New Construction Brings Growing Pains

If you regularly travel US 20 or SR 2 on the county's west side, you’ve noticed a significant increase in traffic in recent months. Hundreds of construction workers are busy building out the AWS campus near New Carlisle, and soon, hundreds more will descend into the area to begin construction of the new Synergy Cells Plant (GM/Samsung).

The two projects are generational projects that will significantly impact our area and provide excellent employment opportunities for several thousand residents. As they are being built, expect some growing pains.

As the projects are being built, we anticipate several thousand construction workers in that area, especially during the next two years as the bulk of the construction advances. As with all construction projects, short-term inconveniences and growing pains will be followed by long-term benefits.

One of the chief challenges in the short term is the intersection of SR 2 and Larrison, which carries the bulk of the traffic from the highway to the commercial areas that have developed there over the past 50 years. It has long been difficult to turn left (east) from Larrison onto SR 2 because of the volume of SR 2 traffic and the speed at which motorists travel through that area. It’s now worse.

Most of the construction traffic is coming from the South Bend/Mishawaka area, so expect heavier volumes heading west in the early morning and east at the end of the day. Because of the difficulty getting on to SR 2, some traffic has shifted to US 20, meaning heavier volumes on US 20 between Smilax and US 31.

Help is on the way and, in the long term, will significantly improve traffic flow in this area. The State of Indiana, St. Joseph County, and AWS are teaming up to construct a diverging diamond interchange at State Road 2/Larrison. This first-of-its-kind project in Northern Indiana should begin in 2026 and be completed in late 2027. Watch for public meetings in the late summer and early winter of 2025 to further outline the project's scope and timing.

The new interchange will allow for free traffic flow on SR 2 and provide exits and on-ramps for easy access from Larrison. There will be no stoplights, J-turns (Michigan Lefts), or unprotected left turns across speeding traffic. Safety here is key and will benefit existing users in this area with a lot of traffic, such as Cleveland Cliffs and R+L Carriers, as well as the new users.  

As with all construction projects, those improvements will cause additional challenges in that area during the project's life. INDOT is currently looking at what else they can do to help keep motorists safe and traffic moving in that area. The St. Joseph County Sheriff’s Department is also lending a hand with additional patrols and traffic control in the area.

When intersection improvements are completed in 2027, watch for a return to normalcy. The safe, efficient traffic flow will replace some of the real bottlenecks we’ll see over the next two years. When AWS and Synergy Cells, and some additional suppliers that could be located in the area, complete their projects, fewer employees will work in this area than during construction.

The workers at each location will be staggered over two or three shifts over a seven-day period, meaning we’ll see more spread out and steady traffic than we currently see at the beginning and end of each day. You’ll see some heavier volumes at shift changes but at a much smaller number than you see today.

Ultimately, we expect the improvements to make the area much safer than it has been for the past decade. We’ll all have to be patient.