ALEXANDRIA – The Alexandria City Council has approved the levy of $381,638 in property taxes for 2025, as requested by the Alexandria Housing and Redevelopment Authority.

The levy is well below the maximum amount allowed by law of $430,611. This is also a 2.4% decrease from the 2024 levy of $390,926.

Jeff Hess, CEO of HRA, listed some highlights for 2024:

Single-family home construction. As in past years, HRA continues to build and sell single-family homes. Currently, no homes are listed on the MLS. However, this year two homes were built and sold.

The Launchpad program. In 2020, HRA partnered with West Central Communities Action to build the Launchpad program. Through this partnership, HRA developed a two-unit townhouse and leased it back to West Central Communities Action to provide short-term housing to individuals and families facing barriers leading to homelessness. West Central began providing programs on July 1, 2020. This has been an extremely valuable tool in addressing homelessness in Alexandria, Hess said. In August 2023, HRA began construction on two additional units on Park Street, which it will also lease to West Central, bringing the total number of units available for the programs to five in the City of Alexandria.

City of Alexandria Rental Inspection. For the first time, the HRA has been given the administrative responsibility to register housing units with the city and to conduct inspections itself. In the future, the HRA will be responsible for registering housing units, conducting inspections in accordance with city ordinance, and coordinating annual training for landlords.

Apartments by Twenty08. In the summer of 2021, the Alexandria HRA and DW Jones Inc. submitted an application to Minnesota Housing for the Twenty08 apartment building, which was to be a 35-37 unit apartment building adjacent to the Central Lakes Apartments, which, if successful, would have been subsidized by Minnesota Housing’s Section 42 tax credits, with rents and income restrictions meeting tax credit guidelines. This application was unsuccessful and the project was redesignated as a 64-unit workforce housing project, with 13 TIF-assisted units in the building. DW Jones submitted a successful application for the workforce housing program on behalf of the City of Alexandria and received $499,000 in assistance. This project was not feasible under current construction conditions and construction did not begin as expected. Instead, the partners reapplied to Minnesota Housing on behalf of the City for an additional $3,065,174. The HRA is awaiting news on the success of this application. In addition, the project was expanded from 35 to 65 units.

Childcare pods. In the summer of 2024, HRA partnered with the City of Alexandria, the Economic Development Authority, and Alexandria Technical and Community College to develop two child care units. HRA leases its owned land to the city where the units will be located and acts as the developer/owner’s agent in this project. Under the unit model, individual providers work in the same building and share some resources.

In another process involving the HRA, the council approved a lease with the Alexandria HRA that will allow for the construction of a duplex for daycare. The HRA owns the property at the corner of 1514 and 1516 Lake Street. The city will build a duplex on the site and has agreed to pay the HRA $1 per year in rent for 30 years.

Below are items from the August 26 meeting that were not covered in the City Council’s other reports.

ALP Utilities is making progress with the construction of its Operations Center project.

The financing plan for the project calls for the use of $4 million from ALP Utilities’ cash reserves and the issuance of $10 million in municipal bonds.

In a letter to council, ALP Utilities explained that the bonds were utility revenue bonds, paid for entirely from revenue from tariffs paid by the utility’s electricity customers. Bond payments would be made over a 15-year period.

The cost of the debt issuance and the funds required for the debt service reserve are included in the bond issue, bringing the total issuance to $10.93 million.

The council approved the issuance and terms of the bonds. The Alexandria Board of Public Utilities will consider awarding the bids at its September 30 meeting.

ALP Utilities, Alexandria’s nonprofit municipal power company, has announced that it plans to build a new, consolidated operations center to meet the demand caused by the community’s growth.

This project represents the first phase of a strategic investment plan that will include phases for the operations center and pole storage yard, a substation, potential new power generation, and a water tower over the next decade.

Contributed photo

Construction of the new 37,000-square-foot building is scheduled to begin this summer, with completion planned for fall 2025. Total construction costs for this first phase are estimated at $14 million.

