City of Des Moines, Iowa City of Des Moines Engineering Public Meetings, 25 Aug 2021

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From YouTube: 8-25-21 Penn. Ave Reconstruction Meeting

Description

City of Des Moines Engineering informational meeting regarding the Pennsylvania Avenue Reconstruction project.

A

All right, good evening, everybody again with uh here for the pennsylvania, avenue reconstruction public meeting, we're going to give folks just a couple minutes to sign on um uh here to you know some people made. I have had to go register through the through the zoom process. I want to give people just a minute or two here before we get started.

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All right, uh good evening, everybody, uh uh my name- is steve nabor, I'm the city engineer for the city of des moines and uh happy to present uh this project, uh which includes the pennsylvania, avenue reconstruction project. uh The limits are from north of uh just north of university avenue, where there's, uh if you're, if you're familiar, there's, uh there's a stretch and the approach of university everything that's concrete, so starting at about that, where the concrete ends all the way north to east washington avenue is the limits of the repayment reconstruction.

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So so this meeting is to talk about what that project is. We appreciate everyone doing this meeting in zoom. Unfortunately, our uh the the pandemic continues on and uh and so we've. uh We appreciate everyone's patience in doing these meetings. uh uh Virtually uh we we actually, we would rather have these meetings in person. It's we feel it's better in person interact, but uh with the pandemic. This has also been a nice tool uh to hold these meetings and, and the other benefit is. We are actually able to record these.

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So if folks are unable to attend, uh they can watch uh this meeting and get the information at a later time. uh So that being said with the zoom, hopefully uh just kind of a little uh how to operate zoom uh you can see. Hopefully you see a menu bar that looks kind of like this at the bottom of your screen.

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If you click on participants, uh there's a way to uh you, click on participants, you're able to actually click on, raise your hand uh raise hand, and so we asked amanda to try and keep the meeting early and uh so other everyone gets a chance to uh to ask questions and and or have comments.

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uh We ask that you raise your hand if you have a question or comment uh if you're on a phone, I'm not seeing anybody on a phone in the register, but if you're on a phone press star 9 to raise your hand and then you can press star 6 to unmute yourself so again, if you're on a phone press, star 9 to raise your hand and the mute to mute or unmute yourself plus star six again otherwise, for those of you that are on a a laptop or a smart device or application, uh then uh please use the menu bar there with the participants to raise your hand again.

A

So I'm going to give a quick presentation- uh and I have some team members on with me- uh john davis and brad brockman dave camp and tom block uh all with the city uh they're involved in the project, design uh and engineering and planning. I also uh see uh we have our council member, linda westergaard, who is who is on the meeting as well. So thank you. Thank you. Councilman westergard uh and uh I know uh councilmember voss, just sent me a message.

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Councilman vos is also going to jump on here soon he's just getting back from another personal conflict, so this project, as you can see in the bottom of your screen, it is actually funded thanks to the local option, sales and service tax. So thanks to that, uh the passing of that that uh sales and service tax, uh the city has uh definitely to say the least, uh accelerated a lot of roadway improvements, including this one, uh and so that that status, that's how this project is being funded uh through local options, sales and service tax.

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uh That's that's! That's pretty much solely the funding source. uh It's not not gonna be an assessment or any uh tax on directly on either adjacent property owners. This project again is funded through local options by the local options, sales and service tax. So I want to cover. Why is this project needed? uh What the proposed improvements are the anticipated sequence of construction and phasing uh and the schedule, and then I I'd like to open it up for questions and comments.

A

So uh so that's that's what I like to cover today again we're talking about pennsylvania avenue between north of the university to uh east washington. So why is this project needed? uh I think if, hopefully, if you know, if you've driven down the street, uh uh you you've been probably obviously familiar with this. This photo due to pavement condition. This road needs to be fully reconstructed.

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uh We at the city have a pavement management system uh where we try and apply the the correct uh rehabilitation method to streets, to keep them in good condition. That's a balance.

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uh What you see is in the city is a balance of reconstruction projects, full reconstruction, meaning we have to actually excavate down all the way down to the dirt and rebuild the whole pavement structure uh to resurfacing projects where we mill down uh uh anywhere from you, know, two to two to four inches and and put a new surface and do some patching and put a new surface back on uh down to preventative maintenance type measures like slurry sealing, where we actually our public works, crews, go out and and and put a coating, if you will uh a mixture on the road to actually preserve the road and alleviate the uh deterioration.

