Progress & Industry: Here it comes: Core Area reconstruction

Fact: The roads and infrastructure in Brandon’s core area have long out-lived their useful life.

Fact: The roads and infrastructure in Brandon’s core area will be replaced starting this year.

Fact: The core area reconstruction project will occur over the next four to five years, and property owners are sure to be inconvenienced at some point during the process.

Fact: Phase one is now in the bidding process.

The massive reconstruction project will begin on the west side of the core and will be addressed in several phases. 

“The city is being pretty aggressive in the amount of work that they want to get done every year,” said Paul Sanow, project engineer with HDR. “When the requests for proposals initially came out, the goal was to be done in 2025, and so that’s five years’ worth of construction and about 36,000 feet – approximately 70 blocks of construction. From a scale size of the project, it’s quite a bit bigger than the projects we were doing in Sylvan Circle.”

Sanow explained project phases will be determined by utilities.

“Naturally, it has drainage basins where we have to start at the bottom and work our way up, and some of that is based on budget funding for these projects, too. We can stop in a logical location where we can design it and do the cost estimation of it, and if it looks like it’s going to be bigger than what the city can budget or fund, we can cut things back,” he said. 

Storm sewer is also tied into the reconstruction endeavors. Sanow said it makes sense to improve sanitary sewer, water main, storm sewer, and drainage improvements when endeavors of this magnitude are addressed.

“We will take a look at all of the areas that have drainage issues and try to take care of those,” he said.

Valley gutters, which are necessary, will be included in the design.

 

Sidewalks

Although a large chunk of the core area do not have sidewalks, city administration is placing a heavy emphasis on adding those into the design process.

“When the city wrote the request for proposal, it was pretty clear that sidewalks are a key component of that project,” Sanow said. “We look at connectivity within the community and we always discuss safety. This area, especially with the connections to the schools and the park, becomes something the city should take a look at.”

Brandon Mayor Paul Lundberg and city engineer Tami Jansma both said some homeowners have expressed dissatisfaction to the idea.

“Sidewalks are a key component of this whole project. It’s got to happen,” said Lundberg. “This place is going to be demoed, it’s going to be demolished and it would be irresponsible on the part of a city council or a city, in general, to not seriously look at the sidewalk issue in that area.”

Sanow said the proposal incorporates shared use paths.

“We currently have them on Holly and Aspen, and so adding a connection between Holly and Aspen with a shared-use path through that core area is in one of those phases. We’ve also talked about Fourth Avenue and Sixth Avenue. Fourth has a pedestrian crossing on Holly and Sixth Avenue has a controlled intersection, so from a logistics standpoint, those two locations make sense,” he said.

It’s likely the shared use paths would be paid for and maintained by the city, not the property owner, he added.

Sidewalks are also a Brandon standard now.

“New developments are required to have sidewalks, and this is one of three neighborhoods out of 15 to 20 neighborhoods that doesn’t have sidewalks,” Sanow said.

Lundberg knows the project won’t please everyone.

“The committee has discussed all options, and as with anything, there’s whatever number of committee members, there’s that many opinions. What we have to be careful of as city leaders is not to get caught up in the ‘muck,’ and what I mean by that is we have to look down the road, look at the whole project. We can’t get caught up in the detail if a tree is going to be able to stay there,” Lundberg said.

 

Narrower streets

Streets in the core area are also expected to narrow from 37 feet to 33 feet, the standard size of residential streets.

“Whether there’s parking on one side or both sides, the function of that traffic driving down that street doesn’t necessarily change,” Sanow said. “For the most part, when people drive through residential areas, they’ll stop and let a car drive through that area whenever you have cars parked on both sides.”

Narrowing the streets – built with more gravel and thicker asphalt – equates to approximately $800,000 less in construction costs. 

“That’s just the upfront savings,” Sanow said. “It’s also less money and time for the city to maintain long-term.”

Lundberg said that savings will be re-invested in a higher-quality road system.