Jay street sewer project in Mt. Pleasant coming to an end

MT. PLEASANT - The five year long Jay Street sewer project has finally come to an end as the Mt. Pleasant City Council voted to approve the final change order on the project.

At the regular city council meeting on Wednesday, Aug. 28, City Administrator Brent Schleisman said the project was put off for about three years after not receiving a CBDG (Community Development Block Grant) grant. They tried again and were awarded one but the project took longer than expected.

'There were a lot of hiccups that we ran into,” he said, explaining they had to pour more concrete and sewer lines than initially anticipated.

The project ended up spanning the length of 11 blocks and consisted of new sewer and water lines along the way. The entire project ended up at a cost just shy of $3 million dollars. Once this change order is paid, the last step will be seeding.

In other news, improvements will soon becoming to Rose Street and the alley spanning from Monroe to Madison, behind the Union Block building.

After the Legislature raised the gas tax by 10 cents in 2017, has resulted in about $150,000 in funding for the City of Mt. Pleasant to use on road repairs, according to Mayor Steve Brimhall .

'They did that with the idea that cities would use that to improve streets and we've done that. So each year we try to find a couple of projects to use with that $150,000,” he said.

The bid for the construction on Rose Street was awarded to Jones Contracting, of West Point, for $76,777. The bid for work to be done in the alley between Monroe Street and Jefferson Street was awarded to Hickey Contracting Company, of Keokuk, for $65,847. Both estimates were under the engineers original estimate for the project.