The city of North Mankato in Minnesota is moving forward with plans to build a new public works facility on a roughly 22-acre site along Timm Road, located across the Minnesota River from Mankato.
The city council voted to allow the North Mankato Port Authority to issue up to $27 million in bonds to finance the project, which is expected to cost between $24 million and $27 million and serve the city’s needs for the next 50 years.
Structuring the bond financing through the authority gives the city the flexibility to keep the debt within legal limits and avoid a referendum requirement while still maintaining oversight.
The city selected the Timm Road site after determining that the existing Webster Avenue public works facility is undersized but could not be further developed due to environmental constraints. Officials said that while other locations were evaluated, Timm Road was the only site that complied with size, equipment access and future planning potential.
The new facility will house all public works operations within a single campus, with a building ranging from 49,500 to as much as 70,000 square feet. Officials say that in addition to being scalable in size, the site will have potential sustainability features such as geothermal heating and solar energy.
Design work is ongoing, with construction tentatively scheduled to begin in mid-to-late 2026 and conclude in 2027.
Photo by Bobak Ha’Eri, CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0, from Wikimedia Commons
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