Construction begins on Commercial Avenue renovation in Pateros

PATEROS—Site work and temporary detours were discussed at the regular monthly meeting of the Pateros City Council on Sept. 16.

The south side of Commercial Avenue - from Lakeshore Drive on the west end to Dawson Street on the east end - is one long excavation as Hurst Construction of Wenatchee continues the asphalt removal and trench digging as part of the upgrade to the downtown access. The Hurst work is expected to last well into October.

This is the construction phase of a project that has its roots in 2016 and earlier when the city launched an ambitious downtown upgrade study following the 2014 Carlton Complex wildfire.

“The downtown improvement project from 2016 to now initially started back when Mrs. Gail Howe was mayor back in 2007 when they first started trying to figure out what needed to be done and started working on funding,” Mayor Kelly Hook said. “Long time coming.”

The 2016 Downtown Redevelopment Plan refers to that earlier work in its introduction:

The original downtown business district plan was initiated in the fall of 2004 when the city interviewed a number of planning and design firms and selected the Erickson Group to assist in the preparation of a plan for the redevelopment of downtown Pateros. The focus of that plan was to identify steps or actions the city should pursue and to establish priorities through 2009 and beyond in accommodating growth and development needs. This update to the plan, spurred by the Carlton Complex fires of 2014, follows a series of meetings conducted in 2015 with downtown businesses and community residents and leaders which featured a design charrette led by a team from the Rural Communities Design Initiative from Washington State University.

Last March the city received a state Transportation Improvement Board (TIB) Complete Streets grant of $881,239 to fund the Commercial Avenue upgrade. The city was to kick in $100,000 as its share. The city was then invited to apply for an additional $100,000 in TIB funds available through the America Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). A stipulation that those funds needed to apply to a project completion date by the end of 2024 was one the city could meet. The current Hurst work is underway to meet that goal.

The 13-page 2016 Downtown Redevelopment Plan and the Commercial Avenue Schematic Plan are among the documents that can be viewed on the city’s new website at pateros.com under the public works tab.

Mike Maltais: 360-333-8483 or michael@ward.media