North of 96th expansion?

[mrcs007]

I saw the news a few months back about the original project at NW quadrant of 96th and allisonville being nixed, and the land to be used for parks, and then I saw that a new project with additional land being set aside for the park was moving forward.

Anyone here providing input?  Will TRTP extend with some magical underpass and/or use of 96th street bridge to get to that location?

Would be awesome to have the interconnected White River setup with the Fishers and Carmel parks that roll up to the river being prime for trails up and down as has been discussed in these channels previously.

[indyshred]

Isnt that where the old, good 96th street trails were a long time ago? Funny how they never did anything with that land.

[mrcs007]

Yup!  This could be such a great corridor.

Agreed.  So glad that Fishers was able to snag that property for CHEAP.

https://www.indystar.com/story/news/local/hamilton-county/2021/08/05/fishers-indiana-buys-white-river-land-96th-street-park/5470858001/


Posted due to paywall potential.  If you do not like my disregard for correcting the formatting from copy and pasting.  That is cool.

Fishers has acquired 98 acres along the White River at 96th Street it plans to make a park, thanks to a long-forgotten agreement with a developer now mired in debt.
The land is west of Allisonville Road and will allow the city to link the new park to Heritage Park, at 106th Street and the river.
“It is heavily wooded right now and it will take some time to develop it but this is a real win for us,” Mayor Scott Fadness said.
The city bought the land for $3,100 in taxes owed from the estate of Craig Johnson, who was co-owner of Indianapolis-based Centre Properties.
From the archives: 5 ways Fishers is revitalizing 96th Street
Beginning in the 1997, Centre Properties had plans to develop the 96th Street and Allisonville property for residences and shopping. In 2007, the then-Town Council of Fishers approved an 83 acre, $500 million mixed use project called RiverPlace, which was a 1.3 million-square-foot complex of homes, apartments, stores, restaurants and shops, and two 25-story high-rises.
Environmentalists fiercely opposed the project because they said it would degrade the White River, cause flooding and pollute it. They showed up in force at several meetings about the project, held demonstrations and filed legal objections.
As part of the economic development agreement, Fishers required Centre Properties to turn over 98 acres of the most environmentally sensitive land in the floodplain when the project was finished.
RiverPlace stalls, city goes to courtBut the Great Recession in 2008 stalled RiverPlace and it never got built. Last year Johnson died by suicide and debtors began filing claims on his estate.
A bank that was owed millions in loans took ownership of the RiverPlace property in 2017 and sold it to CRG, of Indianapolis, last year. Fishers went to probate court in Marion County and argued the city was still entitled to the land along the river, as the original agreement laid out.
Fadness said the city is in talks with CRG about what might now be developed on the remaining land but “it’s just different concepts we are talking about.”
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Tim Maloney, senior policy director at the Hoosier Environmental Council, said the organization fought against the RiverPlace project for 10 years.
At the time the project fizzled the environmental council was taking legal action to stop the Department of Natural Resources from issuing RiverPlace a permit. After denying them for several years, DNR had switched course and allowed the developer to proceed if it filled in 15 acres of the floodplain. The environmentalist argued that would cause flooding.
Maloney said he was encouraged that Fishers is preserving the floodplain.
"There is a growing recognition of the river as an open space worth preserving and an argument could be made for preserving all that land,” Maloney.
He said he is still concerned about what might be developed there.
“Any development could have harmful impacts,” he said. Parks in planningThe riverfront property Fishers bought will link to the 33-acre Heritage Park, at Eller Road and 106th, home to the Historic Ambassador House and Heritage Gardens.
The city had recently identified the 96th Street area as one it wanted to convert to parks over the next two decades, when it plans to add 179 new acres to its inventory of 26 parks on 707 acres.
The acquisition also fits into an area-wide plan to preserve the White River. The White River Vision Plan seeks to clean the river and preserve natural habitats, add recreation such as canoes and kayak launches, and connect parks and neighborhoods with trails and greenways, locally and across the region.
Elsewhere in Hamilton County, Fishers and Carmel are planning to link the White River Greenway with a pedestrian bridge over the river at Conner Prairie. Carmel also will extend the greenway to connect four parks along the river between 116th Street and 146th Street.