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Okoboji council approves Highway 71 agreement with DOT

Dickinson County News - Staff Photo - Create Article
Okoboji City Councilmen Jim Hentges and Dan Sanders looked over plans for local road closures with Iowa Department of Transportation Assistant District Engineer Shane Tymkowicz after last week's city council meeting. The DOT plans to repave a portion of Highway 71, but will need to reroute traffic and temporarily close the bridge which spans East and West Lake Okoboji during part of the project. (Photo by Seth Boyes)
By
Seth Boyes - News Editor

 

Bridge to temporarily close in mid-September

Local and state officials are one step closer to finalizing plans for improving the Lakes Area's main thoroughfare.


The Okoboji City Council voted March 8 to approve a preconstruction agreement with the Iowa Department of Transportation, which intends to repave a stretch of Highway 71. The project would span from approximately East View Avenue in Okoboji to Benit Drive in Arnolds Park, according to the agreement — a distance of about 2.5 miles.


The DOT held a public meeting in December to discuss the proposed project, and many community members expressed concerns about how detours and road closures would affect local businesses as well as how the project might cut off emergency services in some areas. The Highway 71 bridge lies near the center of the DOT's project and is the only route for motorists to cross the narrow point where East and West Lake Okoboji join — other routes would send drivers at least a dozen miles around the outer edges of either lake.


Iowa DOT Assistant District Engineer Shane Tymkowicz said during last week's meeting that the DOT had spoken with city officials and local business owners since the December meetings and adjusted the project to alleviate some of the community's concerns.


"There's more than one way sometimes to get things done," Tymkowicz said. "We proposed initially one direction, and the community wanted us to take another look at it. So that's what we did, and we were able to work through that."


The Okoboji City Council passed the agreement on a 4-0 vote — councilwoman Julie Mau Andres was absent from the meeting. Tymkowicz said a similar agreement has been drafted for the city of Arnolds Park, and he said the matter may be on the Arnolds Park City Council's agenda this week.

 

Addressing a need

 

Highway 71 was paved by the DOT about 20 years ago, Tymkowicz said in December. A concrete shortage at that time led to newly kilned concrete being used on the highway — a problem crews generally remedied through increased vibrations from their machinery.


But the approach resulted in concrete which was more susceptible to damage from Iowa's annual freeze and thaw cycle, according to Tymkowicz, and he previously explained it's a problem which compounds each season. The local stretch of highway was in need of regular patching about eight years after the highway was laid, and Tymkowicz said local concern reached the DOT's ears about five years ago.


The DOT developed several options for improving the highway and presented them to the public during the December meeting.


Each option struck a different balance amongst factors like decreased business traffic, safety, cost and efficiency. Much of the discussion in December focused on how traffic would be able to cross the bridge between Okoboji and Arnolds Park, and for how long traffic would be limited in an area which heavily depends on summer traffic to support its local economy.


Some of the proposed plans called for traffic to flow in only one direction while construction was taking place — generally the spring and fall, rather than the area's busy summer season. Tymkowicz said after last week's city council meeting that officials don't expect to take the one-way option at this point.


"We'll be able to maintain traffic going in both directions in the Okoboji area," Tymkowicz said. "Some of that will be by detours on local roads as we get through there, but people will be able to go north and south through the Okoboji area.


The project will be done in approximately three phases, and Tymkowicz said the bridge will actually be the first phase DOT officials will tackle — ideally within a four-week window later this year.


"We will allow emergency vehicles to go across the causeway for nearly all that time, except when we're actually doing the paving operation," Tymkowicz said. "There'll be a period of a few days where we may not be able to keep that in service just because the concrete at that point in time won't support traffic."
He went on to say automated censors are also expected to be put in place, which will change traffic signals to help clear the way for approaching emergency vehicles.

 

Timing the work

 

The repaving of the bridge area is expected to begin after Labor Day — which generally marks the end of the area's yearly population boom. Tymkowicz said crews could begin preparations immediately after Labor Day, and would likely begin in earnest two weeks later — around Sept. 19, the council noted.
Tymkowicz admitted weather may be a factor, but he said there will be incentives for contractors to finish the work on the bridge within the four-week window and potential penalties for additional time. Some members of the city council felt that if the bridge work can be completed in four weeks, the various local marinas will still have time to finish their usual work for the season — often using the highway as they haul boats and hoists to storage sites.


Plans call for work on the other sections of the highway to take place in the spring and fall of 2023, which Tymkowicz said will account for a majority of the work on the project. He pointed out that weather and other unknowns could push some of that work into the spring of 2024.


The now-approved agreement also calls for additional roadside features to be installed at the city's cost as part of the project. Okoboji City Administrator Michael Meyers said the aesthetic additions are meant to freshen up and brighten the Lakes corridor.


"The city of Okoboji is going to invest some dollars into the beautification of Highway 71 as well, specifically in the city of Okoboji portion from the north end of the Highway 71 bridge up into Stake Out Road, right were city hall is," Meyers said. "You're going to see a heavy presence of pavers as well as some new green space and some sod along the highway. The city is going to irrigate the sod and really try to take care of it and make it look beautiful."


The added beautification will cost approximately $428,000, which can be paid in three yearly installments after work is completed, according to the agreement. The city had also planned to replace signal poles along the highway, but the DOT will actually be taking on that task — at no cost to the city. Tymkowicz said intertwining such projects has become more and more common.


"We thought it was fair to bring those costs inside to the DOT," Tymkowicz said.


Meyers said the city had planned to spread the cost of replacing the signal poles over a period of several years using local option sales tax dollars. Now that won't be necessary.


"Having that off our books is a massive weight off the shoulders of the city of Okoboij," Meyers said.

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IN OTHER BUSINESS

The Okoboji City Council heard a proposal from local developer Mark Steffes, who hopes to partner with a Sioux City investor and create a 42-unit mixed use property north of the McDonald's at the corner of Stake Out Road and Highway 71. The development hopes to apply for a housing initiative grant through Iowa Workforce Development, but the grant requires local support — to the tune of $1,000 per unit. The developer asked the city to consider providing local support in the form of abated property taxes for the development over a period of approximately five years. The state housing grant would cover up to $1 million of the $7 million project, and Steffes said he expects the proposed development would likely hit that cap. The city's support could be made contingent on the development receiving the grant funds.


Okoboji City Administrator Michael Meyers indicated during last week's city council meeting that the number of apartments in Steffes' proposal had approximately doubled since plans were approval by the city's board of adjustment. Meyers said the issue may need to be revisited.


Steffes told the council the building would house four small commercial spaces on its ground level, while the apartments above would be aimed at providing housing for the area's workforce — Steffes said he learned employees at several of the Lakes Area's major businesses regularly commute long distances.
The council took no action on the proposal and asked for more detail on how much property tax such a development might generate annually. Steffes hopes to have a decision from the council by sometime next month. In the meantime, Meyers confirmed the developers may begin work to prepare the site — such as moving dirt and putting retaining walls in place — without a building permit.

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