Vernon Avenue & Highway 100 Interchange Project

The bid documents will be posted later this week or early next week soliciting a contractor. The bid opening is scheduled for March 6. The contract award is scheduled for April 16 City Council Meeting. Construction can start as soon as April 21. The selected contractor will provide a detailed construction schedule with major milestones. This schedule will allow us to communicate construction specifics with the public. There is still a possibility the project is completed this year. Thanks, Chad Millner, City Engineer.

The project has received the signed easement agreement from CPKC Railroad. The project can now move forward. The team is developing bidding and construction schedules. Federal money is a large portion of the project funding and it comes with rules on the timing of the project. Private utility companies are starting relocations now. Tree clearing work is also required to be done before the end of March. Thanks for your patience with the unknown schedule. More details will be coming soon.

The recent article has generated lots of questions related to traffic during the project. Staff created a staging narrative memo during the design process. That memo has been uploaded to the document section of this site. Please note this staging narrative is draft and without a contractor yet. Thanks, Chad Millner, City Engineer.

The City is ready to move this project forward. Bidding documents are ready to solicit bids from contractors. Due to the type of funding involved, the City can’t solicit bids until we have an agreement signed by CPKC Railroad. This agreement has been in the works for months and should be done. Private utility companies are starting relocations soon. These will require a few trees to be removed at Vernon Avenue and Gus Young Lane. Thanks for your patience with the unknown schedule.

The plans and specifications are complete and ready to solicit bids from contractors. The federal funding associated with this project requires the CPKC Rail agreement to be signed before advertising for bids. CPKC Rail has been unresponsive recently regarding the agreement. We've been trying to get this completed since spring. This agreement is now affecting the project schedule. Assuming we get this signed in the next week or two, we hope to award a contract late November. This would allow road closures and construction to start January 2025. Staff is concerned with the potential impact this delay may have on project pricing. Thanks

The plans for the interchange project have been signed by all parties - City, County, and MnDOT. Staff is finishing up the specifications and cooperative agreements now. Agreements with CP Rail are taking longer than expected and are required before we can solicit bids. The schedule has the project soliciting for bids in September with a contract award in October.

Staff and consultants continue to finish design the Vernon Ave and 50^th Street at Highway 100 Interchange Project. Plans are 90% complete. We continue to get great feedback from our partner agencies, Hennepin County and MnDOT. Plans and specifications are scheduled to be complete in June 2024 with a bid opening in September 2024. We are anticipated the contractor could start work after November 15, 2024, close Vernon Ave and 50^th Street to traffic in January 2025 and be required to re-open the streets to traffic by November 2025.

The project team continues with this large design effort seeking approvals from the relevant agencies each step of the way. The design is estimated to be at 60%.All plans and specifications are scheduled to be completed by June 2024. Bidding would occur summer / fall with construction starting next winter.

A few renderings of the future project were created. Enjoy.

Staff finished defining the scope of the project in June and are now working on getting approvals from all the required agencies. Work is occurring with Hennepin County, MnDOT, and watershed districts, to name a few. Thanks