Posted: 6/30/04
By MaryHelen Swanson
We may bury our junk, but someday it could come back to haunt us.
That appears to be what happened in the process of building a new senior housing apartment in Center City.
The Bayview Senior Apartment building is nearly complete, noted Chisago County HRA-EDA Director Chris Eng at the June 23 county board meeting.
But there will be some additional costs that were unexpected when the county approved the use of the old potato factory site, most recently used by the county highway department as a maintenance shop, for the senior development.
While excavating for the construction of the building, contractors discovered old highway signs, tires, culverts, concrete, rocks, lumber, trees and other miscellaneous debris that had been buried for quite a few years by the highway department.
Eng noted that some of the debris was buried as deep as 17 feet.
The cost of removing the debris to a Rush City landfill was $83,600 which was in addition to the $179,000 in excavation and backfill costs associated with the site clean-up.
It cost an additional $20,000 to construct the building because of the extra concrete needed for the 17-foot footings on the southeast side of the site, Eng noted.
To help keep the rents in the new building affordable, Eng asked for and received a reduction and delay in payment in lieu of taxes that the HRA-EDA will pay to the county in the amount of the additional $83,600 landfill costs.
Even with the additional costs, Eng felt the Center City site turned out to be a nice location for the senior housing.
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