Plans to extend water and sewer services to the Wild Rose Jefferson LLC. site are underway.

The location of the casino and entertainment facility is on the northwest corner of US Highway 30 and Iowa Highway 4.  The current utility services end on the south side of Highway 30.

However, before any construction can begin to extend those services, the Jefferson City Council has to approve an engineer’s agreement to extend the utilities.

Mayor Craig Berry explains some of the details that the City is looking into to improve sewer services and adds that there may not need to be any road closures when services are extended across Highway 30.

“When we get up there, they will have to jack the lines underneath Highway 30 to get them over to it (the site).  I don’t think you’ll see any major construction.  But what we’ve got to do, we’ve got a 12-inch line out there already and that won’t handle the capacity that the casino will bring and so we’ll probably have to put another 12-inch line out there.”

He adds that they will also have to create new lift stations to carry the waste water back to the treatment plant.  However, Berry doesn’t believe that they will have to install another water line because the existing line should be adequate.

He notes that the preliminary cost estimate for the project is about $1.2 million with money to come from Tax Increment Financing which means there will be no additional cost to anyone’s water or sewer rates.

Once the Council approves the engineer’s agreement, then the bidding process to find a contractor can begin.