Wabasha Street is temporarily closed near Congress and Isabel. Please try to support local businesses Backstory Coffee Roasters and Wabasha Brewing Company, and Milly's Bakery, Rodriguez Auto Service, and Taco House during the road closure! We recently received the following information from Graeme Chaple, Distribution Division Manager at Saint Paul Regional Water Services. If you have questions, you can contact him at 651.775.3030 or [email protected]

"The Wabasha St project is a watermain project being done via pipebursting, a technique that minimizes street impacts by pulling a new pipe through the existing pipe. While considered a “trenchless technology” it still does require excavation at intersections and at water service connections.

The Wabasha project is broken up into 4 phases to try to limit traffic and access impacts to the surrounding customers.

• Phase 1 – Isabel intersection.
  • Originally this work was part of the described work on Phase 2, but was moved to the first phase due to traffic control concerns. In this phase we are excavating and replacing the pipe within the Isabel intersection itself. To do this work, which is presently occurring, a full road closure of the Isabel & Wabasha intersection. Metro Transit busses are detoured down Hall and Congress to bypass the Isabel intersection. One the first day of work, the traffic control contractor extended the road closure more that was proposed. We have pulled back the road closure signs o the project limits, hopefully allowing better access to the Coffee business. This pipe work will be completed this week, with paving occurring on Monday and Tuesday (possibly even this Friday is things go well). Once the asphalt has cooled, Isabel will to re-opened to East-West traffic. The intersection open on before Sept 24^th.
• Phase 2 – South line of Isabel to Congress, and Congress pipe work.
  • The next phase will be on Wabash from Isabel through the Congress intersection. Wabasha will be fully closed from Isabel through Congress. Traffic will be detoured down Hall to Isabel. This section will be closed for an anticipated three weeks (completion on or near Oct 18th. The excavation holes will be fenced off at night but the traffic pattern can be moved aside to allow limited access to the section during the work.
• Phase 3 – Isabel to Vacated Delos (just north of the southerly driveway entrance to the Taco House)
  • This next phase will be the most complex. This will involve replacing the watermain from Isabel to a point just north of the southern parking lot entrance to the Boca Chica Taco House. During this process, Wabasha from the intersection of Caser Chavez to past the Taco House entrance will be fully closed. Wabasha from Caser Chavez to Isabel will be open for local business access only. There may be brief periods where access is limited at a particular point due to construction activity. This complex section is anticipated to take 3 weeks, from Oct 18. to Nov. 8^th. Once we begin this section, we will continue until complete as we know that with Fall dropping temperatures, out surface laid temporary water does have the potential to freeze. Boca Chica Taco House parking lot will have access from the North coming in from Plato.
• Phase 4 – Vacated Delos (north of the drive way to the hydrant north of the sewer lift station
  • This last phase, if the weather cooperates, is fairly straight forward but will involve the full closure of Wabasha including the northerly parking lot entrance to the Taco House. Anticipated duration for this section is 2 weeks, but if nighttime freezing temperatures remain below freezing after Phase 2, this section will be delayed until Spring of 2025.

We will send another letter to the all adjacent property owners the week of Sept 23^rd to update all the property owners with the above information concerning timelines. Our project team will make direct contact with the property owners starting Friday Sept 20 to answer any questions in person. Additionally we have been in contact with St. Paul Fire concerning detour route for the fire station located on Caser Chavez adjacent to the project area.'"