City of Wenatchee Selects Consulting Firm for Confluence Parkway Project

The City of Wenatchee has selected a consultant to help it realize the massive Confluence Parkway Project.

This week, the City announced that it has retained the services of Jacobs Solutions, an international technical advising firm headquartered in Dallas, Texas.

The City's executive services director, Laura Gloria, says the firm was chosen specifically for its ability to oversee both the design and build portions of the project.

"Design/build is a very new process for the city and is actually a new process for a lot of our agencies, especially for a project of this scope and size, and Jacobs definitely possesses the capacity to act as our advisor and consultant to help us navigate the process."

City officials and local staff from the Washington State Department of Transportation met with Jacobs in October and chose the firm over one other that was considered.

Gloria says the Jacob's first order of business will be to establish itself as part of the City's project panel prior to an initial review by the Capital Projects Advisory Review Board (CPARB).

"The first big thing for Jacobs will be going to CPARB, which is a board that makes certain project initiators, like the City of Wenatchee, are putting together the appropriate team. A big part of that is having the right consultant, so the City's public works team will go to the CPARB to get approval for the project to move forward in a design/build manner."

Confluence Parkway will be the largest road infrastructure project in the City's history, both in scale and price, with an estimated total cost of $108 million.

Over $94 million of the total cost will be paid through a federal Infrastructure For Rebuilding America (INFRA) grant.

The project is slated to feature a 2.5-mile bypass at the north end of Wenatchee, which includes the construction of a new vehicle bridge over the Wenatchee River that will connect with U.S. Highways 2 & 97.