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So, uh in this case, uh uh this road uh resurfacing would not provide a long launch of life, uh and it would not be the the best application for this, so we, this road actually needs full reconstruction.

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So that's that's the driver of the project why this project started when we get into do things like full reconstruction, we do uh turn to our our transportation master plan, which is called move dsm, and we look at well since we're actually completely tearing up the road. How should we put it back? Well, the transportation master plan is our vision and, as part of this, uh this project uh pennsylvania avenue. This section of pennsylvania avenue is on the core uh bicycle network, and so uh this gives us the the time.

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This would be the time since we have everything tore up to actually put the road back. The way we want it and also put in the uh uh the the shared use trail. You know we'll show that a little bit later here so that so that's that's also a need in our planning efforts. Well, since we're reconstructing now would be the time to do that so again from an overview standpoint, uh the reconstruction limits are shown here in yellow the reconstruction limits are essentially just north of the universe.

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The lutheran hospital drive so north of university avenue you'll see that the pavement today changes from concrete to asphalt so essentially at the end of that concrete street there or concrete piece, so north of the lutheran hospital drive all the way up to east washington avenue.

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So that's the limits of the reconstruction in terms of a shared use trail.

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The gap to fill at this shared use trail will actually go from the university all the way down to berlin, marina, where the new trail was built, and so again this would be a ten foot wide trail uh today, there's either a gap or sometimes there's a sidewalk or there's a seven foot wide type sidewalk uh down there. So this would be a ten foot wide trail uh we hit with.

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This is a highly used uh trail and obviously the connection between downtown to our birdland marina is, is critical and and and and and has a lot of high use. So this this is why we we need to do a 10 foot wide trail here so again here the pink is showing the 10 foot wide trail.

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When we look at rebuilding the pavement, uh this would be the pavement section. The current pavement section is 30 feet back of curb to back of curb uh we we are in order to get the trailing we are proposing and we're planning to put in a 27 foot back occurred to back a curb that 27 feet is a common uh width uh for our our streets, including our collector streets. This would be considered a collector or community residential street, uh as planned in move dsm.

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27 feet back to back meets the the fire code uh from a standpoint of providing a street that, if there is parking on one side uh that uh that emergency spots can can pat can can respond and then also uh allows, if there's parking on one side, two-way traffic, and so that's why? How we come up with the 27 back-to-back uh it? It would allow uh the opportunity for for for parking on one side.

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uh The then, as you can see over on the the left side of the page there on the west side of the road that we that's where we were proposing in the 10 foot trail uh roughly five feet up most a lot of cases, five feet off the back of curb. We generally desire a minimum.

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Five foot, parkway or parking is sometimes referred grass parkway area, that's because a five foot is typically needed uh for uh to act really allow vegetation growth, uh in addition to providing the buffer between uh between the roadway and uh um in in the shared use trail.

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So so again here- and this also shows again we're talking about building a full brand new pavement uh with a cement troop digging all the way down to the dirt and and uh cement, treating that that base that sub base and then building it all the way back up with the hot mix asphalt base course and brand new hot mix asphalt surface course, uh so we would be looking at. You know eight and a half inches of brand new pavement.

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uh So um so this is, this again shows the pavement section that we're looking at here.

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Looking a little closer at the improvements uh again, as I mentioned, the trail charities trail starts at university uh and goes and and goes the full length of the trails shown in pink here. The reconstruction limits shown in yellow, as I mentioned, they're starting just north of university avenue and continuing on uh and so through there, as you can see, with the shared use, trail uh that that in some cases, will require new driveway aprons to be replaced.

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You can see them here in orange and then the reconstruction limits, as I mentioned, stop at east washington, univ, east washington avenue. However, the trail does does need to go, is needed to go all the way down toward to connect to our our newer trail down by birth of marina.

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So and this bit. This image right here shows that trail uh going all the way down to connect to the new to the new trail down at berlin, marina.

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Again, when we talk about reconstruction, these are example, photos to show you what it looks like uh it. There's no sugar coating. This uh reconstruction is extremely impactful uh uh yeah. Yes, it would be easier for us to to resurface, but resurfacing just will not fix the pavement. We'd be back in a very short amount of time again later. If we resurface the street, it would not be actually fixing the problem, so we do need to dig down.

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As you see here, here's kind of what we anticipate is the sequence of construction, and so we would actually need to dig down all the way down to the dirt sub bases you see in this photo.

