Washington County, MnDOT outline $50M Highway 36 interchange plan; Lake Elmo council pushes back on Keats closure

Washington County and MnDOT officials on Nov. 12 presented Lake Elmo City Council members with a preferred design for the Highway 36 / Lake Elmo Avenue interchange that would raise Highway 36 over Lake Elmo Avenue, add a new south-side frontage road and full-length ramp acceleration/deceleration lanes, and separate local traffic from the high-speed trunk highway.

Andrew Giesen, project manager for Washington County, said the project — begun in 2021 — has completed environmental and design phases and is estimated to cost about $50,000,000 for design, right-of-way and construction. Lake Elmo has programmed $5,000,000 in its capital improvement program for its portion; the city’s work (largely a 1.5-mile south frontage road) was initially estimated at $12,000,000. After MnDOT offered $3,000,000 and other outside funding is applied, Giesen said the city’s remaining share is estimated at roughly $4.0–4.25 million. He also said Washington County and MnDOT are still working to close an approximate $4,000,000 overall funding gap.

Giesen also told the council the preferred design would require the full acquisition of River Valley Church; he said the county made a final offer that the church received positively and that a purchase agreement was expected within about a month, but that no sale had closed.

Why the closure at Keats is contested

The most contentious part of the presentation was a proposal tied to MnDOT’s cost-participation and access-management policies: in order for MnDOT to participate in constructing the local south frontage road and associated right-of-way costs, the project team recommended full closure of Keats Avenue access to eastbound Highway 36. MnDOT engineer Mr. Tomasovich and staff argued that eliminating the Keats access aligns with access-management guidelines for a high-speed, high-volume trunk highway (Giesen described Highway 36 as carrying more than 50,000 average daily trips) and would allow MnDOT to fund the frontage road with little or no city cost participation while providing safer, modern merge geometry.

Several council members raised objections. Mayor (unnamed) and Council member Craigness said many long-term residents rely on the eastbound-to-southbound right-turn movement at Keats for direct access to nearby neighborhoods and emergency services, and they asked for crash-data specific to that right-turn movement (staff said available crash data was for the intersection as a whole, not the single turn lane). Craigness proposed a third option: retain the right-turn movement but adopt measurable performance criteria (for example, a crash-threshold) that would trigger closure only if safety data later demonstrates a problem. The mayor and others pressed MnDOT and the county to revisit that option before the council endorses a design that eliminates direct access.

Construction schedule and working hours

Giesen said construction is programmed to begin in 2026 and run across two full seasons, finishing in 2027. To meet that schedule, Washington County requested an extension to Lake Elmo’s allowable working hours (city code currently allows construction Monday–Friday 7 a.m.–7 p.m. and Saturdays 8 a.m.–6 p.m.). County staff asked for flexibility that could include limited Sundays in the first, tighter year of construction to complete the eastbound bridge work on schedule. Council members expressed support for limited exceptions but asked staff to cap the number of Sundays (for example, a set number of Sunday work days per season) and to include such limits in contract language.

Next steps

Giesen said the county and MnDOT will follow up on the Keats access discussion and return to the city with recommendations. Staff will also seek approval of a cost-and-maintenance agreement and will bring a proposal on allowable working hours back to council for formal action in December or January; staff expects to advertise the construction bid package in March, open bids in April and award a contract in May, and to host a public open house in the spring explaining staging and neighborhood impacts.

Council members asked that staff provide clearer, turn-by-turn explanations of who bears which costs (for example, wetlands mitigation, right-of-way acquisition) and to confirm the timeline for any property acquisition tied to the River Valley Church offer. The county said design, right-of-way acquisition and mitigation would be led by Washington County, with MnDOT’s participation contingent on access changes that match its cost-participation policy.

Where this stands

No formal action or vote was taken at the workshop. County and MnDOT staff will return with follow-up information, including responses to council requests about Keats-access alternatives, specific crash data requests, and a draft cost-and-maintenance agreement and working-hours proposal for council consideration.