City secures downtown revitalization grant
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Square revitalization project incorporates permeable pavers and bio retention cells
At their regular meeting on Wednesday, March 19, Mount Ayr city council members learned a grant will significantly help the square revitalization project, targeting a December 1, 2026 completion window.
Madison St. Project Update
Greg Roth, P.E. with Veenstra and Kimm provided an update on the Madison Street project currently underway at the March 19 council meeting.
A change order (No. 1) submitted by Roth on behalf of V&K, and their contractor Caliper Concrete, cemented the cost of sanitary sewer plan changes at $52,459. The city agreed to compensate the contractor for additional work due to changes in project circumstances.
The current sewer project and sidewalk improvements for a 1-block section of Madison Street is expected to be complete by April 30, 2025.
Among updates, Roth announced that the city was awarded nearly $370,000 in grant funds, which was more than they requested, for future work along Madison St.
Grants awarded
The Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship (IDALS) has recently awarded the City of Mount Ayr $368,995 towards the square streetscape reconstruction project.
This grant, along with a $750,000 Federal HUD Grant awarded to the city in 2023, brings the grant funding total to roughly $1.2 MIL. Collectively, grant funding will cover around a third of the total project cost, which was estimated at over $3 MIL.
Jeremy Rounds, a Regional Planner at Southern Iowa Council of Governments, assisted the city in identifying available grant funding and preparing the IDALS grant application. Supporting documents, including the engineering plan required for the grant, were supplied by Veenstra & Kimm.
“This project is within our eight county regional area, and is the only water quality project we’ve been involved with,” stated Rounds.
The IDALS Water Quality Initiative Program was established to assess and reduce nutrients in the state’s watersheds, including subwatersheds and regional watersheds with the goal of establishing projects that reduce nutrients in surface waters from nonpoint sources in a scientific, reasonable, and cost-effective manner.
Square Streetscape Project
The City of Mount Ayr began designing a comprehensive downtown streetscape project several years ago, due to the aging of existing brick streets, poor storm water management, and rapidly declining curb and gutter conditions in several locations. Because the downtown square is located on a hilltop, excess storm water flows downhill to surrounding neighborhoods.
The 100-year-old bricks on the existing street surface were not designed to percolate storm water. The accumulation of grit and clay between the bricks and absence of a subdrain under the streets results in water collecting on the street in parking areas.
Presently, captured water is stored in an outdated and inadequate system that discharges into a stream near the wastewater treatment facility.
Flooding, caused in part by excessive water runoff from the downtown square area, has damaged the plant’s infrastructure and threatens further damage as stream bank erosion creeps toward the plant.
Veenstra & Kimm was hired by the city to design improvements to the square infrastructure and hold multiple public meetings along with a community survey.
Their plan will repave the brick streets on the traveled portion and incorporate permeable pavers in the parking lanes, similar to the existing bricks. Additionally, subdrains will be installed in the parking portion of the four downtown street blocks, and two bio-retention cells will be created on the northwest and southwest comers of the square along Madison and Monroe Street.
The permeable pavers and biocell areas will collect rainwater and snowmelt from the street and sidewalk surface area.
As rain or snow falls, water will flow between the pavers into a subdrain, which acts like a mini stormwater system.
Sidewalks surrounding the square will be widened as part of the larger streetscape project, along with alleys and parking drives, to deliver water to the bioretention cells and the permeable pavers.
The project will help keep water from ponding due to rain and snow melt around the square. Nearly 100% of the surface water in a 1.5-acre area around the square will also be slowly filtered through either the pavers or the biocells and then through the subdrain system.
The new system will provide partial pretreatment of street debris, such as oil, and reduce the rate of water flow downstream, which has previously caused excessive erosion at the wastewater treatment facility (WWTF).
Properly handling water on the roadway will extend the life of the newly reconstructed Mount Ayr Square.
The cost-share grant is being supplemented by The City of Mount Ayr and other project partners including:
• Ringgold County Development;
• Mount Ayr Chamber of Commerce;
• Mount Ayr Library and Mount Ayr Record News;
• Ringgold County has agreed to help pay for educational signage required by the grant;
• Mount Ayr High School (biology class or similar);
• Local 4-H clubs.
Square Project Timeline
Although a timeline has not yet established for the square streetscape project, City Administrator Brent Wise expects to start with requesting bids this spring/summer.
Preliminary project planning and initial steps will likely be taken in 2025 while major construction is not expected to start until after the Sesquicentennial celebration in September or the spring of 2026.
The city plans to start along the north side of the square and continue extending improvements along Madison Street from the Timby Building corner to the Mount Ayr Record News.
