Republic file photo Aerial photo of former Walesboro airport property taken in 2012, when discussions about developing it for a commerce park grew serious. Woodside Industrial Park, which has its first tenant open in 1981, can be seen in the foreground.
Republic file photo Aerial photo of former Walesboro airport property taken in 2012, when discussions about developing it for a commerce park grew serious. Woodside Industrial Park, which has its first tenant open in 1981, can be seen in the foreground.
Columbus Redevelopment Commission members heard an update from a contractor enlisted to potentially put together a new masterplan for the Walesboro airport site.

The original site of the Columbus Airport has been used for farming and private-sector leasing since the 1970s, and is one of the few spots in the greater Columbus area where there is potential for shovel-ready industrial land that could drive further economic growth if and when developed.

But environmental constraints on the site have prevented that, specifically because a 2012 FEMA remapping of the area places the 454-acre site entirely in the floodplain.

FEMA has indicated they would be open to accepting a new map for the site, Director of Redevelopment Heather Pope said, which could pave the way for improvements on site that would make it shovel-ready.

Pope said that doesn’t mean that FEMA necessarily will accept the new modeling, but added that it was a “big deal” regardless.

In March, the commission hired Barge Design Solutions to do an initial portion of a project scope to masterplan the site south of Columbus for an amount not to exceed $221,800.

The scope of services included four tasks: data collection, stakeholder engagement and site analysis; economic and market analysis; development concepts and preliminary master plan; and final master plan study and implementation strategy. The cost of all four, including task one, is estimated at $464,300. In addition, there are also seven other optional tasks listed.

Work beyond the initial project scope Barge is working on would need later funding from the commission to continue.

If the commission decides to move forward and provides additional funding, Barge would start the conceptual master planning process in February.

Representatives from Barge came before the commission Monday to update the group on work they’ve done taking a look at existing site conditions, finding that 409 of the 454 acres they modeled out could be suitable for development, although there will be further costs associated with that down the road.

Barge is working in tandem with a development planning team made up of 12 members, including Mayor Mary Ferdon, Airport Director Brian Payne, redevelopment advisors and others as part of the process.

As part of phase one, Barge gathered base data, created an existing site conditions map, and modeled out what could be developable. Barge also proposed two strategies as to how to realize those 409 acres.

“We’ve been studying the site for the past couple of months, and trying to get our heads around some of the prior studies that have been done,” Cherie Akers of Barge Design told commissioners. “And also existing conditions and analyzing those. And then also undertaking some new stormwater modeling.”

The environmental constraints are the most crucial aspect, namely a couple of wetlands on the southwest corner of the site and a stream that is likely jurisdictional, Barge representatives said, meaning it’s legally regulated under water-protection laws and may involve cost mitigation.

Notably, in the 13 years since FEMA last remapped the site, the agency has begun accepting a type of 2D modeling Barge moved forward with that represents more precise real world conditions on the site.

The 2D modeling breaks the site down into individual cells, applying a rainfall amount to each one. The model is able to track flow accumulation from one cell to the other.

Through the modeling, Barge found that the watershed on site is unable to generate enough water during a 100-year flood event to inundate the entire area. A 100-year flood event means a flood event that has a 1% chance of happening in a given year.

Before the 2012 remapping, the site had just a small ribbon of floodplain, Pope said.

Wesley Dawn, civil engineer on the project, said that he and Barge met with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources to talk about potential development scenarios “in ways that we could take that remapped floodplain, confine it, change its shape, and still convey it across the site, but in a way that was better suited towards the development of the property.”

Barge Design came up with two different scenarios to do that: one involving the alignment of a north channel and another involving the alignment of a south channel.

The north channel alignment would cost $1.5 million and result in a slightly larger total developable area but have smaller contiguous tracts.

The south channel alignment is over twice the cost at $3.9 million, and would allow for larger, uninterrupted tracts of land but comes with a high excavation cost.

Airport Director Brian Payne said the 12-member planning team prefers the north channel alignment option because it would allow for faster development.
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