With the cold of winter hopefully in the rearview mirror, a spring priority for Hastings Public Works will be repairing
the roads from the harsh temperatures. Hastings Director of Public Works Ryan Stempski said the department relies on residents to get the most up to date information on roads that need repair.
“This is that time of year where you can call into our general number here at public works and report a pothole in your neighborhood, or you can go right on the city website and there is a report a concern button you can click, fill out your information, and give us the location. Those all go on an excel spreadsheet list, and as we get material and send the crews out we cross them off as we go down that list.”
Stempski also said one of their major projects will be on Pleasant Drive.
“This year, we are going to be on Pleasant Drive from Highway 55 up to 4th St. Then we are going to do a portion of Fourth St. from Pleasant Drive to the east. That’s really where we are going to be this year. We experienced a lot of water main breaks on 4th St., so it was really time for us to replace the main in that area, so that’s really the driver of that segment. We also had a lot of pavement distressing on Pleasant Drive, that gets a lot of volume of traffic on the roadway. And so, those were key candidates that we really wanted to get addressed on our road system and our water system to be replaced.”
Stempski said Highway 61 is going to present a challenge, but it is time to repair and reconstruct one of the main roads in the area, however it won’t be happening this summer.
“The project is being led by the state, so by MNDoT, and we are a partner to that project. We anticipate mainline construction to occur the summer of 2028, so that’s the year the major construction will be happening, but we also believe MNDoT will be allowing some smaller bid packages as early as 2027. So for example there may be a new retaining wall at Todd Field along 61, that can be a bid package that can be done the winter of 2027. So that project is coming fast, and we are doing a lot of planning and design and getting out the communications here on what that project is going to look like come together.”
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