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uh There will be some uh storm sewer work uh you know associated with this project, uh so this is kind of an example that utility work then. Finally, then we would get to the roadway paving and then building the the tra shared use trail on the west side and then finally would be restoration, so this could hopefully these photos give you kind of an example of what we're looking at. Here. We talk about full reconstruction, uh it's it's. It's definitely impactful you're.

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Talking about completely tearing everything up, and so when we do that, uh because we're tearing everything up we've got to find a way to minimize as much as we can disruption to uh our our our residents and folks that live, live and work along and along the corridor, uh and so we we are proposing to do this in phases, uh and so the phases uh start. Essentially, the anticipated phase would be to go from the hospital entrance up to to neola avenue, and you can see here's the detour east.

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Ninth during the reconstruction, we would use east 9th street as the detour route uh for for for access, so east 9th will be the detour so again going from this fate starting off in phases, uh the lutheran hospital entrance up to neola, then we would go from neola up to uh essentially up to uh just north of cleveland.

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We have listed here at 1410, penn avenue and so that that would be the next phase again still using east 9th as the detour.

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And then uh then the fi, the final reconstruction phase, uh would take us up to uh to east washington. Oh I'm trying to actually did the next phase would take us up to this western portion of east washington and then finally get up to to washington so uh again trying to do this in phases uh to try and preserve access uh as much as possible to the businesses.

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And so when we talk about that, uh that preserving access will mean uh on times building temporary drives access roads uh uh just for uh to get to those those businesses, and so that's why we do it in stages to try and coordinate that. So we can try and maintain access to all those access points on along pennsylvania, avenue.

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And then here stage you know shows the whole trail. uh The trail could be combined with street improvements. These are things that we would work with the contractor on uh once we get a contractor on board and actually and we actually bid the project to get a contractor on board and how that would actually fit in with the project.

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So we talked about schedule for the project. uh We're looking at a spring through some through the end of summer here to design then we'd hope to have construction drawings prepared this winter for bidding, uh and then the construction would actually occur, hopefully starting in the spring of 22 so spring of next year, and we do anticipate it's it's likely a two season project. So that's that's. What we're looking at right now.

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I do want to put this on the screen. uh Brad brockman is our project engineer. So uh if folks uh have comments that they think of later or have more detailed questions, they like to talk, talk uh talk through uh brad is our our main designer project engineer uh and definitely is more. uh Has more of the details on on on the project? uh Again, we still are. uh We have not completed the design so we're a little early on.

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We like to hold these meetings, uh our public meetings earlier, uh just in case there are feedback that we could alter, how we uh design and put the construction documents together and staging together. So so, while we don't probably have all the answers today, you know brad, it would be definitely the one as the project progresses in its design and in the construction will be uh the one who's managing that so here's brad's in for brad brockman's information.

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So that's it! It wasn't not a very long uh presentation, but uh I would like to pause. I again. I have uh dave camp john davis, uh brad brockman uh tom block with me as well. uh So are there any uh attendees that uh that have any questions or or comments.

B

Hi this is geniune bowers and I am the property manager for the riverview oaks there at 1410 penn.

B

My concern is, is what's going to happen with the tenants uh parking, especially if you're going to be blocking off the drives there. Do you guys know you're, probably not going to know much of an answer with that one right now are you.

A

Let's see here, let me try and see if I can get.

B

I have three drives.

A

Let me go here uh to your driveway here. Bear with me just a second. Let me get up to the.

C

A

Are you you're off of uh rip this river view right here, jenny.

B

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D

She no she's further to the north.

B

Up here, you're a little bit further riverview oaks apartment.

D

North down one, oh.

B

You're, a little too far might be right.

A

Here let me uh I apologize. My volume is not.

A

It's a little difficult, so you want me to go one more north, correct.

A

Let me just go to the staging here.

A

Are we talking right here.

B

Yes, yeah, I got the six buildings there. I've got two down in what I call my hole that only have the one drive access but then my other, where my four buildings are at. I have to drive access to it, but my concern is: when you guys block off all, are you going to be blocking off all three of those at the same time? Are you doing it simultaneously?

B

How are you going to do that and where? How are my tenants going because right now, I'm already at a problem with parking anyway? So if I pull my hole up here to in my big area to park, we're not going to have enough spots.

D

B

D

This is uh dave camp, so so uh the plan is is that the number of parking spots would not necessarily be impacted, but uh you can see I think brad may have been talking to the property owner, maybe not you as the property manager, yes correct mike, so so they've been talking about uh putting in temporary accesses between the parking lots to keep access in and out of those driveways.

