Major East Wenatchee Road Improvement Project To Start In August

A major road improvement project is about to begin in East Wenatchee. 

A stretch of 19th Street NW & NW Cascade Avenue will be repaved and widened with the addition of sidewalks on both sides of the street. 

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East Wenatchee Public Works Manager Gerren Melton says the project will start at the intersection of 19th Street and State Route 28. 

"The project itself goes from the highway all the way down until the road bends and turns into Cascade," Melton said. "And then there's a couple of projects that built sidewalks in front of them on Cascade, so it'll tie into those." 

Bicycle lanes also be installed on both sides of the street. 

The project will start on Monday, August 12 and will continue into 2025. Anyone wanting regular updates on it's progress should email the projetc engineer ryan@pacificengineering.net

Melton says there'll be traffic disruptions. 

"The contractor proposed an alternative," said Melton. "And we're evaluating it to see if we're going to allow them to do a full closure, so that they can do more work, or stick to our original plan which would be flaggers (and) one-way traffic." 

The project also includes construction of a regional stormwater treatment facility, which will improve water quality before it gets discharged into the Columbia River. The facility will be sized so that water can be piped from Eastmont Avenue to the east all the way to the bend in the road from NW 19th Street to Cascade Avenue, where the new treatment center will be. 

Melton said the bigger stormwater facility will save the city a lot of money from having to install smaller spot treatment facilities along the way. 

Stormwater treatment centers are used to filter out waterborne particles and other pollutants before the water is discharged into a river or other large body of water. The treatment center near NW 19th and Cascade NW will consist of a treatment train approach including pretreatment for TSS (waterborne particles), bio-filtration for basic treatment and bio-infiltration for metals. 

According to the city, the new facility will provide a unique opportunity for stormwater education. Educational information will be displayed at a kiosk, with plaques and viewing points along a walkable pathway within the stormwater facility itself. 

Selland Construction was awarded the project for a total bid price of $6.3 million. 

The initial design for the roadway improvements and stormwater facility was funded by the Department of Ecology. The Department later awarded $2.1 million in construction money, which the city and Douglas were able to leverage to receive an additional $2,000,000 from the Transportation Improvement Board for roadway improvements. 

Other local agencies including the East Wenatchee Water District, Douglas County PUD, Link Transit, and a private telecommunications provider are also supplying funding and participating in the project to upgrade and/or relocate their facilities.