(v8i SS3 VBA) Trying to bring in contours from ArcMap to MS but elvations are coming in incorrectly

The issue is that I the contours I have came from a .shp file and the line elevations are not being stored as elevations.  Instead they are being stored as string values in a property called "ELEVATION".  I have tried many different ways to get these come in with elevation so I can create a surface, but so far with no luck.  I was thinking that I could write a macro to get each line in my selection and pull the value from the property and set it as the line elevation.

 

What I have so far:

Public Sub ImportElevations()
Dim oElEnum As ElementEnumerator
Dim oEl As LineElement
Dim oPropHand As PropertyHandler
Dim getElevationFromCustom As String

Set oElEnum = ActiveModelReference.GetSelectedElements
oElEnum.Reset
While oElEnum.MoveNext
    Set oEl = oElEnum.Current
    Set oPropHand = CreatePropertyHandler(oElEnum.Current)
   
    If (oPropHand.SelectByAccessString("ELEVATION")) Then
    getElevationFromCustom = oPropHand.GetDisplayString
   
    ' Write getElevationFromCustom to line elevation
   
    End If
Wend
    oEl.Redraw msdDrawingModeNormal
    oEl.Rewrite
End Sub

Has anyone dealt with this before?

Thanks,

Matt