ELY- East Harvey Street, one of the busiest streets in Ely, will be rebuilt over the summer of 2025. Elyites can look forward to traffic disruptions, rerouting of the Fourth of July parade, and mayhem while trying to access the Ely Public Schools and Whiteside Park, both of which border Harvey Street.
East Harvey will be dug up between Central and Ninth Avenue and repaved with the addition of new sidewalks, curbs, and streetlamps. During the project, the city will install a new water main along First Avenue between the Ely Senior Center and the Ely Steam Bath, which will run through the intersection of First and Harvey.
The future Harvey Street
The rebuilt East Harvey Street will use the entire 66-foot right-of-way. The roadway will include two 12-foot driving lanes with an 8-foot parking lane on both sides of the street. The road will be lined with new curbs and gutters. The county will install new 6-foot-wide sidewalks separated from the curb by a 2-foot-wide grass boulevard. The exception will be along the south side of Harvey between Seventh and Ninth where no sidewalk will be installed.
Harvey will host new decorative-style street lamps, similar to what was installed on James. According to Harold Langowski, the Ely clerk-treasurer, the new lights are dark sky compliant. “They are LED lights,” Langowski said. “They’re 85-watt fixtures and all the lighting is directed straight down. All the fixtures we’ve installed over the years have been LED with the cutoff prisms in the globes. But these new lights now are the next generation. If you’ve been to downtown Minneapolis, that’s what they have down there.”
Storm sewer
The road work will include blasting on Harvey between Central and Third Avenues so the city can reroute the storm sewer that collects the runoff in the neighborhood west of Whiteside Park and south of downtown.
“Starting even as early as this fall,” Fallstrom remarked, “we’re getting a consultant on board to come by to do a pre-inspection survey of those homes within a 200-foot radius from where we’re going to be blasting the storm sewer trenches.
Blasting along Harvey must follow Minnesota’s regulations, which limit the size of explosive charges and require strict vibration monitoring. Property owners will be informed of when the blasting will occur. The county will settle any claims for damages caused by the blasting.
Ely will also rebuild East Conan Street between Second and Third Avenues to accommodate the rerouting of the storm sewer.
“The storm sewer currently comes down Harvey,” Langowski explained. “It comes down Third Avenue East all the way down to White Street. It turns to the west and goes all the way to Second Avenue East, and then goes down Conan Street … That’s the very lowest part of town, and (the current storm sewer route) pushes all this additional storm water and causes some localized overflow flooding at times. Rerouting that big storm sewer will resolve the majority of those stormwater flooding issues.”
Logistics
The county will begin work in May 2025, weather permitting. Completion of the work is expected before the end of October. Once the project begins, portions of East Harvey Street will be closed. The closures will affect several blocks at a time in a way that will lessen the impact on the Ely Public School campus.
“There are ways we can phase the project,” Fallstrom explained, “so we don’t impact that area, hopefully, while school is in session — so maybe to impact that area only during the summertime when school is closed.”
Parking will be allowed on Harvey during construction. Access for residents will be through the alleys and the north-south avenues. Some intersections on Harvey will stay open during most of the project, namely those at Central, Fourth, and Eighth avenues.
The county already owns all 66 feet of the right-of-way on Harvey. St. Louis County Public Works has arranged temporary easements so it can proceed with work around sidewalks, walkways, steps, and driveways. “In our survey of the street, we already know we don’t need to cut any trees,” Fallstrom commented.
Harvey Street has an alter ego as County State Aid Highway 156. Its status as a county road is why St. Louis County is paying for the project with its estimated price tag of $3.5 million. The only exception is for storm sewer and water main costs, which will be borne by the city. The county will not impose any assessments on Harvey residents for new curbs and sidewalks or other work related to the project.
The rest of Harvey between Ninth and 17th Avenues will be redone at some unspecified future date. “Certainly, within the decade,” Langowski added with some humor.
“When the project is finished, Harvey between Central and Ninth will look very much like James and Eighth,” Langowski stated. James Street and Eighth Avenue are also county state aid highways, both of which the county has rebuilt in the last decade.
The county will solicit bids for the project in February. It will build a website so residents can track construction plans and schedules by April.