Morningside Flood Infrastructure Project

Historical aerial photos show the neighborhood before and after Weber Pond and the inundation area between Lynn and Kipling were constructed.

Available for download in the Photo Gallery.

1967

1971

**UPDATE** This work has been rescheduled for the first week in June.

Sediment sample collection is planned for next week. You can expect to see two people in a small boat on Weber Pond collecting samples from the pond bottom. The information will be used to plan proper disposal of excavated material.

Field work is well underway. Crews have been out working on a tree inventory and ecological resources survey in the park, woods, and pond areas.

Over the next month, surveyors will be in the neighborhood walking onto boulevards and front and backyards to obtain ground elevations and elevations of low openings (doors and tops of window wells). People conducting this work will be clearly marked in vests with Sunde company logos.

Also this month, crews will be out drilling groundwater monitoring wells and collecting soil borings in the park, right-of-way, and easement areas.

City Council approved the staff recommendation with no changes. This means the concept design developed in this phase will move into a detailed engineering and landscape design phase.

Council members and staff acknowledged the participation from the neighborhood and could identify specific examples of how input added value. Thanks!

City Council will receive a staff report and make a decision.

Staff is recommending the following actions;

1. Approve the strategy, design goals, considerations and opportunities detailed in the staff report. The staff recommendation is consistent with the "Bigger" option.
2. Approve budget modification to include estimated design professional services costs in 2021 of $1.4M, construction professional services in 2022 of $0.6M, and capital expenses in 2022 of $9.5M, and in 2023 of $0.5M.
3. Approve request for purchase for engineering services for $1,204,000. This would take the concept design developed in this phase and move it through the detailed engineering and landscape design phase.
4. Approve the public participation plan for the park and open space landscape aesthetics choices.

Meeting packet materials will be posted online Friday. You can access them here.

You can watch the meeting live or at a later time on Edina TV or online.

We need a little more time to get the staff report pulled together. We intend to bring it to the April 20th City Council meeting.

At their April 6th meeting, City Council will consider the staff recommendation and make a decision. Staff is preparing a scope of service for infrastructure design and park landscape architecture consistent with the preliminary report.

The preliminary report to City Council has been finalized and submitted. Staff will present it to the City Council at their March 16th Work Session meeting.

We made some small changes to wording and phrasing for clarity, but otherwise there were no major changes from the DRAFT version we shared with you earlier.

You can review the finalized preliminary report in the Document section.

What is the decision to be made?

After discussion at the March 16 Council work session, Staff proposes to refine their recommendation and proposes to include the following actions for Council consideration:

1. Affirm design goals, considerations and opportunities.

2. Set maximum capital improvement budget.

3. Affirm strategy of risk transfer with pipe, and mitigation and additional flood reduction with storage.

4. Affirm use of park space in Weber Park, Weber Woods, and Lynn/Kipling inundation area.

5. April City Council action; approve infrastructure design and park landscape architecture scope of service.

Check out the draft preliminary report for more information.

When will a decision be made?

We plan to make a final staff recommendation for the Council to consider at either their April 6th or April 20th meeting.

As we tested ideas to manage flood risk in the neighborhood, we learned some lessons about scale and balance.

Infrastructure was sized to provide benefit to all, and harm no one, while balancing flood risk reduction benefits. This requires infrastructure planning on a neighborhood scale, additional flood storage (like expanded ponds), and careful sizing and planning of pipes, flow paths, and intervening flood storage.

Water was only moved downstream when coupled with additional space for it to go. Additional flood storage created by expanding Weber Pond and the open water area between Lynn Ave and Kipling Ave are foundational features of the concept design.