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REQUEST FOR COUNCIL ACTION Date: 3/19/12 Item No.: 13.b Department Approval City Manager Approval Item Description: Discuss Undergrounding of the Overhead Electric Lines along Rice Street for next phase of reconstruction B ACKGROUND 1 Ramsey County is developing plans for reconstruction of Rice St. from Transit Ave. to County 2 Road C-2. The actual construction is expected to begin in the spring of 2013. The cities of 3 Roseville and Little Canada cooperated on the Highway 36 interchange project to have Xcel bury 4 the overhead power lines that currently run along the west side of Rice Street. These overhead 5 electric lines and poles continue north from the previous project and blight the corridor. Little 6 Canada has stated an interest in continuing this effort on this corridor for this next phase of 7 reconstruction. 8 9 Xcel Energy has provided a preliminary estimate of $1,322,343 to bury the power lines from 10 County Road B-2 to County Road C2. Xcel is continuing preliminary design and refinement of 11 the scoping estimate. In the previous project the costs were split equally between the two cities 12 despite the majority of the overhead lines are located on the Roseville side of Rice St. There are 13 also some additional costs for easements necessary for ground mounted transfer switches and 14 other equipment. There are also costs for undergrounding of several private overhead electric 15 services that are not included in the estimate above. There will have to be a determination of 16 whether the service costs are a public cost or are a private property cost. 17 18 The Council authorized staff to work with Xcel Energy on a surcharge option for the Xcel to 19 recover their incremental costs incurred in Roseville on the previous project. The surcharge 20 option, CRFS (Community Requested Facility Surcharge) is available for these projects where 21 each rate payer of the city will have a small surcharge added to their electric bill based on a 22 citywide formula to finance the cost of the work over a period of time. Staff would recommend 23 the Council consider the CRFS option on this next phase of reconstruction as well. 24 25 Roseville and Little Canada staff agree that burying the power lines along Rice Street will 26 dramatically improve the appearance along this important stretch of roadway that serves as a 27 gateway to both cities. Both cities have received comments from the public on the improvement 28 to the corridor from the first project without the overhead electric lines. Burying the power lines 29 will mean the overhead communication lines will need to be relocated underground as well since 30 they are on Xcel’s power poles by agreement. 31 32 FI INANCIAL MPACTS 33 We have not received the per customer cost at this time from Xcel. The Roseville rate payers 34 cost share for the undergrounding of the overhead electric lines is proposed to be financed by a 35 Page 1 of 2