Cedar Rapids looks to regulate, fill in underground vaults

CEDAR RAPIDS — The city of Cedar Rapids is looking to tighten regulations around who is responsible for the approximately five dozen underground vaults spread throughout the downtown corridor.

City staff estimate there are roughly 60 such vaults throughout downtown Cedar Rapids. They are privately owned, but stretch into and underneath the public right of way. Some are used for parking or utility storage, although many sit vacant.

“These vaults extend out into the right of way and often into the curb and gutter of the street, even,” City Engineer Ken DeKeyser said. “They’re below the sidewalk level, and a lot of times we don’t even know they’re there” if we’re just walking by.

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DeKeyser said many of the subterranean structures in the downtown area were used to store coal or ice before the introduction of modern heating and cooling systems. Over time, however, their uses were either adapted or abandoned.

As time takes its toll on the downtown streetscape — and the structures beneath it — the city is looking to clarify who exactly is in charge of maintaining those underground vaults.

Cedar Rapids City Council members last month approved an updated ordinance that defines the vaults within city code, outlines owners’ responsibilities and identifies instances where the structures must be vacated and filled in.

Vault maintenance has always been the responsibility of the private owner, DeKeyser said, but the updated language codifies that fact and better outlines the city’s ability to determine whether the vaults are actively in use.

“If you don’t maintain them, it’s eventually going to turn into a dangerous situation,” he said. “Since many of the vaults aren’t being used or maybe the property owner is on the fence about whether they want to keep it, we’d like to incentivize them to” close it up.

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Vaults with approved active uses must be maintained at the owner’s cost. If a vault is not approved for active use, the code states property owners will be expected to abandon and fill in the vault whenever a public improvement project is set to occur within the adjacent right of way.

The goal of the code, DeKeyser said, is to ensure vault maintenance remains up-to-date while also promoting infrastructure modernization through the elimination of vaults that are no longer needed.

Before it was approved by the City Council, draft language for the code was reviewed by both the city’s Infrastructure Committee and the Downtown Cedar Rapids Self-Supported Municipal Improvement District (SSMID) board.

Downtown District Executive Director Caleb Knutson said the SSMID board discussed the code in the fall, and his team is working to communicate the change to affected business owners.

“We’re still trying to wrap our minds around it and communicate it out so everyone’s on the same page,” he said. “Vaults can be complicated … and we want to make sure we’re supporting the property owners since it can be a big expense” to fill in a vault.

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The process of filling in a vault involves constructing a concrete bulkhead to seal off the former passage from the building’s basement and then filling the remaining space with rock or sand to create a stable layer for new or improved surfaces above.

DeKeyser said the cost to do so will vary depending on the size of the vault, its location and material used to backfill the space, but he estimated that a general abandonment and fill-in can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

He said the city is exploring a cost-sharing program through which the city would assume some of the costs associated with filling in the vault. City staff members currently are piloting the program with a downtown property owner and will continue to do so on a case-by-case basis.

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