With construction to begin this spring, Center Avenue will take on a new profile as the redesigned downtown thoroughfare is rebuilt from Fourth to Eighth Streets over the summer. (Photo/Russ Hanson.)

Nancy Edmonds Hanson

Circulation through the heart of downtown Moorhead will get a major boost this summer with the reconstruction of its main artery.

City Hall has been talking about renovating Center Avenue for almost five years, says assistant city engineer Tom Trowbridge. “We planned on doing a ‘mill and overlay’ in 2018,” he recalls. The technique involves removing the top two inches of the street’s surface with heavy equipment and laying fresh asphalt over it.

But then the work to renew Center was delayed for a year in hopes of coordinating construction – a major inconvenience for downtown businesses — with Moorhead Public Service’s water main replacement project. Nope. “MPS found out their water main couldn’t wait any longer,” Trowbridge says, “and, meanwhile, our bids for the mill and overlay came in much higher than expected.”

Perhaps that was a blessing in disguise. Given the complications of replacing curbs, adding ADA-compliant crossings and other issues, the engineers finally determined that reconstructing the whole heavily traveled section between Fourth and Eighth Streets made more sense than the stopgap mill-and-overlay process. “Reconstruction is more expensive, nearly twice as much, but we’ll be getting more for our money,” he points out. The new plan – estimated to cost about $5.6 million from start to finish – was approved by the city council Jan. 24.

Businesses along the four-block stretch have expressed trepidation about the upcoming project, which will complicate access to the Center Mall on the north and a variety of enterprises on the south side of the avenue, from Scheels and American Federal Bank to Billiards and others between the railroad tracks and the avenue. Construction will mandate sometimes-complicated detours for some until the project wraps up in the fall.

Trowbridge says the city is taking pains to minimize the inconvenience. “We’ll tackle it in chunks. At no time will the whole stretch from Fourth to Eighth be blocked,” he promises. Starting on the west end, construction will be handled in two-block sections. Completing the Fourth Street intersection, expected to be the most disruptive, is the number one priority.

“Access to the mall is actually the easier part,” he says, with alternative approaches available from the east and west.

The south side, however, presents more challenges. The driving area between the back of the business and the BNSF tracks s is not a public alley; instead, it’s the private property of the adjacent businesses. American Federal Bank’s one-way drive-through is especially problematic. Trowbridge says the city is working with the owners on lining up temporary easements as the project inches eastward.

The roadwork faces a final challenge on the east end where Center butts up to Eighth Street. The replacement of Moorhead’s aged brick-lined sewers begun last summer now moves toward the north. A section of those old sewers lie beneath Eighth Street on both sides of Center Avenue, also running under both sets of railroad tracks. Like last year, that entails running bypass pipes to facilitate the work; unlike last year, they can’t lie on top of the streets and, especially, the tracks. Trowbridge says that as long as Center Avenue is being dug up, pipes will be installed underground for the bypass.

Safety features as well as esthetic improvements are part of the Center redesign. One has already been put in place. Instead of two traffic lanes traveling in each direction, it has been re-striped for three lanes – one east, another west, and the middle lane shared for turning.

This summer’s project will add several more features. A dedicated bicycle lane will run along the north side of the avenue. It will be separated from auto traffic by 48 new parallel-parking spaces in some areas and landscaped buffers in others. Plantings, lighting, benches and other niceties will add finishing touches, along with new stop signals. Given plans for redevelopment of the mall area, “we’ve given extra consideration to the design in that area,” the engineer notes. “There’s been lots of dialogue with Roers Development (which has purchased much of the commercial area in the mall) and Kevin Bartram of MBA Architects, new owner of the United Sugars building.

Bids are expected to be received in late March. After a public hearing, Trowbridge says, the city anticipates awarding bids on April 11, with a possible start to construction in early May.

“Originally we didn’t want to go with full construction,” he observes, “but there’s so much more you can do. Yes, we were kind of pushed into it. But it’s going to be a much nicer project as a result.”