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TOWER— Funding to replace Tower’s Pine Street Bridge, near the former Iron Ore Bar, had been in doubt, until this week. Funding for the estimated $1 million bridge project had been included in …
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TOWER— Funding to replace Tower’s Pine Street Bridge, near the former Iron Ore Bar, had been in doubt, until this week. Funding for the estimated $1 million bridge project had been included in last year’s state bonding bill, but when the Legislature adjourned last May without a bonding agreement in place, about $400,000 that the city had anticipated for the project disappeared.
Initially, city officials had hoped that the bonding bill would get approval in a special session. But those hopes were dashed when legislative leaders and Gov. Mark Dayton failed to reach agreement on the parameters of a special session.
In the end, it was a couple of other cities, where planned and funded bridge projects failed to get built, that came to the rescue. “They had already been earmarked in earlier bonding bills, but they had left their bridge money on the table,” said Tower City Clerk-Treasurer Linda Keith. The cities agreed that the money could be redirected to Tower to help cover a major portion of its own bridge project.
The money won’t actually go to the city. It will be redirected to St. Louis County, which is handling the bridge replacement.
With the funding now in place, the project is expected to move forward quickly. According to Keith, the county plans to seek bids next month, with construction to get underway shortly after ice-out. The city will still have some financial liability, but only about $50,000, or just a small fraction of the cost they would have borne without the reallocation of dollars.