Awards

The Minnesota Chapter of the American Public Works Association (APWA) is proud to accept the APWA Presidential Award for Chapter Excellence for the 20h year in a row. 

Our Chapter remains a cornerstone of the public works community in Minnesota, boasting a robust membership of over 1,100 dedicated professionals from across the state. This strong membership base reflects the Chapter's ongoing commitment to serving as the voice of public works in Minnesota, advocating for the industry's interests, and fostering a sense of community among public works professionals. Our membership continued to thrive in 2023, demonstrating sustained growth and high levels of engagement. The involvement of our members extends across all demographics, notably within our Young Professionals Group and Student Chapters, which continue to show remarkable participation and enthusiasm. These groups are vital to the future of our organization, ensuring a continuous influx of new ideas and leadership into the public works sector. 

Education and professional development are at the heart of our Chapter's mission. We offer a wide array of educational programs, workshops, and conferences designed to enhance the skills and knowledge of our members. These events provide invaluable opportunities for learning, professional growth, and networking, helping our members stay at the forefront of industry advancements and best practices. In addition, the Minnesota Chapter places a strong emphasis on networking and community building. We host numerous events throughout the year that allow members to connect, share experiences, and build lasting professional relationships. These membership events not only strengthen the bonds within our Chapter but also promote collaboration and innovation across the public works community. 

Our Chapter's success is driven by the dedicated efforts of our Executive Committee, which strives to deliver exceptional value to members. The Committee works diligently to identify and address member needs, ensuring that our Chapter remains responsive and relevant in a rapidly changing industry. Our Chapter Volunteer Coordinator plays a crucial role in fostering a culture of service within our organization. By actively seeking and promoting opportunities for members to get more involved in Chapter activities, we ensure that our initiatives are member-driven and that our members feel a deep sense of ownership and pride in the Chapter's accomplishments. 

The Minnesota Chapter continues to stand as a beacon of excellence in the public works community. Our strong membership, active participation, comprehensive educational programs, and commitment to networking and volunteerism underscore our Chapter's dedication to advancing the public works profession. This PACE Award Submittal summarizes our Chapter's 2023 achievements and highlights our ongoing efforts to support and advance the public works profession in Minnesota.  

Read More

The Third Avenue Bridge, spanning the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis, MN, was originally designed and constructed in the early 1900s, and will be placed on the National Register of Historic Places for its historic and engineering significance. 

The Minnesota Department of Transportation’s Third Avenue Bridge rehabilitation project, initiated to address the structure’s deteriorated conditions and extend its service life, required close coordination between HNTB and MnDOT’s Cultural Resources Unit and the State Historic Preservation Office. The CRU provided input on everything from how Third Avenue Bridge should be repaired to how much original material would be removed and how the bridge should look. This rewarding relationship ensured that the finished product met the state’s historic requirements.

The rehabilitated bridge’s design includes enhanced historic and visual features that honor the original, 20th century vision. But the structure doesn’t only pay respect to past. Improvements also include a smoother road surface that provides motorists’ greater ease. Users of the restored bridge enjoy improved safety and accessibility features including new lighting and combining the bicycle path with the pedestrian path so both can be protected behind a traffic barrier on both sides of the bridge. With rehabilitations completed and the bridge re-opened to the public, the Third Avenue Bridge has improved mobility and restored rightful connection for years to come.

Read More

The City of Robbinsdale is a small urban city that borders the northwestern boundary of the City of Minneapolis in Minnesota. The City was founded in 1893 and saw most of its growth during the years after World War I and World War II. The City is fully developed and is now seeing redevelopment as opportunities present themselves. The population of the City at the most recent census (2020) was 14,646.

The formal water supply in the City was established in the late 1930s when a well was drilled into the Prairie-du-Chien aquifer, and water was provided from that well with minimal
treatment to the growing residential population and businesses. A 125,000-gallon water tower was constructed to provide pressure for the system.

As the City grew, additional wells and another water tower (500,000 gallons) were added. In the early 1960s, the City constructed three iron-manganese water treatment plants (WTPs) and two ground storage tanks (500,000 and 750,000 gallons) for finished water. The City has upgraded and rehabilitated the three plants and tweaked their operations for efficiency improvements numerous times since then.

The system has approximately 5,200 connections and an overall capacity of about 3 million gallons per day (MGD). The finished water mirrored the hardness of the raw water at about 420mg/L (about 24 grains per gallon), requiring property owners to install home softeners to reduce the hardness.

The system’s age and condition in this configuration were quickly approaching the point where significant investments would be needed to ensure a reliable ongoing water supply to the community. City staff advised the City Council that major elements of the water supply system would need upgrades to maintain reliable service, based on a prudent asset management strategy. This need allowed City leaders an opportunity to review different options that would pave the way for water supply in the City for generations to come.

