Storm Lake picks Bolton & Menk for Oneida Street rebuild project

Storm Lake is preparing to spend millions more on Oneida Street, and taxpayers are likely to ask the same question city officials are asking: what is this round buying that the last one did not, and how long will the fix hold? The city has chosen Bolton & Menk of Spencer to engineer another reconstruction of the corridor, this time from Bair Street and the Railroad Street area to Lakeshore Drive.

Assistant City Manager Dave Derragon told the council the project will rip out the 70-year-old roadway and replace it with concrete, along with sanitary sewer, subdrain, watermain and storm sewer work underneath. The city has already secured $1 million in SWAP funds from the Northwest Iowa Planning & Development Commission, but officials are still weighing how much more of the bill will fall to local taxpayers and property owners along the route.

Derragon put the current estimate at $4.2 million, below an earlier $5.2 million preliminary figure that City Manager Keri Navratil called a “Cadillac” version of the job. Mayor Meg McKeon said she expected the project to be pared down to something more modest. Financing options under discussion include a stormwater revenue bond, a general obligation bond backed by property taxes, and special assessments for residents on the southern blocks.

The timing leaves another long construction window ahead for a street that has already been through major work once before. Design is expected later this summer, bids are expected to open in January 2027, construction is expected to start in March or April 2027, and the city is targeting completion in April 2028. For homes, businesses and drivers along the corridor, that means another round of detours, lane closures and utility interruptions before the rebuilt street can settle back into service.

Oneida keeps returning to the city’s priority list because it is more than a local block-to-block roadway. Storm Lake has described it as a critical route for fire and police vehicles trying to reach the southeast side of town, and officials have said the earlier stretch from the 500 through 700 blocks reopened in 2022 after delays and higher-than-expected costs. The new project also sits inside a much larger citywide repair challenge: a Bolton & Menk street report cited by local officials estimated Storm Lake’s outdated street system could need as much as $164 million in work. With the city’s 2024 comprehensive plan pointing toward transportation and infrastructure investment, Oneida Street is becoming another test of how Storm Lake balances aging pavement, emergency access and the limits of the local tax base.