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ARDEN HILLS SPECIAL CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION – JULY 28, 2014 3 the Assessment Hearing before the project is bid. The largest part of the assessment is for street lighting and staff will have a firm price from Xcel Energy by the Hearing date. The rest of the assessable improvements will be fully designed and the engineer’s estimate should be accurate enough for assessment purposes. This way, if there are a number of potential assessment appeals the Council could decide to not proceed to bidding the project.  Staff would recommend adding colored pavers to the new medians. This was not discussed in the feasibility report but would add a nice feature to a relatively large blacktop road. The incremental cost to add pavers from standard concrete for the medians is estimated at $30,000-45,000 for the entire project.  Staff would recommend adding the trail/sidewalk on the south side of County Road E between the new bridge and Old Snelling Avenue to this project. The easiest time to build this segment would be when the bridge is closed and there could be some economies of scale to add this similar type of work to the County Road E project. Staff has asked Bolton and Menk to prepare a cost estimate for just the initial analysis to determine if it is possible to have this work added to the bid package for County Road E (if we need temporary construction easements it may not be possible to get done in time). The added cost would be $14,680 for a topographic survey, property/right-of-way research and preliminary design at which time a decision would be made whether or not this work could catch up to the rest of the project. If not, the work done by Bolton and Menk would not be wasted; it would be useable work for the continuation of the project at a later time. The proposed project schedule moving forward would be:  Completion of the plans and review by City, Ramsey County, MnDOT office of State Aid in the next 60-90 days  “Walk through” with the property owners to review the final project details late summer  Public Hearing/Assessment Hearing early November  Project bidding in November, early December  Consider awarded of the contract in January  Start construction in Spring of 2015 to coincide with MnDOT’s bridge project City Administrator Klaers reviewed his memo on financial and assessment issues. Items for the Council to consider include the Connelly Street improvements, street lighting, trees, and adding pavers in the street medians. Staff requested comments and direction from the Council. Discussion ensued regarding the possible future redevelopment of the Pot O’Gold property. The council was in agreement to leave the Connelly Street improvements in the project at this time. Councilmember Holmes asked how much the City would have to pay for the more expensive light fixtures.