ÍáÍáÂþ»­

BEMIDJI — The Bemidji Public Works Department uncovered a mystery when the leftovers of a basement were discovered beneath city parking lot 7 in downtown Bemidji, at the intersection of Minnesota Avenue and Fourth Street NW, adjacent to Raphael's Bakery and Brigid's Pub.

Contributed

Contributed

Many things led to the discovery.

The city planned to reconstruct the lot in conjunction with its annual alley paving project, with hopes of reopening it quickly. Before the project could begin, someone notified the city of a potential sinkhole at the lot in mid-April. The city investigated immediately, discovered the basement and promptly closed the lot.

TJ Rhodes / Bemidji Pioneer

City Manager Rich Spiczka explained to the Bemidji City Council via email that the issue would need to be resolved soon. He also explained that accommodations with the Bemidji Police Department were made, allowing residents who rely on the lot to park in the street without worry of being ticketed.

Residents grew curious: which building or business did the basement belong?

members Cecelia McKeig, Ashton Loebs and Lois Jenkins sought to answer this question and researched the history of the lot. They determined that the lot was initially paved in 1971 and likely belonged to Saar Motor Co., which operated from 1946 to 1970.

The origin of the basement is still a mystery; however, once the city began excavating the cavity, it discovered Saar Motor Co. documents, proving that Saar was the last to occupy it. This was documented via an

Around the same time, the north and south facades of the Blue Ox Business Center, located at 206 Minnesota Ave. NW, began to deteriorate and fall off the building. This sparked city parking lot 2, which is connected to the Blue Ox Business Center and adjacent to Cantabria Coffee Company, to close.

TJ Rhodes / Bemidji Pioneer

Bemidji used this opportunity to replace the pavement and sidewalk of parking lot 2 using Capital Improvement Plan funds allocated to the alley paving project.

Now, Bemidji announced in its that construction is complete and both parking lot 2 and 7 are open. Even with the two urgent developments, the city stayed under budget and stuck to its initial timeline of completion by the end of May.

"With the expertise and overall awesomeness of our streets department staff and area partners, we were able to rent the necessary equipment and bring in the necessary materials to remove the basement footprint while still keeping things on schedule to be completed with the project by end of May," City Engineer Sam Anderson wrote in the newsletter. "Paving was completed (the week of May 11) with final striping completed (the week of May 18) and the parking lot and alleys are back open to traffic.

"Shout out to our streets department staff, engineering technicians, and especially our affected downtown businesses, in helping us overcome the obstacles (to) reach our end goal," he concluded.