Tower Terrace Road project again denied federal RAISE grant

Area leaders are once again pondering their next steps after learning that for the fourth time, the long-planned project to extend Tower Terrace Road across the northern portion of the Cedar Rapids metropolitan area has been denied a federal Department of Transportation Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) grant. “I think the whole community of personnel that has worked on the application multiple times is disappointed,” said Grant Harper, executive committee chair of the Corridor Metropolitan Planning Organization, the group that applied for the RAISE grant. With more than 120 letters of support from area leaders, MPO representatives were hopeful this year’s RAISE grant application would fare better than past years’ requests – including last year, when local officials were told the project ranked fourth on the state's list, falling just short of the three projects that received funding. “We had some indicators that we had a strong application,” Mr. Harper said. “There was a lot of post-submittal work from the third go-round. And I think the engineering personnel and the other stakeholders that developed the response did a great job in terms of responding to what they learned from prior applications.” This year’s application sought $36 million from the RAISE program – a higher amount than the previous years’ applications for $25 million in grant funding. Marion assistant city manager Kim Downs, who has worked for years to advance the Tower Terrace project dating back to her time as Hiawatha city manager, said more funds were made available from the RAISE program than in years past. “Basically, you could ask for what you needed,” Ms. Downs said. Yet, Ms. Downs said she was once again “disappointed” in the outcome of the RAISE grant application. “It’s a quality project, and it's a regional project,” she said. “Honestly, I can't think of a better project to support. I know that there's only so much money to go around, and there are other communities that potentially have greater needs, but this is definitely something that we need assistance with. It’s a very large project, and with that comes a great need for financial assistance.”

More than $2.2 billion awarded this year

Federal DOT leaders announced in late June that more than $2.2 billion had been awarded from the RAISE discretionary grant program to 162 different infrastructure projects across the country. The RAISE program, expanded under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, supports communities of all sizes, with half of this year’s funding going to rural areas and the other half to urban areas. The grants are part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, which is focused on rebuilding infrastructure, driving investment in private sector manufacturing and clean energy initiatives, and creating clean energy jobs to combat climate change and improve resilience. DOT officials said 70% of the grants awarded this year went to projects in regions defined as an Area of Persistent Poverty or a Historically Disadvantaged Community. Like last year, demand for RAISE funding was higher than available funds. This year, DOT received $15 billion in requests for the $2.26 billion available. Three Iowa projects received funding this year, including:

• Nearly $24.8 million to replace approximately nine bridges in poor condition across nine rural Iowa counties, including Clay, Lucas, Crawford, Lee, Pottawattamie, Wright, Page, Henry and Mitchell.
• $10 million to reconstruct Main Street in Cedar Falls between University Avenue and Sixth Street, defined as an area of persistent poverty.
• $300,000 for a project to evaluate the Fourth Avenue South corridor in Clear Lake, including an evaluation of approaches to modernize infrastructure connecting downtown Clear Lake and Interstate 35.

Despite the need demonstrated in the Tower Terrace Road application, Mr. Harper noted that based on RAISE criteria, the project may face some challenges. “I’ve learned that one of the components of evaluation has to do with the demographics of a given region, and whether the project will be of service to traditionally disadvantaged segments of our population,” he said. “That's just one of the criteria. But the route that Tower Terrace is taking, and the immediate demographic background of the communities that it would primarily service – we may not score very highly on that particular criteria. So we just have to look at the results, set a plan to optimize another go at it, and in parallel take another look at what other opportunities there might be.”

Project in the works for decades

The Tower Terrace Road expansion project comprises a planned 8.3-mile roadway to connect Interstate 380 on the west and Highway 13 on the east, traversing Cedar Rapids, Robins, Hiawatha, Robins and rural areas of Linn County. About $56 million is still needed to fund the remaining portions of the project, which has been on planners’ radar for decades as a connector for the rapidly-growing northern portions of the Cedar Rapids metropolitan area. Some progress on the project has been made recently.

The new Tower Terrace Road interchange with Interstate 380 opened June 22, culminating 20 years of the project’s development. Officials from the Iowa Department of Transportation and local government leaders gathered for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the opening of the new $22 million interchange, which has been under construction for more than a year – and planned by the DOT for more than two decades. And work is underway on another portion of the Tower Terrace Road project, a section between C Avenue and Alburnett Road in Marion. Still, large sections on the east and west ends of the project remain unfunded, leaving Tower Terrace a start-and-stop thoroughfare.

Leaders examining other funding options

Since hearing about the denial of the RAISE grant, area government and Corridor MPO leaders have been gathering with the Snyder & Associates consulting firm to review their options and consider alternative approaches to the project. Ms. Downs said one of those options may be to pursue new funding opportunities. Among those, she said, are two federal programs – the Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods grant program, launched in 2022 as part of the bipartisan infrastructure bill, and the Rural Surface Transportation grant program, designed to improve and expand the surface transportation infrastructure in rural areas. “We’re reviewing those to see if they fit our situation,” Ms. Downs said. The Tower Terrace project may be a better candidate for the Rural Surface program, she said, not only because of its stated purpose, but also because the program has an estimated $650 million available nationwide and could fund up to 80% of the project’s remaining cost. But other factors may come into play when pursuing new opportunities like this, she noted. “We’re also taking into consideration whether we have others in the region that are also applying, so we’re not sacrificing one project for another,” she said. “We need to do a little bit of research on that.” In a memo to the Hiawatha City Council, city engineer Jon Fitch said officials are also pursuing funds from the federal Multimodal Project Discretionary Grant (MPDG) program. “This pot of money is not as as large as the RAISE program, but we thought we should at least give it a try knowing that the odds are low due to the fierce competition,” Mr. Fitch wrote. “This grant awards 90% of their funds to projects that are $25 million or greater.” At the Hiawatha City Council meeting Aug. 2, Mr. Fitch said the odds of receiving an MPDG grant may be low. "But we figured we had nothing to lose, except for the cost to help put it together," he said. "So we're going to give it a whirl, knowing that it could still fail. And even if it does, we still have time to apply for the RAISE grant again." The Tower Terrace project has also been awarded $5 million in federal Community Project funding, an effort championed by Rep. Ashley Hinson, and more funding could come from that program as well, Ms. Downs said. At its heart, Mr. Harper said, funding for projects like this often become as much a political issue as a fiscal one. “It's such a vital project for the region, and it’s been on the drawing board for 50-some years,” he said. “We can't step away from it. There's got to be a way to make it go. We're just going to have to become very creative with how we get this completed.” A project of this magnitude, Ms. Downs added, may not be achieved in a single step. “You know the old saying,” she said. “How do you eat an elephant? You take one bite at a time.”