Highway department receives merit award

The Crow Wing County Highway Department recently received a Merit Award for Construction Excellence for its County State Aid Highway 20 project, also known as Riverside Drive.

The Riverside Drive project was deemed to be the best of its class completed in Minnesota during the 2004 construction season. The project was a joint effort by Crow Wing County and the city of Brainerd and involved the complete reconstruction of the roadway from Beaver Dam Road to Ahren's Hill Drive, about two miles in length along with the installation of municipal water and sanitary sewer services and improvements to electrical and communication utilities.

The project was phase three of a long-range plan to upgrade Riverside Drive to current safety standards. The remaining phase is anticipated by 2006 and will complete the reconstruction from Ahren's Hill Drive to CSAH 49, also known as Wise Road.

Accepting the award for the county were Duane Blanck, county engineer; Mark Melby, engineering coordinator; Sue Scheeler, design engineering technician; and Ann Dosh, traffic engineering technician. Widseth Smith Nolting, Baxter, provided engineering design services for both the roadway and municipal services. Tim Houle was project engineer. The total project cost was in excess of $3.5 million.