County and MnDOT back grade-separated Highway 36 interchange; Lake Elmo seeks clarity on Keats access and cost gap

Washington County project manager Andrew Giesen told the Lake Elmo City Council on Nov. 12 that a preferred design for the Highway 36/Lake Elmo Avenue intersection would raise Highway 36 over Lake Elmo Avenue with bridge structures and build a new south-side frontage road with full acceleration and deceleration ramps.

The county estimates total project costs at "roughly $50,000,000," Giesen said, and noted the City of Lake Elmo has programmed $5,000,000 in its capital improvement plan. Giesen said the city's share was initially calculated at about $12,000,000 but, after applying $3,000,000 in MnDOT funding and other outside funds, the city's remaining cost share could fall to "somewhere between 4 and 4 and a quarter million" below the budgeted amount; he also said an existing funding gap of roughly $4,000,000 remains and county and MnDOT staff are working to close it.

Giesen told the council the preferred alternative grew out of a multi-year…