Read More

Over the past several decades, intense storm events have caused significant flooding, including stormwater geysers, that disrupted traffic and commerce along I-35W at 42nd Street, a major interstate artery in Minneapolis that has an increasing volume of traffic and is expected to carry more than 250,000 vehicles per day within the next decade. Flooding of traffic lanes would occur when a two-year magnitude, 24-hour storm event would occur and require multiple hours to clear traffic lanes resulting in loss of use of the interstate for a period. Approximately 5.5 miles of urban watershed feeds into the deep stormwater tunnel system along I-35W. A solution to stormwater surge that provides traffic flow resiliency and did not negatively impact the existing watershed was needed.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) turned to Barr and a multi-partnered team to design a massive, 14-acre-foot underground stormwater storage facility (SSF) to reduce the severity and frequency of flooding along the interstate, the first project of its kind in Minnesota. This project provides environmental resiliency of stormwater management by reducing negative impacts to commerce along a primary highway. The complexities of the site and the design of the constructed stormwater infrastructure were a result of intentional, consistent collaboration, facilitated through MnDOT’s Construction Manager/General Contractor (CM/GC) project procurement process, and was one of the primary factors in the success of this uniquely complex project. MnDOT led the process; Barr led the design team with support from partners TKDA and Brierley Associates; and a contractor joint venture (JV), Kraemer North America and Nicholson Construction (KNJV), provided cost and constructability feedback during design and executed construction.

The Barr/TKDA/Brierley team developed multiple flood-risk-reduction concepts for constructability review by the KNJV. Ultimately, the selected design needed to accommodate several complications: complex hydraulic conditions, high groundwater table, and a restricted project footprint directly adjacent to a busy interstate. The traditional construction approach—open excavation and dewatering—was not possible due to space constraints within the right-of-way. The restricted footprint and high groundwater conditions also meant that the solution might require deep structures, such as tunnels and/or shaft-type construction.

To develop and evaluate constructible concepts, a comprehensive geotechnical investigation was developed and implemented on site to categorize the underlying soil and bedrock conditions. In addition, complex hydraulic modeling was performed to identify the hydraulic performance criteria. An added challenge to the project was that MnDOT was concurrently constructing the downtown to crosstown project, a major highway reconstruction project along the I-35W interstate corridor. MnDOT’s objective was to minimize negative impacts to that project’s schedule.

Surface stormwater hydraulics drove the basis of need for this project and early hydraulic analysis included reviewing XP-SWMM models of the entire drainage area. The design team modified the model to more accurately represent existing topography and road overflows at the low points of the system. The model was calibrated using measured pressure data in the I-35W tunnel system from three historical storm events which had resulted in highway flooding; rainfall data was obtained from NEXRAD. We assessed various storage chamber configurations (a near-surface chamber, a deep cavern, a mid-depth secant pile, and a tunnel). The results of our analysis indicated that the proposed storage chamber size (14 acre-feet) could prevent ponding for storms equal to and smaller than a six-year, 24-hour event.

Beyond the hydraulic needs, the project also needed to maintain a 100-year design life, minimize life-cycle costs, reduce groundwater infiltration into the facility, and optimize long-term maintenance. The hydraulic and structural design included a weir structure to convey flow into the SSF, connections between cells, and evaluation of impacts on water levels. Given the complexity and safety considerations with this project, a comprehensive geotechnical monitoring program was developed and maintained for the duration of the project.

Read More

The Minnesota Zoo opened in 1978 as one of the first zoos to organize exhibits by their habitat rather than their species. Originally named the “Minnesota Zoological Garden,” this
progressive zoo was designed to view animals in a naturalistic, outdoor, garden-like setting that aligned with their correct ecological and geographic environment. This design included
a 1.25-mile-long monorail ride that looped throughout the expansive 485 acre grounds. 

That monorail was decommissioned in 2013 due to rising maintenance issues, leaving the steel and concrete infrastructure intact but unused. The Treetop Trail was born out of the
unique opportunity to reuse this existing infrastructure to strengthen the overall mission of the Minnesota Zoo, which is to “connect people, animals, and the natural world to save
wildlife.” By transforming the monorail into a walking trail, visitors are given the chance to immerse themselves in nature, much like the monorail aimed to do, but with the freedom to curate their own adventure. The design provides multiple access points, rest areas, overlooks, and interpretative elements that frame powerful views of the surrounding landscape—both the existing animal habitats, and the less-developed, natural environment of the northern section of the trail.

The complexity of the design and construction required close collaboration between many zoo departments, the Zoo Foundation, the design and construction teams as well as regulatory agencies, stakeholders, and the City of Apple Valley.

Read More