City of Lake Elmo, MN

PROJECT CONTACTS: If you have any questions or concerns about this project, please contact the City of Lake Elmo Engineering staff.

• Jack Griffin, City Engineer    300.4264              jack.griffin@FOCUSengineeringinc.com
• Chad Isakson, Project Engineer    300.4283              chad.isakson@FOCUSengineeringinc.com

CONSTRUCTION UPDATES:
A contract has been awarded to A-1 Excavating to complete construction of the lift station and forcemain.

• Construction of the lift station and extension of the forcemain is substantially complete. Minor corrective items will continue in the fall of 2023 including restoration establishment.

PROJECT UPDATES:
Updates will be placed on this website when new information becomes available.

• Property Owner Petition for Public Sanitary Sewer received by City on June 1, 2020.
• City Council authorized the preparation of the Feasibility Report on July 6, 2021.
• City Council accepted the Feasibility Report on October 19, 2021.
• A Neighborhood informational meeting will be held virtually, Monday, November 8, 2021 at 5 PM.
• A Public Improvement Hearing will be held at the Wednesday, November 16, 2021 City Council Meeting to consider adopting the preliminary assessment roll and ordering the improvements.
• A construction contract was awarded at the May 17, 2022 City Council meeting.
• A final assessment hearing was held on June 7, 2022 and the assessment roll was adopted. 

SCOPE OF IMPROVEMENTS:
A Feasibility Report has been prepared to address the extension of municipal sanitary sewer service to replace the private community wastewater treatment system for the properties located in the Tapestry at Charlotte’s Grove subdivision. The report serves to identify the necessary improvements, the estimated project costs, and to consider the assessment of the project costs to properties benefitting from the improvements.

The proposed project includes the installation of a city owned sanitary lift station, constructed near the existing community wastewater treatment facility, together with the construction of approximately 2,400 feet of 4-inch sanitary sewer forcemain. The forcemain would extend and connect to the existing 10-inch gravity sewer system located in the adjacent Hamlet on Sunfish Lake neighborhood. The forcemain would be routed generally through HOA Outlots, and would be installed through directional drilling to avoid construction impacts and disturbance to the public streets and to minimize disturbance to the HOA outlots.

The scope of this project is currently limited to the construction of the city owned lift station/forcemain improvements and would provide sewer service by receiving the discharges from the privately owned sanitary collection system. The report also recommends that before allowing the connection to the municipal sewer system, that the privately owned collection system be cleaned, televised and inspected to identify potential repairs that would be necessary to ensure that discharges are maintained within standard acceptable parameters. The report does not address the improvements or costs necessary for the city to assume ownership of the privately owned and maintained conveyance system. Furthermore, if the project proceeds to construction it will remove all future discharges to the existing community wastewater treatment system, however, the scope of this project does not include the scope of work necessary to decommission this system. The HOA would need to pursue this work separately from the city project as required by any permitting agencies.

PROJECT FUNDING AND PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENTS: 
The total estimated project cost and fees is $1,682,500, including $1,089,400 for construction of the city sanitary infrastructure improvements, $260,000 for city connection fees, $123,500 in city oversize cost recovery fees, $161,525 in Met Council connection fees, and $48,000 for recommended sewer cleaning and televising costs. The Met Council fees ($161,525) would be required to be paid in full from the HOA prior to awarding a construction contract and the remaining costs and fees would be assessed against the benefitting properties. Sanitary sewer improvements are assessed at a rate of 100% of the total project costs for residential properties on a per Residential Equivalent Connection basis. The 65 residential properties are each considered “1” REC unit.

FINAL ASSESSMENTS:
The final assessment roll has been adopted and can be viewed at the link at the bottom of the page and details each impacted property.

Please see the Feasibility report dated October 2021 for additional information on assessments.

• Final assessment for Sanitary Sewer Improvements - $23,400. Assessment is payable over 20 years at an interest rate of 1% over what the city bond rate.

ATTACHMENTS

• Click here to view the project location map
• Click here for a copy of the full project Feasibility Report 
• Click here to view the project Preliminary Assessment Roll
• Click here to view the project schedule
• Click here to view the 2021-10-19 presentation to the City Council
• Click here to view the project Final Assessment Roll