The Oak Court Apartments in Crookston are undergoing a plumbing renovation to replace the plumbing original to the building when it was built in 1969-1970. The Oak Court Apartments are managed by the Crookston Housing and Economic Development Authority (CHEDA), with rents based on tenant incomes. The project will also include updating the facility’s cable tv and high-speed internet capabilities.
Last year CHEDA was awarded a grant for Minnesota Housing to complete the $2.1 million project, which includes a contribution of $342,000 from CHEDA. CHEDA Executive Director Chair Hoiseth said the project would replace all of the plumbing throughout the building. “The project is essentially removing all the plumbing in the building and replacing it with new,” said Hoiseth. “That includes all the pipes, fixtures, showers, toilets, kitchen, all types of pipes, waste pipes, etc. Basically, removing all of the existing and replacing it all with new plumbing. The building was built in 1969-1970, so it’s over 50 years old now. And was in need of a plumbing replacement as the old plumbing was causing us a lot of maintenance issues month over month here.”
An upgrade in cable tv and high-speed internet was added later to the project. Hoiseth said Midco donated the required cabling, and with the walls already open, it was a great opportunity to run the cabling inside the building rather than on the exterior. “The cable TV and internet cabling project coincided with it,” said Hoiseth. “We had that on our capital funds request, and we thought while the walls were open in every apartment, it would be a great opportunity to run those cables inside the wall rather than on the exterior. So, we jumped on it and got some bids. We thought they were favorable and the winning electrician for the plumbing project was also by far the low bidder on installing the cable. Midco has provided us the cable, free of charge, so the only cost is the electrician installing the cable. When we’re done with the project, we’ll have new cable tv and high-speed internet service available for all of our tenants.”
The project has been broken into ten-phases, each incorporating about half a dozen apartments plus community and building operations spaces, with work beginning in November 2019. Hoiseth said the first couple of phases took a little longer, but the project is still expected to be completed by the end of 2020. “Originally, we were trying a half a dozen phases, but we extended it to ten phases overall,” said Hoiseth. “It began in November, the first couple phases taking longer, but we wanted to try to get it so that every phase would be about four or five weeks in duration. I think we’re started on Phase 3, and hopefully, we’ll finish that up here in March to be on our way to where the other seven phases can be completed by the end of this calendar year.”
The project was awarded to Diversified Contractors with Red River Electric doing the required electrical work and also having the low bid for the installation of the cable tv and high-speed internet.
