The Le Sueur community is being invited to weigh in at a public hearing Aug. 13 on an estimated $8.6 million reconstruction project aiming to improve pavement conditions and install new utility infrastructure on N. Fourth Street and Cathcart Street.
The large-scale effort stretches along the N. Fourth Street corridor between Bridge Street and Dakota Street and branches off to cover Cathcart Street between the N. Fourth Street intersection and Commerce Street. Due to the poor conditions of the pavement and the aging utilities under the street’s surface, N. Fourth Street was made a top priority in the city’s capital improvement plan.
Speaking to the City Council at its June 10 meeting, City Engineer Cory Bienfang detailed that the project would reconstruct N. Fourth Street with 10-ton bituminous pavement and adjust the street to a consistent width of 36 feet from Bridge to Dakota.
“Right now today there’s a little variability,” said Bienfang. “We’ve got some variability 36 [feet] to 40 [feet] kind of up to Cathcart and then north of Cathcart is a little narrower. Today it’s 32 feet.”
Up to Cathcart, N. Fourth Street would feature 12-foot driving lanes, a 4-foot shoulder and an 8-foot parking lane. Public input will help determine if the parking lane lies on the east or west side of the road. Past Cathcart to Dakota, the street would have a pair of 6 foot shoulders and no on-street parking.
As far as pedestrian improvements go, the existing sidewalk on N. Fourth Street south of Morningside Drive is planned to remain intact, while a new 5-foot-wide concrete sidewalk would be constructed on either side of the road starting at Oak Street. The western sidewalk would extend to the intersection of Peck Street while on the east of the street, the sidewalk would run to Fifth Street.
From Morningside to 150 feet north of Market Street, the city has proposed building an eight foot concrete trail along the east side of the road, which would connect the trail coming from Kingsway and the Dakota Street trail. To accommodate the new pedestrian path, the centerline of N. Fourth Street would be shifted to the west.
Improving safety at intersections is another key focus of the project, which proposes modifying the N. Fourth Street intersections with Fifth Street and Boright Street to be more perpendicular.
Adjusting the s-shaped curve of N. Fourth Street near the Cathcart intersection however, was more of a challenge. Bienfang said the existing curve radii doesn’t meet design standards, but to put it into compliance, the street would have to be moved to the east, encroaching on the land of adjacent homeowners. Instead, the engineer recommended a curve adjustment which would improve the angle at which Cathcart meets N. Fourth Street, and narrows Cathcart to enable quicker pedestrian crossings while also accommodating trucks using the intersection.
The recommended configuration does improve the angle at which Cathcart tees into Fourth Street and reduces the paved area, allowing for shorter pedestrian crossings while still accommodating truck movements through the intersection.
In addition, the project incorporates the construction of a new entrance for an undeveloped plot of land owned by St. Anne’s, three parcels north of the school. The entrance would serve as a future connection should the school expand to the north and also establishes a loop in the St. Anne’s parking lot.
Plagued with cracks and potholes, Cathcart Street is proposed to receive a similar bituminous pavement reconstruction while the road would be narrowed from 34 feet to 30 feet with 11 foot driving lanes and an eight foot parking lane on the north side.
The street would be moved 4 feet to the north to accommodate the construction of a 5 foot wide sidewalk along the south side of the road between Fourth Street and Commerce Street.
“Cathcart is a tight corridor, it’s a tight right of way, it’s a tight feel. It kind of drops off on the south side so we are looking at doing a consistent roadway width but a slight shift to the north and getting that sidewalk in on the south side then,” said Bienfang.
Comprehensive improvements to utilities are planned for both streets including new sanitary sewer connections, water mains, storm sewer extensions and street lighting.
“We are rebuilding it all, sanitary sewer, water, rebuilding storm sewer,” said Bienfang.
To finance all these improvements, city staff have proposed issuing $7.3 million in bonds while most of the remainder would be financed through a $1.5 million Local Road Improvement Program grant awarded to the city last year. Dollars raised from the tax levy, utility enterprise funds and special assessments would be used to finance the city’s obligations.
According to city estimates, the city would add $540,000 in annual bond payments to its debt if the project were approved at the anticipated $8.6 million cost. Finance Director Ryan Graff predicted this would be manageable for the city as its debt payments are scheduled to drop by $275,000, and due to supplemental funding from the LRIP grant, the annual bond payment’s impact on the general levy would be half its total.
“The annual bond payment would be $275,000, so I feel pretty confident at this point we can manage the impact of this project from a general levy perspective,” said Graff.
An open house on the project will be scheduled before the public hearing in late July or early August. Should the city proceed with the project, staff predict construction would start in May 2025 and wrap up June, 2026.
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