New price tag for Southwest light-rail line: $2.86 billion

The cost to build the Southwest light-rail line has crept up to $2.86 billion, the project director told the Metropolitan Council on Monday.

"We have a pretty high degree of confidence that will be the number," Jim Alexander said at a meeting of the Met Council's Transportation Committee.

Met Council project officials and the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), which is funding about half the cost to build the 14.5-mile line, are working to shore up the final budget number, he said. Beyond federal sources, the project is largely being paid for by Hennepin County, with some help from the state.

A final figure won't be available until this spring.

Southwest, an extension of the Green Line that has become the state's most expensive public works project, is more than 75% complete. But the project has been fraught with delays and cost overruns. The current budget is more than double earlier estimates, and opening day for service on the line has been delayed by nearly a decade.

Now, service between downtown Minneapolis to Eden Prairie is slated to begin in 2027. A probe of the project by the state's Office of the Legislative Auditor used $2.74 billion for the project's price tag, but Alexander said the nearly $2.9 billion figure "is what we've been consistently reporting out."

The council has largely attributed the project's troubles to a half-mile-long tunnel in Minneapolis' narrow Kenilworth Corridor. Due to watery and rocky soil conditions between Lake of the Isles and Cedar Lake, the council has opted to use a more expensive method to construct the tunnel, which runs within feet of a nearby condominium building and parking deck. Work on the tunnel is expected to be completed next year.

"I think we're making pretty good progress, but I've got a lot of scars on my back from this tunnel and the project overall," Alexander said. "We do feel comfortable with that estimate and timeline."

Alexander said Monday that 18 of the tunnel's 30 concrete cells, which each measure about 100 feet, are installed in the ground. Freight rail track will be installed later on top of the cells at ground level, along with a bike and pedestrian path.

"The work continues," he said. "We've got quite a bit of the tunnel done. We still have a long ways to go on this tunnel. We're really going through the most difficult part now."

An enormously complicated construction project, Southwest has 16 stations — 11 of which have been completed — and 29 bridges, which are largely finished. About 10 of the line's 14.5 miles of track have been installed, Alexander said. A 450-stall parking ramp at the SouthWest Transit bus station in Eden Prairie has also been completed.

Last year "was a pretty good year for construction, but we still have a lot to do," he said.