D

When one is being cons, you know, because I think one of them, may um you know you have three uh in that location so having the contractor provide a temporary access between uh the parking lots, so the folks can still get out and still access the apartment, complex, you're right the same. The same is going to happen up at uh the lutheran hospital.

D

We just have a lot of high density parking in this area, and typically um we don't stage this in so many stages, but knowing that the density through here, uh we are chopping up the project into stages to keep people getting access back and forth to their to their homes.

B

Okay, I I could just see all my people down in the hole coming up here and carrying their children in their grocery store.

D

Yep, yep and and- and you know, on the east side of the street, um the density is not as as as high, so some of those folks may not be able to access their drives through the construction. It's just not feasible to hit every single driveway, but when you have a very dense parking lot like these, that's when we tried to stage it as best as we could so. Okay, awesome.

B

Awesome awesome, okay. That was my only question. I've got now. When do you typically think? um Okay, so you said it's gonna be starting around the spring of 2022, correct.

D

B

Okay and then ending I'm just because I'm I'm going to get my 10 minutes fully prepared for you guys, so we don't have a lot of people out there. So.

D

What will happen is when we bid this out, we'll find out who the contractor is, and then we can provide more information on specific time frames, with both changeable message, boards and door hangers to to the to the properties along the route.

B

Awesome: okay, okay, all right, very good! All right! Thank you.

A

Thank you yeah, and let me uh also just put up again brad's information. uh uh Please yeah! Please definitely uh write that down the 283-4070 number uh 283-4070 number, just if there's any follow-up questions or to keep in contact um throughout this show.

B

Absolutely all right, thank you.

A

Yeah and building the temporary access is pretty common. We've been doing that. um I know. For example, I live on the east side, we have east douglas under construction, and we have. We actually have the contractor, build a uh a temporary, gravel uh granular road uh between drives to for people to get access to their properties, and that's, as dave mentioned, why we are doing so many stages, because we do want to minimize the distance of those uh temporary accesses as well. So.

B

Yeah yeah, I was really impressed with the flew or drive how you guys had that for for those residents over there. You had that a temporary access for them, so I kind of thought- maybe that's probably what you guys were going to do, but uh that's not how bogey presented it to me. So I just want to kind of make sure of that so yeah, because they're all.

B

Very very early morning workers and come home late at night.

A

B

All right, thank you, sir.

A

Thank you, okay, all right, any other questions.

E

Hey steve jack dougherty here: can you hear me? Okay? Yes, yes, um I'm at 1706 pennsylvania avenue, so I'm just in the area where only the trail will be worked on not the street. But I do have a couple questions.

E

um When you talk about the schedule going through two seasons, would would you open the street back up during the winter and then start construction again in the spring? What's the plan for the winter yep.

A

Yeah, that's typically the case and now brad or dave. We probably don't have the staging set to where we would get, but that we typically would shut it down in the winter. uh It's obviously allowed snow removal and those sort of things unless.

C

A

I guess had a real mild winter, but that's typically, we always are shut down, for um uh especially in.

D

A

D

And we would put in the contract provisions that they would have to open up uh pennsylvania avenue um it. You know and of course, um some contractors might get it done sooner than than than others, but we are probably planning on a two season construction season, just so everyone's prepared for that. But yes, it would be open for the winter to traffic.

E

Thank you for that, a couple more if I, if I may um so it at my house, at 1706 and at the house neighboring me, which is uh 1712, penn avenue, there's iron curbs um and I I was not able to dig up the documentation yet, but I think it exists at one point in time the city talked about taking out the iron curbs and replacement with concrete curves, and uh there was uh some resistance to that and I believe there was a city council action saying that we were due to the historic nature of those iron curbs.

E

They were going to be kept real, quick, the history on that, as these two houses were built by the owners of eagle iron works, and so that's why there's iron curves in front of here so there's a little there's some historical significance for that. So I just want to check and see if you made plans for retaining those.

D

I think the plan in this particular area and you're talking the curbs in front of um yeah. I can see them from the street view. um We had not I and I'm not familiar with that council action. uh That said to retain, am I just not familiar with that? um The the plan was in this particular area was to only address the the trail, so we had not looked into any of the street improvements in that location, so um our focus was mainly on the trail in this area.

E

Okay, so that that being the case, the assumption would probably be that you wouldn't have any reason to mess with the curbs there.

D

That that's, uh that is.

