Some segments of Business Highway 2 and DeMers Avenue in East Grand Forks are getting in line for a face lift next year.
East Grand Forks City Council members voted unanimously to tell engineers at Widseth Smith Nolting to prepare plans and specifications to fix up DeMers near the Sorlie Bridge and the business highway – which is also labeled Fourth Street Northwest –immediately south of its intersection with DeMers, as well as a block’s worth of sidewalk there.
That work will cost nearly $291,000, according to an estimate presented to City Council members by Steve Emery, an engineer at Widseth Smith Nolting, but the vast majority of that price tag will be picked up by the state.
MnDOT’s “Local Partnership Program” aims to help cities repair major roadways – “trunk highways” – in ways that wouldn’t necessarily jibe with state priorities to preserve pavement, improve safety and so on. That means the state is set to put $237,000 toward the project’s construction, execution and inspection, and the city is set to put up $53,000 for the plans and specifications, potential cost overruns and administrative costs – an approximately 80/20 split. The city’s share is set to come from its construction fund and a “state aid maintenance” fund, which is a repository for MnDOT funding the city receives each year to fix certain roads.
The plan, Emery told council members at a meeting earlier this month, is to bid out that work in December or January of this year and begin it in 2021.
