On February 20, 2018, City Council advanced the 2020 12th Avenue Trail Project that was included in the Capital Improvement Plan (CIP). This project was advanced to 2018-19 and includes the design, easement acquisition, and construction of a trail along the south side of 12th Avenue from Canterbury Road (County Highway 83) to Gateway Drive. The construction of this new trail will complete a missing segment of regional trail within the city that will better connect Quarry Park and provide safe pedestrian access to the businesses along 12th Avenue. It should be noted that the advancement of this project was directed by City Council based on requests from adjacent property owners.

Subsequently over the past year, SEH, Inc., was hired and has developed the plans to a 95% level, awaiting final plan submittal and approval by the Minnesota Department of Transportation since we will be using Municipal State Aid funding for a portion of this project. Parallel to the plan development, city staff have been working with the adjacent property owners to obtain the necessary trail easement needs. An open house was held at Entrust DataCard on July 12, 2018, to provide the local businesses and property owners an opportunity to learn more about the project and discuss the benefits of the proposed trail, needed easements, and impacts to their properties. 

Originally, only a few easements were expected to be needed with indications that most properties existed with adequate easements and/or were in the works with past and current land development activities. Interestingly, the same areas needed for the trail easements are already encumbered by public drainage and utility easements for the city's sanitary sewer. However, a drainage and utility easement does not provide the necessary rights that are needed for a trail. Unfortunately, the work with the property owners and title searches for existing easements have resulted in identifying a substantially larger amount of trail easement needs than what was expected.

With that said, remaining trail easements are needed on 12 of the 20 parcels along this corridor. The several easements that the city does have, have either been dedicated as part of past land development and/or provided by willing property owners. To further the efforts in obtaining the easements for this project, substantial work is needed including land rights services from a right-of-way agent specialist, appraisals, and the actual cost of the trail easements that would be paid to the property owners that are unwilling to donate these easements to the city.

In order to acquire the easements, city staff needs assistance from a consultant for this work. City staff has worked with Henning Professional Services, Inc., to develop a scope of work needed to acquire the easements. Henning Professional Services, Inc., has the experience, technical skill, and capacity to provide the needed services and is a recommended firm as part of the city's approved consultant pool. The attached Professional Services Agreement authorizes and describes the scope and fee for their work on this project.

The scope of work for Henning Professional Services, Inc., including the property appraisals is estimated to cost $91,700 (not to exceed). There will also be project expense for the actual purchase of the 12 easements from the adjacent land owners.  It is estimated that the 12 easements would cost approximately $12,500 each resulting in an added $150,000 to the overall project cost.

It should also be noted that the City was subsequently selected to receive a $150,000 reimbursement grant from the Minnesota DNR as part of their 2018 Local Trail Connections Program.

Below are the updated costs and funding as compared to the amounts provided on February 20, 2018:

The 2018 and 2019 MSA apportionments from the state, the new grant funding, and the SPUC funding are adequate to account for the additional funding needed to complete this project.