E

Correct okay super um and then um I'm dealing working with brad brockman on some of the details that I won't try to bore everybody with right now, but bigger picture as far as the the width and kind of what happens with my sidewalk and my property in front of my house um trying to get a handle on that. So it looks like you're going with a narrower street by three feet. But now the trail is going to be wider by 10 feet.

E

So, are you also increasing the width of the parking there? I'm trying to get a handle on is. It sounds like the trail will still get pushed to the further to the west than it is now. So it would come a little bit further closer to my property. Does that.

D

So um in your area, I'm just looking up real quick. The exact widths that are here bear with me.

A

And and just for clarification and dave and brad krugman wrong, but the street is actually only getting narrowed uh or put to 27 feet uh between uh uh the hospital entrance in east washington, so south of east washington street the street would probably stay. The same would say the same with north of east washington, but yeah dave you're, looking up where how the trail correct. So what increased from, I think it's seven feet to ten feet. If I remember is that correct.

D

The the the the sidewalk in front of your house currently is a little bit wider than a normal sidewalk, but yet it's not quite wide enough for a trail.

D

So um it's just trying to fit an extra three feet in that area and uh yeah brad, and I have been talking about what what to do and the concerns you had in front of your uh property as well. So.

E

Yeah we can continue to work on that. I don't necessarily mean to waste everybody's time with that, but I just the street width change was something new to me, so I just want to double check on that.

D

Yeah, that's mainly south of washington,.

E

Okay um also, it sounds like we'll. You know, need to lose access to our driveway for some period of time, while that new trail gets put through there, which is part of the deal which we're okay with just trying to get a handle on what we think. The time frame of that might be.

D

Typically, on on in this section, driveways usually will take um if we were to say a conservative estimate a day to remove the drive a day to form it a day to pour it and two days to have it cure out and harden now. That's that's a very, very conservative estimate of time.

D

uh So, like I say some contractors, do it extremely quick and some will take a little bit longer, so we kind of usually tell folks about a week um just so you're prepared and when it comes in sooner than that, that's you know better. So that's just a rule.

A

Of thumb and and dave just declare you're talking about a scenario that would likely be that would be north of east washington. That.

D

Is correct because.

A

We're just the trent just the trail is being added through the driveway, the driveways that are in the reconstruction portion, which is shown in yellow south of washington, uh those those. Obviously, that would be kind of the duration of the reconstruction. And so there would be lengthier, lengthy time periods where you'd be driving on gravel ramps to get to the driveway.

D

Correct. Thank you for clarifying.

E

That okay yeah we'll just plan on three four five days or something like that and definitely work with that, because we're excited to have that nice new trail. So um that's! That's really all the big questions I had all the others are kind of detailed things.

C

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E

Can work with brad on so that's all for now.

A

Make sure I go back to brad's contact just to make sure folks uh on the zoom can see again brad brockman, two eight three: four: zero: seven: zero. uh If there's any d, you know for those that have details or follow-up questions.

A

We do intend to in september move forward with the final design and start on final design and preparation of construction bid documents and that's where we would work out uh more of these details uh and that's why again, I appreciate the all the comments and you know you know jack. Thank you for the comments on the iron curb that's something we will we'll have to work work around when we uh as we do the design of that trail. So.

A

I do have any other comments. I also see again I mentioned uh thank you councilman westergard and councilmember voss. uh Thank you for for joining us. What.

D

One question uh for uh jack um is: is the iron curb something you wanna see kept in place or something you wanted to be removed and replaced.

E

um Kept in place would be the best okay, okay,.

C

B

C

Could always have it removed and then hang it on the wall.

E

Yeah, it would make a nice long.

C

Shelf, maybe the contractor needs to be aware of special events at captain roy's during this time period.

E

Yeah, maybe they need to be aware of lunch. Specials too, we'll make sure that.

C

Could help move that project along? Yes,.

A

All right do you have any other questions comments.

C

All righty all right.

A

We're hearing hearing none, uh I want to thank everyone for their time and and uh again, please, uh if you think of anything else, uh please don't hesitate to reach out to brad or any of our team, but again 283-4070.

A

uh If you have any follow-up questions otherwise again we're looking at uh we're excited to kick this project off uh next spring and uh and and appreciate uh uh the whole city's support with the local option, sales and service tax to to fund this project, because it's definitely needed uh neat definitely needs some paper reconstruction and we're very excited about the trail uh connection to from our downtown to berlin, marina. So that being said, everyone have a wonderful night. uh Please stay stay, stay, safe and healthy and have a good evening.

B

Awesome, thank you. Have a good night.