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(The following article by Heather Asiyanbi was posted on the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel website on May 10.)

STURTEVANT, Wisc. — After numerous delays, a significant design change and a tug-of-war with Canadian Pacific Rail over contract liability language, village Administrator Stephen Compton has confirmed that all major issues have been resolved and that a new Amtrak depot will be built in The Renaissance business park.

Jennie Trick of the Racine County Economic Development Corporation will present a final package for approval to the Village Board tonight that includes a complete contract and a final design. And while a few minor wrinkles need to be ironed out, Trick said, the board’s stamp of approval would mean the village could begin advertising for bids and that ground could be broken sometime this summer.

The cost of the depot had risen from $2.1 million to $4.1 million, in part because the original approved design called for a pedestrian crossing under the tracks. Fiber-optic relocation and construction bids on excavation for the tunnel came in much higher than projected.

But STS Consultants, the project engineering firm, redesigned an overpass platform anchored by three-story towers with stairways and elevators. Eliminating other costs brought the project just a few hundred thousand dollars above the original $2.1 million budget.

Compton had set a deadline of Monday to get all matters resolved. He said the project had been lingering too long, and that it was time to get it done.

“This depot has been in planning for years with all or most of its financing in place,” he said. “We were not in a position to ask whether or not it should be done but in a position, instead, of what we were going to do to get it done.”

The village received two federal transportation grants to finance the depot and was planning to borrow against its tax incremental financing district, which includes the business park where the depot would be built. Sturtevant is ahead of schedule in paying off the debt for the district, Village President Steve Jansen said.

According to Jansen and Compton, the depot has always been a part of the village’s financing district plan, and recent changes in state laws governing those districts will allow the village to fully finance the portion of the depot not paid for by the grants.

The new depot will replace the current depot on Wisconsin St. just north of Highway 11.