Final contracts let for Hoosier Heartland Industrial Corridor

LOGANSPORT, Ind. (WLFI) - More than 100 people met Monday afternoon in Logansport to celebrate the opening of bidding for the final contracts of the Hoosier Heartland Industrial Corridor.  

Members of the Hoosier Heartland Industrial Corridor board of directors, the Logansport Chamber of Commerce and others were in attendance at Fire Stone Grill for the "Last Letting Luncheon."

The final segment to be bid on is the 4.7 mile stretch from State Road 29 to Clymers and is projected to cost around $25 million.

"It's kind of a historic thing that now everything is going to be under construction and we'll get the whole corridor open to traffic here in the next year and a half or so," said Jim Pinkerton, Communications Director for INDOT's LaPorte district.

Former state Senator Tom Weatherwax, now president of the Hoosier Heartland Industrial Corridor board, said he had been waiting for this moment for more than two decades.

"I think I relate to it like the Golden Spike in the transcontinental railroad at Promontory Point in Utah and that was May 10, 1869, and I have a gut feeling that they built that thing quicker than we're building our highway," said Weatherwax.

"When we complete this final segment, we are literally connecting to a transcontinental highway that goes from Maumee, Ohio to Lafayette, Indiana," Weatherwax said.

Major goals of the project include economic development and driver safety.