St. Paul Public Works will begin construction next week of a stacked-rock retaining wall along the Wabasha Street bluffs. The plan is to safely reopen the West Side street to traffic along the roadway where a rock slide previously occurred.

The stretch of Wabasha between Plato Boulevard and Cesar Chavez Street has been closed to vehicles and passers-by since late April, when a sudden slope failure caused large rock slabs to slide onto the street.

For safety’s sake, the city plans to build a 250-foot-long gabion wall along the Wabasha bluff, with preparations to start immediately and full construction expected to begin next week. The wall will be 12 feet high and 9 feet wide.

The bluff was surveyed and assessed by the Itasca Group, which evaluated options that included removing several sections of the limestone bluff.

City officials have opted instead for the gabion wall, which will be composed of stacked rocks in wire-mesh baskets.

Public Works Department director Kathy Lantry said the wall should protect the public and roadway from erosion on the bluff without the risk of further destabilizing the bluff. It also is a minimal impact on nearby properties.

“It was a less expensive option. We don’t have good numbers for how much it would take to do some of these things, because there’s so many unknowns,” Lantry said. With the rock wall, “we just build it right there in place.”

Meanwhile a rock slabs remain in the street.

“There’s a lot of sequencing here,” she said. “Before we can build the new wall, we need to move the rock that’s still in the street.”

Meeting with reporters in early June, city officials had said an estimated 400,000 pounds of weathered limestone, dry shale and ground soil would likely need to be removed from the bluff, with options including drilling, hammering and wedging the sections away. Related Articles Marchers shut down I-94 through St. Paul to protest Breonna Taylor decision

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Consultants had recommended drilling over blasting, but city officials at the time cautioned that nothing had been ruled in or out.

Construction of the gabion wall and road cleanup are expected to take 12 weeks. Lantry said the street is expected to reopen after construction of the wall — likely in late September or early October.

Together with emergency response and other work to date, costs are expected to total $1.1 million.

“This is the most cost-effective and quickest option for reopening Wabasha Street. From the public works perspective, that is our priority — safely reopening Wabasha Street,” said Lisa Hiebert, a spokeswoman for the Public Works Department.

Funding will come from the general Public Works budget, though the department will determine if the project meets the threshold for other funding sources.

St. Paul and Ramsey County both declared local emergencies following the April 28 rock collapse, the first step in eligibility for state emergency management funds.