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3 Summer 2015 Downtown Project Update City, County Gearing Up for Phase I After receiving favorable bids on June 2nd, the City Council held a public improvement hearing on June 9th, 2015 for Phase 1 of the Old Village Street and Utility Improvements. The project is a $5.8 million street, sanitary sewer, drainage and storm water management improvement project along Laverne Av- enue, Upper 33rd Street and 36th Street within the Downtown Area. Planned for construction in 2015- 16, the project is being completed via a partner- ship between the City of Lake Elmo and Washington County. The project will be funded through the issu- ance of general obligation bonds with bond payments made from special assessments, the water enterprise fund, the storm water fund, County cost participa- tion, Municipal State Aid Funds, and general tax levy. At the conclusion of the public improvement hearing, the City Council voted to order the improvements and provide municipal concurrence of the bids to Washing- ton County. The final step needed to begin the work is the award of the contract by the Washington County Board of Commissioners on June 23, 2015. Should the County Board vote to proceed with the improvements, the contract would be awarded to North Pine Aggre- gate, the official low-bidder. In addition to approving the proposed project, the City Council also approved a Co- operative Agreement with Washington County that for- malizes a payment structure and outlines the cost split between the two parties for the various improvements. Now that the project has nearly reached complete approval, City and County staff are gearing up for construction. It is anticipated that utility work will be completed between July and September, with street improvements being substantially complete in Oc- tober of 2015. It is likely that the final wear course of the streets will need to be placed in the spring of 2016. Final completion of the project is scheduled for June of 2016. Over the course of construction, road closures and minor detours will occur through- out the summer/fall as a result of the construction activity. Access to properties in the area under con- struction may be periodically limited during the day. However, full access will be provided in the morning and evening. The City and County apologize for any incon- venience that will occur as a result of the construction. Resident Information / Communication Tips For additional updates on the construction of the project, both the County and City have a web- page dedicated to providing up-to-date information. The Washington County site can be found at the fol- lowing link: http://mn-washingtoncounty.civicplus.com/in- dex.aspx?NID=2127. The City of Lake Elmo site can be found at the fol- lowing links: http://www.lakeelmo.org/downtownproject. In addition to the online resources that will be made available, the following list of contacts is provided to provide ongoing assistance throughout the construc- tion project: Frank Tichnor, Washington Co. Project Manager - 651-430-4319 frank.tichnor@co.washington.mn.us Jack Griffin, Lake Elmo Engineer - 651-300-4264 jack.griffin@focusengineeringinc.com