WARSAW — The Warsaw Redevelopment Commission helped get the ball rolling on plans for a new wastewater plant during the meeting held last night, Monday, March 6.

The Redevelopment Commission is providing 43 percent of the funding needed for the engineering plans of the proposed wastewater plant. The contract with Wessler Engineering is for $1,390,000. $600,000 of the total cost will be provided by the redevelopment commission after a motion was presented and approved.

“It is a sizeable contract, it is a big contract,” said City Planner Jeremy Skinner. “But one thing for sure is that the engineering needs to be done no matter what.”

He continued to explain that it was appropriate for the commission to contribute since the plant directly serves the Northern TIF, which includes the technology park and other redevelopment areas. In 2003, when the current wastewater plant was built, the commission agreed to pledge $600,000 annually to the costs. That pledge was made before much of the existing redevelopment was established.

“We need to keep the process rolling,” said Skinner. ” We don’t want to end up in the situation where we are telling people, ‘nope, you can’t build here.'”

The engineering will provide possible plans for the new wastewater plant. With those plans, the council will be able to decide which plan best fits the available budget and future of Warsaw.

A petition was heard to expand the Economic Development Area. The petition asks that the area be extended further down Detroit Street to include Redwood Firewood Grill & Bar. Eventually, the area could then be declared a riverfront district and Redwood would qualify for a new liquor license. According to Skinner, they are currently operating under someone else’s license that will be getting pulled soon.

The Redevelopment Commission discussed that they were in favor of this expansion and would possibly expand the area even further down Detroit Street. It’s an area that has been identified for future redevelopment in the past. The commission approved looking at the petition.

An ordinance now must be presented to the Plan Commission, Common Council and the Redevelopment Commission again before passed.

In other news:

• The commission approved a contract with Troyer Group to provide construction oversight for the CR300N project. the contract is to not exceed $10,000.
• The board approved to upgrade the Danek Pumps of the wastewater plant. These pumps have reached capacity and need to replaced regardless of the plant expansion. The project will cost $99,443.03.