Flagging set countywide, and Blooming Prairie Main Street work is near

Work on Blooming Prairie’s Main Street this summer is estimated to cost the city $1,068,254 and Steele County $2,736,980, but business owners and residents might end up paying a different kind of price.
Work is set to begin May 4 on the street east of U.S. Highway 218, which won’t affect businesses. That will change after July 4, when crews will begin work on a stretch of the road in and near downtown. The second phase of work starts later to accommodate community events, said Steele County Administrator Anita Benson.
Work is estimated to last three months, depending heavily on how well the weather cooperates, City Administrator Mike Jones said. Steele County is paying to replace driving lanes, curbs, gutters and the sidewalk; the city is required to pay to replace parking lanes. Jones said he isn’t sure yet how much of the city’s cost will be mitigated by the 0.5 percent sales-tax increase that took effect April 1.
The project is the first large-scale construction on the stretch of road since the 1930s, Jones said. It’s the largest such project since 2005, when the city rebuilt Third Street North following a major flood the previous summer, prompting a federal disaster declaration.
The Third Street project included work on a stormwater-retention pond, new water mains, a new sewer line and new blacktop, curbs and gutters.
“Third Street was our first major reconstruction, so this will be our second large reconstruction project,” Jones said. 
The Main Street work is set to begin between Central Park and Fifth Avenue. Workers then will remove the curb and gutters, add “bump-outs” near business district intersections that shorten the distance from one side of the street to the other, and add diagonal parking on the north side of the road. 
“If it doesn’t work, we can easily go back to parallel parking,” Jones said. “If you talk to the older people in town, they would say there used to be diagonal parking on both sides of the street.”
He acknowledged that business owners will be affected.
 “This project, we understand it’s going to have a major effect in our community for about three months,” Jones said. 
“Steps have been taken to try to relieve that as much as possible, but as I explain to people when they ask me, the concept is that we’re going to do this in a way it’s inconvenient in as short a period as possible. It’s all based on weather.”
Jones said he hopes sidewalk reconstruction on Main Street will take a few days. County crew members will remove the sidewalk on one side of the street and replace it, then work on the sidewalk on the opposite side, he said.
City crew members will remove light fixtures on Main Street, sandblast them and have them powder-coated by Blooming Prairie business Extreme Custom Powder Coating. Also, a section of the road just west of the business district will get more decorative poles.
The county is handling the bulk of the work because Main Street is a county road, Jones said. The city maintains it as part of an agreement with the county.
Jones wrote to the county recently stating the need for road work. The county agreed.
The Blooming Prairie Chamber of Commerce was involved in initial discussions about the work, Benson said.
“That’s key for a project like this to be successful, because they’re the ones who are there every day and know how the city operates,” she said.
Blooming Prairie Area Chamber Executive Director Becky Noble said she hopes businesses aren’t affected, adding that most businesses have backdoor access.
Bakery owner Greg Friestad said his business is an exception. He isn’t sure how his business will be affected, describing it as “wait-and-see.”
“My understanding is that they’ll tear up the sidewalk, and the next day a new sidewalk will be in place,” he said. “I don’t have an entrance to the building that’s suitable for customers (in the back). The concern I have is the parking. I hope all of the customers are willing to walk two or three blocks to have a cup of coffee.”
B to Z Hardware owner Greg Johnson isn’t as concerned.
The impact will be “pretty minimal, because we’ve got a backdoor and a parking lot,” he said. “Right now it’s probably 60-40, people coming in the back instead of the front.”