This week, Lawrenceburg’s City Manager Tom Steidel and Project Technician/City Council member at-large Mario Todd visited with Greensburg’s Mayor Frank Manus and contractor Darren Burkhart from HNTB to touch base on how the city of Lawrenceburg’s $10 million grant will be spent.

“The money will be used to handle costs of building and re-routing roads around the Honda site,” Burkhart told Steidel. “The water and remaining costs of road construction will be covered through the purchase of state bonds at a zero percent interest.”

The total costs for water and sewer are estimated at $35 million and road construction at $12 million.

“We are also taking out money from the existing TIF district to further aid in infrastructure costs,” Burkhart explained. “The deal is $1 million for the next 10 years.”

After going over maps and explanations of current layouts, Manus, Burkhart, Todd and Steidel talked about benefits of Honda choosing Southeast Indiana.

“The access to major transportation-ways is something I think Honda was definitely attracted to,” Steidel said pointing to one of the highway maps. “This spot couldn’t be any better.”

Agreement was shared by everyone.

“We were told that Honda wanted to chose a site next to a rail line,” Manus said. “It just so happens, there’s one that runs through the middle.”

However, Honda still has to re-locate the lines so they go around the site, not through.

“We’re told 80 percent of production will be transported by railroad,” Burkhart said.

After the meeting, the group drove around the site to get a real perspective as to how large the plant will be.

“It’s really breath-taking,” Economic Development Corporation director Vicki Kellerman said.

The Lawrenceburg representatives also agreed.

“It is a large chunk of land,” Todd said. “Maps don’t really do it justice.”

Once the driving tour ended, Steidel and Todd went to another meeting in Batesville. However, they did not leave with out receiving a major thank you.