What’s on the Tuesday, Sept 29 Rapid City Public Works Agenda

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Rapid City SD – The Public Works Committee meets at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 29, in Council Chambers at City Hall, 300 6th Street. Fourteen items, eleven of them on consent. Here’s what’s in the packet, in the order the committee will hit it.

CONSENT ITEMS (1–11)

1. Minutes from Sept. 15.
2. Resolution No. 2026-077 — $125,642.10 in uncollectable 2023 utility write-offs. Rapid City Is Writing Off $33,840 in Past Due Tzadik Utility Debt Deemed Uncollectable
3. Resolution No. 2026-076 — a separate, unrelated $426.88 credit-balance write-off. Routine.
4. Right-of-way acquisition from West Golden Investments, LLC — temporary construction easement and permanent utility easement for the Mountain View Water Treatment Plant’s facility-access-roads project (Project 2834.5/CIP 51293), $27,550 total ($1,110.60 temporary, $26,436.60 permanent). Signed Sept. 11.

5–7. Three bid-advertisement authorizations: 2027 Sanitary Sewer Televising ($475,000 estimated), Well 4 Improvements ($3.5 million estimated), and WRF Digester exterior coating/insulation replacement ($680,000 estimated).

8. Reder Street pavement rehab bid authorization, $350,000 estimated.
9. East Anamosa Street Extension, TIFD 103 — authorization to seek engineering proposals for extending East Anamosa from Diamond Ridge Boulevard to Turbine Drive (Project 2919/CIP 51456): a three-lane road built to accommodate five, a 10-foot shared-use path, sidewalk, lighting, storm sewer, and water/sanitary main extensions. Total TID funding: $20,017,200, covering design and construction, funded through a grant repaid by the TID. Bidding’s projected for late 2027, construction 2028–29.
10. North Rapid Reservoir at Elk Vale Drive, also TIFD 103 — a companion item (Project 2922/CIP 50474), same funding source, same construction window, bid separately from Item 9 because a reservoir needs different contractors than a roadway does.

TIFD 103 is a different, separately-established district from TID #84 (the real “East Anamosa Extension” district created in 2021) and TID #101/Catalyst.

This is a new district, created June 1, 2026, and as of the most recent Legal & Finance Committee agenda (Sept. 30), no Development Agreement has been signed with a developer yet — the City is spending TID money on design work for a district with no developer under contract on record.

11. 26TP028 — Railyard Relocation and Railway Configuration Study, Final Report. Grew out of the 2022 Cambell Street Structure Study (done with FHWA, SDDOT, and the Rapid City, Pierre & Eastern Railroad), and recommends a Box Elder site inside an elevated AICUZ zone next to Ellsworth AFB, with no documented DoD consultation and no Air Force rep on the advisory team. It’s on consent here — and also appears on the L&F Committee’s Sept. 30 consent calendar as the same item.

END OF CONSENT — NON-CONSENT ITEMS (12–14)

12. PW091526-10 — FELP’s Moon Meadows appeal – Withdrawn at Applicants Request. Founding Equity Land Partners, via HME Companies, is appealing the city engineer’s Aug. 19 denial of Exception 26EX075 — the “FELP – Celestial Court Extension” project, seeking a waiver on building Moon Meadows Drive to city standard on FELP’s 40-acre parcel next to Sanford’s Medical Mile. Same request was denied once before as 24EX074.

FELP’s written appeal, filed Aug. 26, argues none of the 14 lots involved (12 new, plus 2 already-built unplatted townhome lots) would actually access Moon Meadows directly — access comes from Celestial Court via Healing Way South instead — so building Moon Meadows to full arterial standard now serves no immediate purpose.

FELP wants to defer that buildout until the northeast portion of its 40 acres develops, which it ties to how Sanford’s Medical Mile expansion shapes up — a timeline FELP itself puts at 3 to 5 years out.

A preliminary plat attached to the exception request, for the same 13.68-acre phase, names the developer as SLH Holdings LLC of Brookings — which SD Secretary of State records show shares the exact same principal office and mailing address (432 5th St., Brookings, SD 57006) as both FELP and HME Companies.

Staff’s recommendation for Sept. 29: WITHDRAW AT APPLICANT’S REQUEST. FELP is pulling its own appeal rather than putting the case it just made in writing five weeks ago to a vote.

One detail that outlives the withdrawal either way: per Title 16 of the municipal code, FELP remains eligible for reimbursement on costs above a Collector-street standard even if it eventually builds Moon Meadows to the required Principal Arterial spec.

13. 25VR005 — right-of-way vacation, Schnasse Addition (101 E. Madison St. / 110 E. Watertown St.). Tall Turtle, LLC vacates an alley adjacent to Lots 1–20, Block 5. Not purely a formality: there’s a live city sewer line in that alley, and Tall Turtle has signed an agreement to take over its ownership and maintenance once the vacation goes throughPlanning Commission approved 8-0 on Sept. 8; staff recommends approval.
14. Alderwoman Laura Armstrong is asking staff to have the Historic Preservation Commission present its projects and future goals at a December Council meeting.

Open questions:

Why did FELP withdraw an appeal it had just defended in detail five weeks earlier, rather than let the committee vote on it?

TIFD 103 is now moving actual construction items but still no signed Development Agreement, who’s the developer this district is ultimately meant to serve?

Sourcing:

City of Rapid City Public Works Committee agenda, Sept. 29, 2026 (origination meeting 09/29/2026; council hearing 10/05/2026). Items PW092926-01 through PW092926-13, plus 26TP028. Resolution No. 2026-077 and Appendix A (item PW092926-02); Resolution No. 2026-076 and Appendix A (item PW092926-01). PW092926-03, right-of-way acquisition offer and permanent/temporary easement agreements between the City and West Golden Investments, LLC, signed Sept. 11, 2026. PW092926-08 and PW092926-09, City of Rapid City Public Works – Engineering Services memo from Sara Odden, PE, Senior Engineer, dated Sept. 11, 2026, re: TIFD 103. City of Rapid City Council agenda, June 1, 2026, items 49–50 (26TI004/Resolution No. 2026-042; 26TI005/Resolution No. 2026-043), creating and approving the project plan for TIFD 103. City of Rapid City Legal & Finance Committee agendas, June 10 through Sept. 30, 2026, reviewed for a TIFD 103 Development Agreement filing; none found as of publication. 26TP028, Rapid City Area MPO memorandum from Kip Harrington, Division Manager, dated Aug. 10, 2026, re: Railyard Relocation and Railway Configuration Study Final Report.

Exception 26EX075 (FELP – Celestial Court Extension), City of Rapid City Public Works – Engineering Services, denied Aug. 19, 2026. Exemption Request Appeal from Founding Equity Land Partners, LLC, via HME Companies, filed Aug. 26, 2026, signed by Lane Warzecha and Casey C. Peterson. South Dakota Secretary of State, Business Information Search: Founding Equity Land Partners, LLC (Business ID DL185991); HME Companies, LLC (DL156472); SLH Holdings, LLC (DL045742) — all three listing 432 5th St., Brookings, SD 57006 as principal office and mailing address.

Planning Commission Project Report, Case #25VR005, Sept. 10, 2026, and attachments (legal description, vacation exhibit), applicant Tall Turtle, LLC via Towey Design Group.