Road project to start next month

Storm sewer and water work in the Village of Belgium is slated to start in June.

The Village Board last month hired Kip Gulseth Construction of Manitowoc for the job. The company had the lowest of five bids, coming in at less than $1.9 million.

The next lowest bid, Public Works Director Dan Birenbaum said, was about $300,000 higher.

The village had worked with the company on a project a few years ago, he said.

About 60 households will be affected by the project, which calls for replacing the sanitary sewer mains and laterals on North, Elm and Commerce streets, Elevator Lane, the 600 block of Park Street and about a 400-foot section of Liberty Street.

Birenbaum said the project was taken from the list from an inflow and infiltration study from about 20 years ago. Some high-need areas have already been updated, such as Main and Maple streets and South Avenue.

“We’re just chipping away at our infrastructure, trying to get it updated and replaced,” Birenbaum said.

The loan is for $2.25 million, which includes engineering and contingency funding, Village Treasurer Vickie Boehnlein said, and will be paid for through the village sewer and water funds over five years. Taxes will not be affected since those funds are filled by user-generated fees.

Debt is falling off from a project in the sewer fund and a smaller loan is being paid off in the water fund, she said.

In addition, the village has been putting $85,000 per year into the sewer fund’s equipment replacement fund, which will help pay for the work.

The first payment will be made next year.

“Our timing is working out really well on this,” Boehnlein said.

If the project comes in under budget, leftover money could be used for other projects, she said.

The project, which will impact residents’ access to their driveways for short periods of time, is slated to be completed by the end of September.

The is the first of two phases of the project. Next year, stormwater work, including the addition of three ponds, and road reconstruction will be done.

That project will use money from the general fund and require a separate loan, but finances haven’t been figured out yet.

Funding for that work will be aided by the village’s tax incremental finance district, which is scheduled to close at the end of 2022. Land in the TIF district returns to the village tax rolls, which will lower the tax rate.