Wenatchee breaks ground on long-awaited Confluence Parkway project

WENATCHEE — The weather was perfect for the ceremonial turning of the dirt at 1600 North Miller in Wenatchee on Thursday. Golden shovels in tow, the City unveiled plans, pictures, and excavators poised to turn the north end of town into a thoroughfare that, in the end, will connect both sides of the Wenatchee River in a new location and clear out traffic at the congested end of town in a way we have all been waiting for.

The initial controversies over what would stay and what would have to be removed to make way for the new construction are all but forgotten. The funding for Phase 1 is secured. Everything is finalized for the train overpass at North Miller and an underpass at McKittrick, where the Parkway meets back up with Wenatchee Avenue.

City Administrator Laura Gloria welcomed the crowd and introduced the array of guests for the ceremony before welcoming Public Works Director Tom Wachholder, who proudly described the history of the Confluence Parkway and its beginnings. Calling it “the realization of a long-standing commitment to our community's future,” the Director told attendees that the project would “improve mobility, enhance safety for all users, including drivers, cyclists and pedestrians, reduce congestion and provide a critical new emergency access route.”

Mayor Mike Poirier was up next, and after sharing his excitement about the culmination of this project, he told the crowd about a message he received from State Senator Keith Goehner, who could not attend, but was “excited to see the progress being made” on the project.

U.S. Representative Kim Schrier then spoke, and while she acknowledged that the background and research for this project had begun nearly a decade before she was actually elected to Congress, noted that this was the first official step forward, and that even before she was elected in 2018, she had worked on background for the project with local stakeholders while she was running.

“Seeing the shovels in the ground today is incredibly rewarding,” Schrier said. That could be because she was so central in making the case to the federal government in getting money for this project.

“Back in 2019 I took Cosmic Crisp apples to Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, and then in 2021 I met with him again to discuss support for this project, and I was consistently reaching out to high level people at the Department of Transportation personally to make the case in a bipartisan way for this project, because I knew how impactful it would be and how important it was to all of you. In June of 2021, the administration officially awarded a $92 million INFRA [Infrastructure for Rebuilding America] grant for the city of Wenatchee. In fact, it was the largest grant anywhere in the entire country that year, and it could not have gone to a more deserving project,” she said.

Chelan County Commissioner Brad Hawkins was next to the microphone. He preceded Senator Goehner in the Washington legislature before returning home to be a commissioner, and has been involved in this project the entire time. Hawkins described the background of the funding procedures, including the involvement of the Washington Department of Transportation (WSDOT) and many others. “When I look back and think about all the partners who've been involved in this, it is a reality that it couldn't happen, probably, without each and every one of them stepping up to the plate,” he said.

More thanks and acknowledgements came from WSDOT North Central Regional Administrator Chris Keifenheim, before Laura Gloria announced the keynote speaker, Senator Maria Cantwell.

Senator Cantwell recognized Congresswoman Schrier’s deep commitment to our part of Central Washington, and after joking about the absence of former Mayor Frank Kuntz — who was an integral part of this project for years before his retirement — she got straight to the heart of why she was at the groundbreaking. Cantwell has made moving freight so central to her priorities as a Senator from Washington that even during the Obama administration, she was known around D.C. as “Senator Freight.”

Cantwell noted that our state’s Freight Commission was the impetus for creating this project in the first place, saying “When you're making infrastructure investment, you should try to prioritize projects that move freight, and that is because they grow jobs, they help the economy, they help us get product to market.”

Most importantly, Senator Cantwell wants to get apples moving. “To get apples to market faster and not deteriorate, our huge economy that the entire central part of Central Washington depends on, is a great economic investment for the nation,” she said.

And before the whole crew of speakers convened on the symbolic mound of dirt to turn the golden shovels, Cantwell delivered the line of the day after asking the City to invite her back to as many groundbreaking ceremonies as we like: “I can tell you one thing, Wenatchee is on the move!”

Andrew Simpson: 509-433-7626 or andrew@ward.media