Two new buildings, a new emergency radio system and overhauls to several roads and bridges sit atop Jackson County’s to-do list for the next five years.
The proposals outline where county leaders expect the biggest improvements to be made in the near future, and commissioners will take public comments on the annual Capital Improvement Program at their Tuesday meeting before approving it.
Afterwards, the individual projects will still need to be cleared by the elected officials as more details and firmer estimates become available.
The two new buildings in the county’s crosshairs are an improved resource center for 2010 and a new maintenance facility for 2012.
Though the decision to renovate or build a new resource center has yet to be made, the county is looking at a multimillion dollar project to be paid for by reserves and bonds. Almost $154,000 has already been spent on developing the project.
For its new highway maintenance facility, the county expects to have borrowed $3.24 million and received $2.8 million from the state by the time the building is built.
The county board is now on the verge of setting the direction its emergency radio system will take in the future, and with uncertainty surrounding how much grant funding might be available, $1.5 million or more could be spent from local taxpayer money.
Several of the most expensive projects, however, are expected to meet the county’s transportation needs. Receiving top billing is the two-part, four-year effort to widen and reconstruct County Road 29 from Alpha to the Iowa border between 2011 and 2014, though it has been pushed back a year since the last Capital Improvement Program. The project’s $6.55 million price tag would be paid completely by federal and state funding sources.
Replacement of both county and township bridges are also high priority transportation items, as well as regular sealcoating and road overlays. Most of the county bridge spending will come from the state’s pocketbook, as well as all of the sealcoats and overlays.
Though not as urgent, Lakefield has requested its Main Street, Highway 50, be reconstructed for $1.3 million, with $850,000 to come out of the city’s pocket and the rest from the state.
Delayed a year, Ashley Hill is hoped to be rebuilt in Jackson in 2010 at a cost of $1.33 million. For that, federal and state aid funds will pick up all but $100,000, which the city will contribute. The project will put water, storm sewer and sanitary sewer lines underneath a half-mile of new road.
For half a million dollars, the county hopes to buy part of a 55-acre Department of Natural Resources gravel pit to meet its future needs, to be paid for by property taxes.
Reconstruction of intersections in Petersburg — where Highway 23 meets Highway 4 in the city and south of town — have been put off until 2013.
Recreationally, the $173,000 left to spend to connect Jackson’s Sunset Trail with the Des Moines River Trail via Springfield Parkway or a nearby route is now in the planning stages and a $212,000 and 1.5-mile connection from the Des Moines River Trail to Fort Belmont is scheduled for 2010.
Farther down on the priority list are a 5,000-foot extension of the Loon Lake Trail to Anderson Park for $211,000 in 2011, a 14.5-acre overnight camping expansion of Brown Park in 2012 and 2013 worth $307,000, and a new handicapped-accessible restroom at Robertson Park for $130,000 in 2012. Federal funds figure up to more than half the cost of each of the trail projects.
Click here to see the fully detailed Capital Improvement Program.
