Delano Herald Journal

Serving the communities of Delano, Loretto, Montrose, MN, and the surrounding area

Road near Collinwood Park to get $225K makeover



STOCKHOLM TOWNSHIP, MN – Rhoades Avenue SW may be in rough shape now, but funds are in place for a major upgrade next summer.

Stockholm Township was recently awarded $195,000 through the Department of Natural Resource’s state park road account program.

Those funds, along with $30,000 from the township and Wright County, will be used to install a new bituminous base and wearcoat for the mile-long stretch near Collinwood Lake.

“It will be a big upgrade,” Stockholm Township Supervisor Dave Jorgensen said. “It will be great, because it leads right into beautiful Collinwood [Regional] Park.”

Rhoades Avenue SW used to be gravel, but was upgraded to asphalt in 1986.

According to the application Jorgensen submitted to the DNR, the road provides access to about 45,000 lake and park users each year.

He noted that upgrading Rhoades Avenue SW would make Collinwood Regional Park more accessible and appealing for visitors throughout the state.

Without financial assistance, Jorgensen noted that the road would have needed to revert to aggregate, because Stockholm Township doesn’t have the capacity to fully fund a project of this nature.

Mitch Klein, who has been a Stockholm Township resident since 2004, said he began looking into funding opportunities years ago.

After Jorgensen was elected to the Stockholm Township Board, he and Klein worked together to apply for the state park road account program grant.

The application was denied last year, but the board encouraged Jorgensen to apply again.

This time, Jorgensen tailored the application more to the funding specifications, and the project was approved.

Wright County is taking the lead on many aspects of the project, including soil borings, design and construction surveying, submitting plans to the Minnesota Department of Transportation and the DNR, bidding, and project inspection/administration.

Construction specifics
The Rhoades Avenue SW project includes full-depth reclamation of the existing pavement, and placement of a new surface of bituminous pavement.

According to Wright County Highway Engineer Virgil Hawkins, the work will be done under traffic – no detour will be needed.

“Traffic will be reduced to one lane at times during construction, and the contractor will be responsible for proper traffic control using flaggers on each side of the work zone,” Hawkins noted.

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