Niagara lands $1M grant for infrastructure work
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NIAGARA, Wis. -- The City of Niagara will use a $1 million Community Development Block Grant to help fund projects on Hill, Forest and Mill streets, replacing some utility lines that are more than 100 years old.
“We are very excited and honored that we were one of 20 Wisconsin communities to be able to get an award,” said Audrey Fredrick, city administrator-clerk-treasurer. “A lot of times the smaller communities are neglected and the bigger communities get more attention. We put a lot of work into the application,” she added.
Fredrick said the public works and water department provided valuable input and information, as well as the city’s appointed engineers Cedar Corporation of Green Bay, Wis. A variety of factors went into the project’s scoring.
The state receives CDBG funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and distributes those funds toward public facility, housing, and economic development projects that benefit individuals with low and moderate incomes. The Wisconsin Department of Administration administers the CDBG program to support critical public infrastructure projects in low- to moderate-income communities with populations of 50,000 or fewer throughout the state.
The planned projects are expected to cost an estimated $1.8 million for Hill and Forest streets and between $600,000 to $800,000 for Mill Street. They include the replacement of 1.25 miles of water and sewer lines and will affect approximately 227 properties.
Hill and Forest Street utility lines were installed between 1916 and 1940 and are past their useful life, according to Cedar Corporation. The water pipes on Mill Street are more than 100 years old and are in very bad condition. The sewer pipes were changed in the 1950s to a 10-inch pipe, but will upgrade to 12-inch pipe.
Engineering plans will be completed this fall to be put out for bids between Dec. 26 and Feb. 27. Construction will be anywhere from April to October in 2027.
The city has also applied for funding from Wisconsin’s Safe Water Drinking Loan Program and the Clean Water Fund. These programs provide low-interest or no-interest funding.
“We’ve been working on this application for months and we were waiting for final approval,” Fredrick said. “We’re in a low- to moderate-income area, which also increased the score. We scored high enough to meet the requirements. This is just part of the funding. The more funding we get, the more low-interest loans, the better it is for the individual user. We’re being diligent to get the most impact for the community with the least financial impact. It has to be done anyway, whether or not we have funding,” she said.
The city is trying to finish the utility work before a resurfacing project is completed on Hill and Forest streets. The Wisconsin Department of Transportation has already made plans to replace storm sewers, curbs, sidewalks and resurface Hill and Forest streets in 2029.
The city applied for funding for the resurfacing project through the Wisconsin Department of Transportation’s Surface Transportation Program and received the maximum amount of 80% of the projected cost for a total grant of $3,610,816 and some engineering costs for Hill and Forest streets. WisDOT will be designing and bidding that project.
Marguerite Lanthier can be reached at 906-774-3500, ext. 85242, or mlanthier@ironmountaindailynews.com.