Pateros secures $2.5 Million HUD Grant for Mall Revitalization Project

PATEROS—City officials learned late last month that the city's $2.5 million grant application for the Mall Revitalization Project, submitted to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in 2022, has been approved. 

City Administrator Jord Wilson delivered the news at the regular monthly city council meeting on Monday, July 16.

In what councilmember Frant Herbert joked was analogous to misplacing “a winning lottery ticket,” Mayor Kelly Hook commented that the initial advisory of the funds award that arrived on his May email went directly into the spam file. It was not until he received a follow-up message late last month that he searched for and found the original.

The original funding request was made to the HUD Community Development Fund through the office of 4th District Representative Dan Newhouse.

In the mid-1960s, the city was moved back from the river shoreline to make way for the construction of Wells Dam, which was seven miles to the south. Designers replaced the city's main street with the present Pateros Mall. In the 60 years that have passed since the deterioration of water, sewer, and stormwater infrastructure triggered the mall revitalization project to:

• Upgrade and install stormwater treatment.
• Replace aging and failing water infrastructure.
• Restore or replace the sewer transmission main.
• Hardscape replacement on the pedestrian plaza.

A market study and preliminary design was initiated in 2023 using almost $200,000 of combined dollars from a USDA Rural Business Development Grant and Okanogan County Project Prioritization .09 funds. A draft of the resulting 43-page Downtown Market Study and schematic renderings are available on the city website, pateros.org, under City Projects/Mall Renovation.

The mall project goals include:

• Protect groundwater, the city's primary potable water source, and Columbia/Methow rivers.
• Increased access through the removal of ADA barriers and pedestrian hazards.
• Provide safe and reliable water to the commercial district and reduce service interruption times.
• Repair or replace a sewer line submerged in groundwater. Reduce groundwater infiltration and exfiltration of sewer into groundwater.
• Replace broken pavement and improve esthetics suitable for tourist activities and a downtown main street.

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