GLADSTONE — The 9th Street Project may look a lot like it was originally intended to. Gladstone city commissioners, Downtown Development Authority members, city staff and department heads discussed the direction of the project during a special work session Monday. No official decision was made, but a new proposed project scope will be presented to the city commission at its next meeting.

After the proposed project scope is adopted, public notices can be issued for the public hearings to begin the special assessment district process again.

With the special assessment district process starting over, the project will not start until spring.

The special assessment process must be completed before the bonding process can begin. The bonding process has to be completed before construction can begin on the project.

Renee Barron, zoning administrator for the city, said the point of the work session was to get everyone on the same page and get direction for the project.

She explained no decisions were made, but a general consensus was reached to move forward with the full project scope, talk to the bond attorneys and the assessing attorney and move forward with the full scope without raising the cost of the special assessment estimates. The estimated average special assessment cost per lineal foot is $2.67.

The project includes a total reconstruction of 9th Street — including work on storm drains, water lines and sewer lines from Minneapolis Avenue to 4th Avenue — as well as work on other streets, avenues and alleys. The work on 9th Street will also include work on some of the sidewalks and an addition of a bike lane.

The work being done within the project was scaled back earlier this summer due to bids coming in higher than expected. The project will revert back to its original scope, as officials agreed the work on Superior and 4th Street would end up needing to be done in two years anyways and could cost the city even more if pushed off.

The 9th Street project will again encompass parts of 9th Street, Delta North and South alleys, 6th Street, Superior Avenue, 11th Street, the alley between Minneapolis and Wisconsin avenues, 3rd Avenue, 8th Street, Superior Avenue, and the sanitary sewer on 4th Street.

The 9th Street project is within the Downtown Development Authority’s district, so the DDA will cover the cost of 70 percent of the project and the city will cover the remaining 30 percent.

After the project was scaled down earlier this summer, the project was awarded to Oberstar Inc., under the condition the totalconstruction cost is kept under $3.5 million. The company’s original bid for the full scope of the project was $4.3 million.

To fund the project, the DDA and city have looked into a 15-year, $4.8 million capital improvement bond through Robert W. Baird & Co., an American multi-national independent investment bank and financial services company based out of Milwaukee.

Both the DDA and the city have already put money towards the project and have included the payments within their budgets.

During the work session, Barron explained how much the annual payment on the $4.8 million bond would be and where those funds would come from.

Without putting any extra funding toward the project before bonding, the total average annual payment on the $4.8 million bond would be $382,000. Of the $382,000 annual payment, $207,000 would come from the DDA, $45,000 from the special assessment, $30,000 from the water department, $50,000 from the wastewater department, $20,000 from the general fund, $25,000 from streets/storm water funds, and $5,000 coming from other sources.

Barron, who had been talking with the water and wastewater department heads, said the utility rates of water and waste water are also going to have to increase next fiscal year because the water and wastewater departments won’t be able to support their contributions of the 15-year bond repayments and other various upcoming projects without an increase. The utility rates cannot be changed until June 2020 as the rates for the 2019-2020 fiscal year budget were already set.

Commissioner Darin Hunter said they need to educate the public on why the project needs to happen and how the work done within the project will be an investment for years to come.

“This is more of an infrastructure project for the large part and obviously the roads there so you’re not going to see it. … We have to educate the people and let them know why the scope of this project is so costly and what the investment is from the taxpayers’ dollars and what they’re actually going to get,” he said.

The roads may be in rough shape, but its the work underneath the roads that is the most crucial part to the project.

Wastewater Superintendent Rodney Schwartz said the utility work involving water and sewer will last 80 to 100 years.