From the Desk of City Manager, Mike Burns: Construction Update
7/2/2024
Mike Burns, Lowell City Manager
If you go past Washington Street, you can see that construction is well underway. This is not the only project we will see this summer and fall. We are currently bidding for the following streets to be paved: Lafayette, Sherman, Grant, Pin, Marsac, North (Lafayette to Jefferson), King (Washington to Jefferson), High Street (Monroe to Jefferson) and Ottawa (Hudson to Brook)
We had planned for Brook Street to be paved this year as well. However, during the engineering phase this spring, we found an issue with the bridge over the stream. Water had entered the rebar, necessitating the replacement of the bridge rather than just resurfacing. I will explain the plan for this shortly.
Earlier this spring, we submitted a grant application to repave Riverside Drive and add a new water line on Riverside between Hunt and Foreman for the spring of 2025. We requested $300,000, with $160,000 intended for the water line and the remainder for the street. The total project cost was over $700,000. We budgeted the remainder of the street costs when we initially prepared the local street budget for the upcoming fiscal year. The water line could only be added if we received the full amount ($160,000) for it. Otherwise, we would have to raise water rates more than anticipated to cover this cost, as it was not a necessary replacement but an enhanced service. We didn’t receive the grant, and as a result, I had to remove Riverside from this year’s budget. We cannot make the water improvement on Riverside without increasing rates more than we already have. We have to reconfigure our street funds, and I intend to include this project in the budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year, with construction planned for spring 2026. I will submit a grant application to address paving the cross streets between Hudson and Riverside next year. If we receive the grant, great. If not, we have reallocated enough road funds to proceed with Riverside regardless.
As part of this, I am now looking at paving Kent Street in 2026. I sought grants for this street, but the programs I explored will not fund this work. This will also allow us to pave Front Street, and doing both simultaneously provides some consolidation of costs. When we planned to pave the other cross streets north of Main this year, we forgot to include Front Street, so we aim to complete it in 2026.
In 2025, we plan to pave Jackson Street, North Street, Division from Main to Avery, and Avery from Division to Grove. We also need to replace a sewer line and water line on Jefferson between Main and Kent, along with repaving over them. Additionally, the city received $385,000 from the State of Michigan Small Urban Program to pave Foreman from Gee Drive to Beech Street, covering 80% of the total project cost.
Next spring, I intend to submit a grant application for Brook Street for 2026. There is also a bridge on Chatham west of Smith Street in bad repair, but it is currently not on our local street map and thus not eligible for Act 51 (road funds via gas tax). We would add Chatham to our Act 51 eligibility and pair these two projects together in the grant request. Since these are unique situations for our local street funds, there is a grant program from the Michigan Department of Transportation that prefers funding these local street projects with more peculiar situations. If the grant structure remains unchanged, we can apply for two different projects. I would submit a second request for James Street, which has a unique storm drainage system that needs upgrading when the street is redone. Currently, the project is planned for 2027, but if we can get this mostly funded, we can move it to 2026 and potentially move another project up a year. Regardless, I have both Brook Street and James Street funded in 2026 and 2027, respectively, if we do not receive the grants. If we don’t receive the grant, I will need to explore different options to address the issue with the bridge on Chatham Street.
Please understand that many moving parts are involved in these projects. One of our new initiatives is to replace lead water lines where needed as we pave these streets. We have 20 years to replace the lines, and it makes the most sense to do so when we repave the streets. However, this will require revenue from our water funds, and we are now budgeting funds annually for this purpose. There might be instances where we have to return later to replace the lines due to budget constraints, but we will do our best. As we get a better inventory of these lines, we can submit grants to the state to help with the removal. While I can’t promise we will receive the grants, we will try.
Additionally, staff is beginning to prepare street projects out to the year 2031 using a very conservative funding model. There is a possibility we might complete more streets than planned, but there is always the risk we might have to do fewer. The problem is there are many streets we will not have touched by 2031 based on the funding model. In the last four years, we have completed several streets more than we originally planned. However, the future remains uncertain.
The City Council and staff are committed to completing as many streets as possible with the finances we have, in the most expeditious way we can. We are stretching every dollar to make this work and will continue to find solutions to address these matters.
If you have questions, please feel free to contact my office at 616-897-8457.
