With construction of the pilot area south of Belknap Street complete, Hanco Utilities has been working its way north of Belknap Street into North End.
There were a couple reasons for deciding to continue to build the network, Mayor Jim Paine said.
"So the first is that we got such a great price on phase one, and we didn't know how long a price like that was likely to hold," Paine told the Telegram. "And so it made sense to just surge forward and get as much done with the existing money that we had. And the second reason, we had existing money left over."
The city allocated $5 million of its federal American Rescue Plan Act money to the project. The funds must be spent by Dec. 31, 2026. Uncertainty about the ARPA funds started with the presidential election, Paine said.
"Spent is spent," Paine said. "And once it's spent, it can't be clawed back. So, with presidential administrations changing we wanted to get ARPA money just spent as quickly as possible."
Stephanie Becken, broadband manager, said the area north of Belknap Street was selected because it includes the location where fiber comes into the city from Duluth. The area will allow Internet service providers to connect to Superior's network more easily in the future, she said.
"It ended up being an unexpected build-out to use the ARPA money and use it well," Becken said.
However, it's a build-out that is going to take some time to complete.
Becken said to make the connection north of the Eighth Street rail corridor, she needs to get permits from three railroads to run the fiber beneath the tracks. She said those permits could take up to six or eight months to be approved.
"This is much more what we call backbone, where we're reaching to a neighborhood but not necessarily connecting a neighborhood," Paine said.
The expansion will bring the network out to about 250 additional homes and businesses and will run past Central Flats and Catlin Court.
Paine said there is a chance the large apartment buildings could be connected to the network.
Becken said she anticipates being able to sign people up for the new service in the pilot project area south of Belknap Street in June, once Internet service providers Duluthian Networks and Advanced Stream are ready to come online.
For more information, visit connectsuperior.superiorwi.gov.
This story was updated at 8:15 a.m. May 15 with additional detail about the expansion location. It was originally posted at 4:02 p.m. May 14 .
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