City To Maintain Commerce DriveCommerce Drive in the Woodland Plaza Shopping Center used to have more potholes than the moon has craters.
That’s changed, and to celebrate the new road, which will be accepted into the city of Warsaw’s street system, a ribbon-cutting ceremony was held Wednesday.
Hitesh Patel, representing the management company for Woodland Plaza, explained, “We’re here to commemorate the road getting near completion. The road for so long has been in disrepair. It’s finally gotten to that stage where it’s getting done and we’re happy to tell the public and celebrate its completion. It’s been an effort on all the retailers you see here.”
Businesses in the plaza include McDonald’s, Richards Restaurant, Lake City Bank, Staples, China Palace, Adele’s Attic, GNC, AT&T, U.S. Nails, H&R Block, Cardinal Services, Big R, Erie Insurance and Truex Insurance.
Patel said all the businesses contributed to get the road completed.
“So they’ve gotten it done and they’re getting it ready to the specifications to the city of Warsaw to be a city street now,” he said.
Mayor Joe Thallemer said the city never owned or maintained the road before.
“Typically, when a development is built the road is built to spec and then the developer petitions the city to take it over, and if it’s built to spec, the city takes it over. That’s just the way a development works,” Thallemer said.
He said he wasn’t around when all of that happened around 1990.
“I had heard the road wasn’t built to spec, but it’s been almost 30 years, so it could have been just normal wear and tear, but obviously it wasn’t being maintained by anybody. So whether it was not built to spec or whatever, it was in deplorable shape obviously and going through and completely rebuilding it was borne by the – to my understanding – the tennants out here. Provided that it’s built to the city’s specifications, it’s just an extension of what we already own,” Thallemer said, adding that the city would take it over.
Asked why it took so long, Patel said, “When you get this many different businesses together, all getting on the same page and trying to get things completed, that’s just a coordination event.”
He said all the new sources of road development for a city street were being used on the road. “Those are all being used by Phend & Brown, which is a contracting company, so they’re using all of (the technology) and they’re using it all to the city’s specifications to make it to the standards,” he said.
Weather permitting, Patel said the road was to be completed by the end of the day Wednesday. The contractor was delayed two days last week because of rain. The city will inspect the road before the final 1-1/2 to 2 inches of the final layer is put down.
Patel said he’d like for people to know Woodland Plaza is “open for business. We appreciate their patronage, coming to this area, and their continued support. It’s very important they know that and we’re very pleased that they continue to keep this retail corridor viable, and if they don’t, it’s all based on the consumer. ... We’re here for them.”
