Prior Lake City Council talks County Road 21 aesthetics

Prior Lake American

With the basics approved for the County Road 21 and Highway 13 reconstruction project, the Prior Lake City Council is getting down to the nitty gritty — "streetscaping."

The city of Prior Lake, Scott County and the state of Minnesota will work to make improvements to the intersection at 21 and 13 in downtown Prior Lake in 2019. The project includes roundabouts at Arcadia Avenue and Highway 13.

The overall design was approved in 2017. Now, the council is working on how to keep the look and feel of Prior Lake throughout the project.

Project consulting firm Bolton & Menk presented a number of aesthetic options for the project during a work session on Monday, including decorative concrete, bollards, landscaping, decorative railing and more with a total estimated cost of $670,000.

Decorative concrete would be used at pedestrian crossings near the project. Decorative lighting would be used in the roundabouts and along the corridor as well as standard lighting fixtures.

"We will be able to salvage and reinstall the lights that are on the corridor now," Bolton & Menk Landscape Designer Madeline Peck said.

Plants could be put in at several choice locations, including the middle of the roundabouts for a total cost of $280,000 including mulch, topsoil, planter curbs, plant material and more.

"We are only selecting plant materials that are going to be the most tolerant to the conditions," Peck said.

A proposed downtown kiosk would show a map of downtown highlighting commercial and municipal buildings for an estimated cost of $15,000 at the northeast corner of Main Avenue.

For a retaining wall that requires a fence for safety, the city is proposing a decorative fence with nautical elements such as boats, waves and oars rather than the standard chainlink fence for $100,000.

In addition, the council looked at median features made up of steel cables and metal poles that would mimic the sails of a boat ranging from 18 to 30 feet tall. Those features would include some sort of LED accent lighting.

"I like the lighting aspects of those," council member Annette Thompson said. "That will be really cool at night."

Another option was a banner pole across the roadway. The banner would be 25 feet long and the city could decide on what banners were allowed and what they would say.

Additional elements that were identified by Bolton & Menk but not put in in the proposal included locations for a potential mural, bus shelters and trail kiosks.

The breakdown of the $670,000 going to the project's streetscape is:

• $44,000 going to decorative concrete

• $60,000 going to bollards

• $280,000 going to landscaping

• $15,000 to the kiosk

• $100,000 to the decorative rail

• $60,000-$80,000 for a banner pole crossing the highway

• $130,000-$150,000 for the median features

The streetscaping plan will go before the council in July with 90 percent of the plans finalized — 100 percent of the plans will be finalized in the fall, with construction beginning in spring of 2019.