East Wenatchee Starting Major Improvement Project On Grant Road

The city of East Wenatchee is starting a long-awaited project to repave a stretch of heavily traveled Grant Road. 

The road will get an asphalt overlay from Valley Mall Parkway to Georgia Ave and reconstruct the intersection of Eastmont Ave & Grant Road with concrete pavement.  

Public Works Manager Garren Melton says the concrete will be extended beyond the intersection because of its durability. 

"It'll also have concrete lanes that extend about 300 feet to the east and west, so we don't see the rutting that currently is out in front of Walgreens's and State Farm," said Melton. "So, it's really more of a 50-year solution instead of the 10ish years we'd be getting out of pavement." 

The project is scheduled to get going this week and is estimated to take around six weeks to complete. 

There have been long running complaints about the bumpiness of the road and the intersection in particular.  

The project is scheduled to get going this week and is estimated to take around six weeks to complete. 

Melton says there's an emphasis on getting the project done quickly. 

"The goal for this is that the concrete part would 100 percent definitely be done this year," Melton said. "And then, weather dependent, we'd like to get the asphalt from Valley Mall to Georgia done. There's provisions in the specifications that if weather doesn't allow, we'd kick it to the spring. But we'd absolutely get the worst part of the road done." 

The project will cost just under $2.2 million, with the city only responsible for about seven percent of the funding, or $153,597. 

The city received only one bid for the project, which was from Selland Construction. But at a total of $2,199,342.45, it's under the $2,209,450 which the city had budgeted for the project. 

Melton said the lack of competitive bids was likely the result of contractors being busy this time of year, and not necessarily looking for work. He also said the major piece was the flatwork contract for the concrete, which is specialized work that only a few companies handle. 

The City’s grant funds will pay 100% of costs associated with concrete intersection, and 86.5% of costs associated with asphalt overlay. 

An asphalt overlay is a layer of new asphalt applied over the existing base layer of asphalt on a road, according to Lakeridge Paving of Covington, Washington.  

The new layers are generally about 1.5- to 3-inches thick, depending on the demands on the asphalt and the depth of surface asphalt removed.  

An asphalt overlay should not be considered an adequate alternative to repaving in every case, but it is a way to significantly extend the useful life of paved surfaces if the base pavement is still in good shape. 

The East Wenatchee City Council approved the contract with Selland Construction at its most recent council meeting. It also approved a connected contract for $215,600 with RH2 Engineering to provide assistance with administering the project, construction inspections, and to manage a subconsultant for required on site cultural resource monitoring. 

A 2024 project is planned to overlay the rest of Grant Road from Georgia Ave to Kentucky Ave.