By Robert Williams

Editor

City Engineer (Ulteig) Chris Thorson and PartnerSHIP 4 Health’s Active Living Planner Patrick Hollister presented the Frazee Main Avenue Complete Streets Study during a public input meeting at the Event Center on Thursday June 12.

The presentation provided a preliminary review of specific street sections and corridor layouts along the entirety of Main Avenue.

PartnerSHIP 4 Health funded the “Complete Streets” study, which considers the needs of motorists, pedestrians, bicyclists, and commercial and emergency vehicles using the corridor.

The study is the first step in the project plan design process.

One big question is how is this project being funded?

“Becker County owns the corridor,” said Thorson. “They’re paying for all the improvements in regards to the street, curb and gutter, sidewalk, storm sewer and items like that.” 

The county highway department and City of Frazee are planning for the reconstruction of Main Avenue during the summer of 2027. The work will consist of reconstructing the pavement and concrete curb/sidewalks designed with American Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance. Minimal underground utility work is planned, as that work was completed last in 1999 on West Main and in 2000 on East Main, according to Thorson.

“The city replaced all the water and sewer lines; the county replaced most of their storm sewer lines, so with this project we’re mostly just looking at street surface work,” said Thorson. “There are a few underground areas that will be addressed.

Those include a portion of storm sewer by Fourth Street near the pond, along with moving or adjusting hydrant locations. 

A new aspect was brought up by a resident that some living near Fourth Street have galvanized water service lines that will need to be replaced.

Thorson agreed that would need to be done and it was confirmed by City Administrator Stephanie Poegel.

On the city’s end, plans are to install a new street lighting system along Main Avenue.

The reason for the new system, according to Poegel, the street lights on Main Avenue are starting to fail. There are parts of the poles that are becoming difficult to acquire, along with rust at the base of some of the poles. The street lights will be updated to match those along Highway 87.

“The city will be looking at the cost-share of the street lights,” said Thorson. 

The committee that helped create the study added “Share the Road” bike lanes as part of Frazee’s commitment to be a bicycle-friendly community. The other committee finding was the addition of sidewalk on the south side of Main Ave. West from Third to Fourth Street, basically city hall past the pond to Fifth Street.

This portion of the plan got the most feedback from residents of the area, mainly the 300 block of West Main. Those homes have minimal front yards and limited off-street parking that residents were worried would be affected. Homeowners there only have access to their property from the front of the homes with the railroad on the backside.

Residents also questioned the need for the southside sidewalk in front of their homes.

Thorson explained the particular areas in question will be looked at thoroughly during the final design process and thanked the group for their feedback.

“We welcome that input; we want to hear that,” he said. “Once we do have a field topographic survey done by a land survey crew and we have all the information at hand that’s when we really get into the fine tuning of those nuts and bolts of how it is sitting? How will it fit? What can we do differently?” he said.

The study also allows for the need for varying sidewalk widths in certain areas with a minimum of four-feet. 

The current sidewalk downtown is 8-feet without the curb and the parking area is 12-feet. The study has a 7.5-foot area for parking and an additional 5-feet that will be a bike lane, thus keeping the 12-foot width for parking. By request of Public Works Supervisor Larry Stephenson the downtown area will have 9-foot sidewalks to allow for easier snow removal.

The intersection of Lake Street and Main Avenue will be left as is, having been redone during the Highway 87 road project in 2022.