The Pella City Council approved the most critical pieces of a new telecommunications utility at their meeting Tuesday.

Council awarded a contract to Excel Utility Contractors for $7.4 million to run fiber along every street in the city limits and connect to homes through service lines. Substantial completion of the fiber optic network is expected by the end of the year, with final completion in early 2021, and services of video and internet services scheduled to begin sometime in the spring. Due to several higher-than-expected bids for service lines to houses — coming in at around $775,000 more than projected, council will work with the engineer for the project, NewCom, to reevaluate that portion of the work — with council getting a formal recommendation at the May 5th council meeting. City Administrator Mike Nardini says the delay of the service line will have no impact on the timeline, as that work to connect to homes and businesses wasn’t expected to start until later this summer anyway.

A contract to construct a facility to house the main functions of the telecom utility was also approved. Edge Commercial was awarded a contract for just under $2.5 million, or $750,000 less than the engineer’s estimate, to construct a 16,500 square foot telecom and electric utility facility. The building would house office space, the data center for Pella Fiber, and indoor storage space near the corner of South Prairie and Truman Road, south of the current electric utility facility.

The City of Pella intends to release several details about the new utility between now and early May, with rates, cable packages, and more set to be considered at the Tuesday, May 5th meeting, and information on how to sign up released around that time as well.