Rochester moves forward with lawsuit against Ramp 6 design firm

The City of Rochester will proceed with a lawsuit against Minneapolis-based design firm Collaborative Design Group, after finding the firm responsible for structural flaws in the design of Parking Ramp 6.

The resolution, included in the City Council’s meeting agenda packet, said the city “experienced a variety of problems” with Ramp 6. The two sides entered mediation, as was contractually obligated, but the agenda packet says mediation was “not fruitful.” 

The council approved the motion 7-0, without discussion.

CDG was hired to design the ramp, which opened in 2019. Plans called for 127 units of affordable housing to be built on top of the existing structure, but mere months after opening, an independent consulting firm found “deficiencies” that suggested the structure would be “possibly not capable” of supporting a housing project. In January, the council approved a $100,000 restoration project to fix the deficiencies identified in the report. 

(The full report is available to view here.)

As of now, the housing project is on hold; city officials say the next steps will be determined after litigation is complete. 

Bid approved for North Broadway reconstruction

After years of waiting and wrangling, the North Broadway corridor reconstruction project got the go-ahead from the council, awarding Rochester’s Elcor Construction an $18.4 million bid to reconstruct the corridor between Civic Center Drive and 13th Street NW.

The project was originally supposed to break ground in 2020, but bids for the project came in roughly $5 million above what the city expected, which led the council to reject all options. 

In the 11 months since then, City Engineer Dillon Dombrovski said the city had to make changes to bring the cost down; among key changes, condensing the amount of project “stages” and allowing all four lanes of Broadway to be closed at one time. Those changes helped bring the winning bid down to $18.4 million — still above what city engineers estimated, but $1.5 million below the cheapest bid submitted in 2020.

“This project needs to be done,” said Council Member Shaun Palmer. “I’m glad we got it cheaper than last year.”

The council voted 6-1 to move forward with the plans, though some members were wary of the price tag and the project timeline, with construction on the Elton Hills Drive bridge set for June.

Council Member Nick Campion — the only current council member to have sat in on the first project conversations — was the only ‘nay’ vote against the new proposal, however, saying he was “resolutely disappointed” with the final product, compared to the original plans first piloted in 2017.

“When we first took up this project I was inspired by the level of change we were making to the corridor,” said Campion. “I thought we’d made some hard decisions by taking on a project that was a significant, generational improvement for the area. As we’ve continued through successive rounds of compromise, I think we’ve lost some of the opportunity.”

Under the new project plans, North Broadway will close this spring and remain closed for much of 2021, but the project should be finished by mid-2022 — a year earlier than originally planned. Construction will start next month at the intersection of 13th Street NW and Silver Lake Drive and move south in three-block increments.

First look at the 2022-23 Budget

City Administrator Alison Zelms provided the council a look at the city’s preliminary budget outlook for the next two years, projecting a four-percent increase in the city’s property tax levy for 2022 — with larger increases possible in the future.

While no action was taken by the council and budget approval won’t come until late 2021, members were split on whether or not they would support any hike in tax levies. If revenue does not increase, however, council members noted there would have to be major cuts in the near future.

“There are some hard conversations ahead on how we use our staff,” said Council President Brooke Carlson, noting that the city was still going through a “hard time” financially. 

Zelms added the city would likely receive around $17 million from the American Rescue Plan, the latest round of stimulus from the federal government. Recommendations on how and where to spend the money — plus an exact total on how much money the city will receive — are expected in April or May.

Isaac Jahns is a Rochester native and a 2019 graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism. He reports on politics, business and music for Med City Beat.