News Source: Building Indiana Business

It has been a long road of hope for Posey County officials who, after a decade of planning, finally sunk shovels into the ground for a long-awaited solution to congestion, safety concerns and hampered economic development around the county seat.

Work began in late summer on the Posey County Western Bypass, a $7-million infrastructure project aiming to improve traffic flow in and around Mt. Vernon. For nearly 10 years, county officials had mulled the construction of a bypass as the city’s downtown district became overrun with increasing semi-truck traffic.

“When we first started talking about the bypass, it was when we were informed that a fertilizer plant was planned to be developed in Mt. Vernon. They were going to have a lot of trucks running daily. We already have hundreds of trucks coming through Mt. Vernon on a daily basis, and we know this plant would overload it too much,” said Bill Collins, Posey County Commissioner. “We knew then we had to move on this.”

The county then brought in American Structurepoint as the engineering firm for the design and Blankenberger Bros. for the construction work.

It was a project that Carl Schmitz, former Posey County Commissioner who passed away in 2021, was especially passionate about. Now the project, Collins said, is dedicated to the late commissioner as a tribute to the instrumental role he played in championing the project’s development.

A New Way Around
The bypass project is structured into two phases. The first phase begins construction at Givens Road and continues to a connection with Base Road before it crosses New Harmony Road. The route leads traffic around the downtown area. The second phase, Collins said, will tie into Highway 69 where it will eventually connect to the eastern Keck Bypass, keeping traffic well north of the city’s Main Street area.

The initial plans call for the completion of the first phase of the project by the end of 2025, Collins noted.

“By then, we will have all of our land purchased and ready to go, and we should be able to continue right on to the second phase,” he said. “That phase is expected to be completed by the end of 2026.”

New Opportunities

Situated along the Ohio River, Mt. Vernon is touted as an area that has been able to capitalize on economic development in manufacturing and agriculture while fostering a small-town America image.

The bypass will provide added benefit to the existing business that depend on the infrastructure for their commercial vehicles. Mt. Vernon is home to an oil refinery, CountryMark, and GAF, a roofing material manufacturing plant.

“The new thoroughfare will allow us to reliably transport the essential needs of our business in and out of our facilities while improving the quality of place of the surrounding community,” Ash Titzer, Vice President of Production and Midstream at CountryMark, said in a press release.

Collins said the new bypass will enable the county to continue to experience more economic growth without disturbing the less industrial rural communities in the county.

“There is a lot of industry in the western side of town, but there isn’t anything in the northeast side of town,” he said. “That’s because there aren’t any roads to allow that to happen there. Building a highway around the western bypass will give tremendous opportunities in economic development there. It will provide transportation to the main arteries and that will make a significant difference as it opens up possibilities.

In addition to industry, the development of the bypass into the northeast will provide ample opportunity for housing developments, noted Collins, who said it is a welcomed benefit of the project that will alleviate housing shortages and encourage new families to move into the area.

One Last Hurdle
Collins said the fertilizer plant will serve a dual purpose in Mt. Vernon -- more economic growth and funding for the second phase of the project. However, the company has yet to start a construction project.

“The plan initially was that when the fertilizer plant came in, we would use TIF funds from the plant to build the final phase of the bypass,” said Collins, who noted that officials are still unsure if the company will build in Mt. Vernon. “We currently don’t have the funding for the final engineering costs to get from Base Road to Highway 69.”

While officials are hopeful that the fertilizer plant will eventually develop in the area, Collins said they couldn’t wait any longer. He said they plan to seek grant money to try to secure the funding for the rest of the project.

“It was worth it to start the project. We will be able to maintain our roads so much better without all the truck traffic because it will be less expensive to do so,” he said. “We are paving the way, and this is going to be tremendous for Mt. Vernon.”