Greenfield is looking into expanding its city cemetery. Shown is the corner of Davis and State, where the expansion may happen.
GREENFIELD — Park Cemetery in Greenfield is running out of room.
Street commissioner Tyler Rankins said the 50-acre cemetery has accommodated more than 15,000 burials since it first opened in the early 1900s, but now has only between 300 to 400 spots left.
Considering the city does about 120-140 burials a year, that could mean the cemetery is on the verge of running out of space in as little as two years.
On Oct. 24, the city’s Board of Works approved a study to determine the feasibility of expanding the cemetery at 621 S. State St., which is owned by the city and maintained by its street department.
The board approved spending $53,700 on a professional services agreement with DLZ — an Indianapolis engineering consultant firm — which will cover concept development and 30% of the plans to add onto the cemetery.
Rankins said the study will cover traffic flow, drainage and utility improvements, relocating the cemetery’s main entrance from State Street to Blank Street and adding a bridge over Putter Ditch.
“Adding a bridge and things like that is the hard part. We can add the plots and things like that on our own after that work is done, which is why the contract is for doing 30% of the expansion plan,” he said.
The plan is to expand the current 50-acre cemetery to the south, using roughly 20 acres already owned by the city on the northeast corner of State Street and Davis Road.
The property, just across from Village Pantry, is currently leased out for farmland.
The DLZ plans will utilize part of that space for future improvements including an office building, maintenance building and columbarium, which is a structure for storing funeral urns.
Rankins said the cemetery’s entrance will be moved to where the current cemetery’s maintenance garage is now located, at 811 S. State St.
Allotting for a 45-day period for public surveys, he estimates that the design phase will be completed within six months. “Then we’ll have to look at how we fund it. It’s a city-owned cemetery — we don’t have profit — so I don’t know if we’ll have to bond it out or what we’ll have to do,” he said.
The timing of construction “would be up to whoever the next mayor is and the city council, but I would say within two or three years it needs to be well on its way,” said Rankins.
As part of the planning process, he said the city has been consulting with both of the large funeral businesses in town to gauge interment trends, and what options people are looking for when it comes to finding a final resting place for their loved ones or themselves.
“A lot more people are not looking for traditional burial, so they’re not looking to buy a full plot. They’re looking at a columbarium (for funeral urns), some kind of mausoleum or a scatter garden,” said Rankins.
“This plan is just the beginning stages of looking at what we can and can’t do and what we can afford in the future,” he said.
