Two Harbors Approves Bid For New Bath House

City Council approved a 868,600 bid from TL Construction Monday.

860,000 dollars may seem pricey for a bath house at a campground but in Two Harbors Mayor Randy Bolen tells us this campground will ultimately be paying for itself and then some.

The breakdown is the city built a second campground three years ago, now the two sites share one bath house.

“The old bath house in the old part of the campground as it is now isn’t sufficient for the old part of the campground, so then when you put the new campground with the new spots in there it just wasn’t working,” said Mayor Bolen.

The original estimate was 500,000 dollars but after receiving bids the city realized it would need to invest a significantly larger amount at 860–thousand dollars.

While some city councilors weren’t too fond of forking out more tax dollars, they agreed it was the right thing to do to improve the campground and make Two Harbors a destination that’s worth it for campers.

“That campground makes a lot of money for the city of Two Harbors. That campground keeps our taxes low in this community and for the first time with our expanded campground we have enough capital dollars where we get to start looking at doing major projects in the city,” said Bolen.

The city is taking out an internal loan from a enterprise fund to pay for the bath house. Bolen said revenue received from the campgrounds will ultimately pay it off in the years to come.

Mayor Bolen said the plan for the bath house never changed but the estimate from the engineers was flawed.