The final links of the Luverne Loop will be built this summer, completing the city’s seven-mile biking and pedestrian trail that’s been seven years in the making.
At their Jan. 25 meeting City Council members approved plans and specifications for Phase 3B and Phase 4 of the loop project and authorized advertising for a Feb. 16 bid letting.
“These are the final two phases of the project and are the links that provide for a beautiful seven-mile biking and walking trail around the entire community,” City Administrator John Call said.
Phase 4 is almost a mile long and will connect the trail from the Highway 75 Economy Lodge area to the existing trail that dead-ends at the Rock River near the Luverne wastewater treatment plant area.
The most recent construction, Phase 3A, built the Loop from the existing Blue Mound Trail along berm of the Rock River near the city park and behind Redbird Field and southward.
Phase 3B is .75 miles and will bring the trail at the north end of the community, around Sanford area and east to connect with the Blue Mound Trail.
The Phase 4 bids will call out some options in surfacing to either concrete or asphalt and will give the City Council flexibility to use either concrete or asphalt on different areas of the trail.
Construction will start on or after April 4, with a completion date of Aug. 27, 2022.
Approximately 70 percent of the trail will be financed with grant funds from the state of Minnesota.
In capital improvement planning last year, the council budgeted $732,000 for Phase 3B Trail work with a $512,000 Legacy Grant going toward that amount.
Phase 4 work, estimated at $571,000, will be offset by a Legacy Grant in the amount of $399,700.
The Loop and the Blue Mound Trail to the state park offers 13 contiguous miles, which is popular among users and prompted the Greater Minnesota Regional Parks and Trails Commission to name the Loop a “Regional Trail of Significance.”
That designation qualifies the local trail for more grant funds and other state support.