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| | Email this article • Print this article | City, council seek interchange funds
by Ken Haggerty
Goodhue County and the City of Cannon Falls are making a move to attempt to jump start the U.S. Highway 52 interchange project on the south end of Cannon Falls.
Goodhue County agreed to commit $4 million and the City of Cannon Falls $2 million last week as part of an application for a $20 million grant from the state's Greater Minnesota Interchange Program (GMIP), a new source of funds generated by the increased gas tax passed last year.
The application is due June 12 and the state is expected to act quickly on the proposals. If selected, terms of the grant require that the project needs to be let for bids by January 1 of 2013.
County and city officials have moved forward with the planning stages for the new interchange project over the last few years, contracting for preliminary drawings and an environmental impact statement on proposed construction areas. So far, they have found the federal and state governments slow in stepping forward with the funds to move the estimated $39 million project past the planning stages.
The full $39 million project proposal includes eliminating the two stoplights on 52, a new overpass at the northern stoplight by the Cannonball and a new overpass plus new on and off ramps south of the existing southern stoplights. The full plan also includes a new County Highway 24 that would extend westward from the new southern overpass, eventually hooking up with the existing Highway 24.
As part of the grant application for the GMIP funds, the City and County are paring down the proposal. The revised $26 million proposal calls for a phase one that includes the southern overpass, ramps and roundabouts, but puts the northern overpass and the new County Highway 24 western extension segment into a phase two that would be built when additional state or federal funds become available. The city and the county would have no additional financial obligations in the phase two segment.
County and city officials think they will compete for a pool of $30 million in the GMIP with about a half dozen other applicants, including Pine Island. Pine Island has an $80 million-plus interchange proposal for the elk farm site in the works to attract a new biotechnology park that has the backing of the Mayo Clinic and a major California venture capital fund.
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