ALP is currently located at 316 Fillmore Street and has its equipment in two off-site storage facilities and two on-site outbuildings. ALP’s headquarters was built in 1967 to serve Alexandria’s 7,000 residents. Today, the population is over 15,000, increasing service needs, complicating daily operations, requiring repairs and upgrades to the existing storage facilities and requiring additional off-site storage facilities, the utility said.

The Council has scheduled a public hearing to discuss the preliminary city budget and property tax levy for 2025.

It will take place on Monday, September 23rd, at 7:15 p.m. in the town hall.

The Council passed a resolution authorizing the award of a grant from the Minnesota Department of Transportation to study the Alexandria Airport terminal area.

The study will examine both sufficient wing clearance in the refueling area and the appropriate placement of the new refueling equipment. Data will also be collected on obstacles on the runway.

The total cost for the student is $256,700. The city’s share is $12,835, and the rest is covered by federal and state funds.

The City’s Downtown Redevelopment Revolving Loan Fund will be used to repair the canopy at 619/621 Broadway, the site of the Past and Present Home Gallery.

Patrick Hogan, doing business as Broadway Enterprises, LLC, applied for a $5,000 loan at 1% interest for 48 months.

The total project cost is $12,850.

The fund has a balance of $366,311 and no outstanding loan obligations. Applicants are responsible for all costs of loan processing, closing, registration, taxes and fees.

The council approved a 2024 tobacco license application from DG Retail, LLC, which does business as the Dollar General store at 1606 Third Avenue East. The new store will hold a grand opening event on Saturday, August 31 at 8 a.m. The first 50 adult customers will receive free $10 gift cards and the first 100 customers will receive Dollar General tote bags.

City employees have been informed that the current scheduling software IQM2 (known as MinuteTraq) is no longer maintained by Granicus.

The annual fee for the current Agenda software is $8,464.

The Council approved the purchase of Peak Agenda Management Software at an annual cost of $8,820 plus a one-time fee of $6,000 for software development, implementation and training.

The Council has taken action on several planning and zoning issues:

• Approved were a planned residential development, a conditional building permit, a zoning amendment and a subdivision application for Park and Third, LLC. The plan is to build a three-story, 62-unit market-rate apartment building with on-site parking, stormwater management and outdoor recreational amenities. Plans also call for a separate lot with two 6,000-square-foot self-storage buildings and two lots for detached single-family homes. It will be located at the corner of Park Street and Third Avenue, southwest of Northwoods Café. The permits were subject to several conditions – a $30,000 park dedication fee, public utility connections, a final drainage plan, a developer agreement with the city and a public utility and access rights listing on the final site plan.
• Approved a special permit allowing Lukas Bigger to build a year-round, two-story, single-family home on a vacant lot across from 3608 Tolena Road. The home and garage were within 10 feet of the property lines. The special permit also allows the project to exceed the 25% impervious cover limit under state coastal regulations. Engineering plans for the pervious paving system and a professional stormwater management plan are required for building permit approval.
• Approved an exception for Amanda and Ahmed Maaraba to allow the use of a permeable paver or paving system on a non-conforming property to exceed the 25% impermeable cover limit under state riparian regulations. He plans to build a 4,194 square foot home/garage at 3080 Bass Point Court on Lake Geneva. Permeable pavers must be used for the driveway.

The Council approved a travel request for the city’s treasurer to attend BS&A Software’s four-day annual user conference in Milwaukee in October.

The conference will provide employees with the opportunity to learn about the future capabilities of the city’s enterprise resource planning system, how others are using it, best practices and how they can connect with each other.

In May, the council passed a resolution to clear the parceled but undeveloped portion of Seasons Drive, also known as Ridgewood Terrace, which is included in the Summer Meadows zoning plan.

The description used in the solution was created by the surveyor.

The title company has now requested an amendment to this resolution.

As stated in the amended resolution, it was not the City’s intent to adopt the resolution to vacate “Seasons Drive NE” on the Summer Meadows First Addition site plan.

The cost to approve the change was $46.