creek Tunnel Project, is the last step in replacing the nearly one-hundred year old tunnel that allows Campus River to flow under downtown Bloomington.
The construction will be in progress until mid-October, during which the Kirkwood Avenue block between Indiana Ave. and Dunn St. will be closed for parking. In the middle of the summer, Indiana Ave. will be closed between Kirkwood and 7th street to reconstruct the portion of the tunnel under it.
According to Adam Wason, the director of Bloomington public works, the project will update downtown infrastructure to prevent flooding on Kirkwood.
“This is all in an effort to increase that capacity throughout the downtown to get the stormwater away from the downtown and to keep Kirkwood from flooding,” Wason said.
In recent years, Bloomington has experienced major flooding on Kirkwood Avenue, notably in 2019 and 2021. In 2021, water between Dunn Street and Grant Street was thigh deep in some places, according to a previous WFHB report.
The city is working with Milestone Contractors. Milestone is the same company that completed the previous 1,829 foot phase of the Hidden River Tunnel Project between 2021 and 2023.
Milestone Superintendent Thomas Gott worked on the previous project, and is back for the current phase. He said that it is important that this project is done now to meet the needs of the growing town and changing climate.
“You hear a lot about climate change and more wet weather and it’s raining more these days than it has in the past. The infrastructure that Bloomington is constantly building, which adds more runoff and rainwater,” Gott said. “This box not only as it lived its life it needs to be upsized to keep continuing to grow with the infrastructure around Bloomington.”
Given the age of the current tunnel system, it has become outdated and inadequate for Bloomington’s modern needs. Since the bustle of downtown surrounds the construction area, Gott says that public safety is their main concern.
“This is a unique project. It’s not only just a tunnel, but the traveling public, existing businesses and buildings that this tunnel is adjacent to,” Gott said. “We do take safety and the top priority out here definitely.”
According to the city’s press release, street parking will be closed on Dunn Street and the north side of Kirkwood Avenue between Dunn and Indiana. The parking lot at the Von Lee building will be closed and used for construction equipment, deliveries, and trash services. Indiana Avenue will experience a closure during summer to allow for the final part of the construction, the press release says.
“There will be traffic and parking limitations on and off through the spring. Indiana Avenue will be closed for approximately 10 weeks but will reopen by early August 2024, before Indiana University students return to the Bloomington campus for the fall semester. Full project completion, including plantings, will occur in October.”
To account for the road closure, Bloomington Transit will be rerouting their buses from Indiana Avenue to Lincoln Street. In the summer buses 12 and 14 do not run, so there will only be changes to the 1N and 9 routes.
Due to the advanced notice, rerouting for the summer months will be mostly undisruptive. Planning and Special Projects Manager Shelley Strimaitis says that Bloomington Transit is used to adapting to quickly changing conditions.
“It’s a lot of things in transit are just responding in the moment to events,” Strimaitis said. “If we have advanced notice, we’ll try and plan that out and get it out to the public, but we fly by the seat of our pants every once in a while too.”
Strimaitis added that while transit is accustomed to adapting to changing road conditions, it is not the same for businesses.
“Us in transit, we are always looking. You know, we have Google notifications anytime there’s a story about any road closure, detours, anything like that. I mean, we’ll also get notified from people in the city because they know we’re impacted,” Strimaitis said. “But if you’re a business and you’re only impacted once every five or 10 years, you’re not looking for it even though the information is readily available.”
Some small businesses are worried about the impact of the construction over the summer months. Neither street parking nor outdoor dining will be available for business on the construction block of Kirkwood this summer. Parking meters have closure notices that last until August at the earliest, October at the latest.
The Ritz Hair Studio on Dunn Street has been negatively affected by both Kirkwood flooding and the Hidden River Tunnel Project. The owner Trevor Werner said that 2021 was a particularly bad time for flooding and the city didn’t provide assistance.
“Back in 2021, that’s when Kirkwood had flooded enormously and we had to take up everything…. We had no local assistance, you know, with the city helping us with that. We could reach out to FEMA, but that would be months for us to get any sort of assistance. So it was just us having to get through the savings, going into the savings and trying to fix what had happened…, because we weren’t in a flood zone to have the flooding insurance. So it was basically you fix it on your own dime and this city just didn’t help with that situation,” Werner said.
Werner says that when the city started the Hidden River Tunnel Project, the Ritz was affected by a lack of parking, and he is disappointed in the way that the city is handling it now.
“We have such a huge student clientele, but when those students go home for the summer, it does die down a lot,” Werner said. “But like I said, if there’s no parking and they have to park far away, that’s going to deter clients coming in here.”
Werner suggests that, to help the businesses, the city should try and work with IU to provide more downtown parking during construction. He mentioned that the IU lots would be a great alternative if they weren’t more expensive than street parking.
“I would personally like for the city and IU to get on the same page because, where they have placed the parking garage on 4th Street, that’s great, it’s beautiful but that’s not where the majority of the downtown people come to. They want to come down here to Kirkwood,” Werner said. “So if the city and Bloomington, the city of Bloomington and IU could get on the same page and find a solution, then that would be great.”
The construction is expected to last until the middle of October. Currently, neither the city nor IU have plans to create extra parking for the duration of the project. While this project is necessary for updating the city’s infrastructure, the impact on downtown summer activities remains to be seen.
