Wenatchee to study connections across Chelan Avenue and Mission Street

WENATCHEE — The city plans to study how its downtown highway couplet — the pairing of Chelan Avenue for southbound traffic and Mission Street for northbound traffic — affects connections between residential neighborhoods and downtown, with residents, businesses and transportation interests helping identify potential improvements.

The Wenatchee City Council Sept. 24 authorized acceptance of a Sandy Williams Connecting Communities grant for the SR 285 Downtown Connectivity and Multimodal Study.

City Engineer Jake Lewing said the study will examine mobility, safety, economic development and parking while considering the corridor’s role in moving traffic through the city.

The grant requires no local match and will fully fund the study, Lewing said. Work is expected to begin late in 2027.

Lewing said previous efforts, including Reimagine Wenatchee, have identified challenges associated with the couplet and its position between downtown and residential areas. The new study will provide an opportunity to explore those issues with broader public participation.

“This is where we would hope to seek comment and learn a little bit more from all perspectives,” Lewing said.

That outreach will include residents, businesses, freight interests, emergency services and the Washington State Department of Transportation.

Lewing said the goal is to consider how the corridor can accommodate people crossing it while continuing to serve its transportation function.

“Recognize its importance as a transportation corridor, but also recognizing that we have people crossing it daily,” he said.

The study could help determine whether additional traffic analysis or other planning is needed before the city pursues improvements. The council’s action accepts funding for that evaluation; it does not approve a specific street redesign or construction project.

Lewing described the grant program as an opportunity to examine places where a state highway, or infrastructure remaining from a former highway route, has created a barrier within a community.

For Wenatchee, he said, the funding will allow the city to build on earlier downtown planning and gather a wider range of perspectives about how the corridor works and where it could be improved.

The anticipated late-2027 start reflects both the engineering department’s current workload and other efforts already seeking community participation.

Lewing said the city wants to account for those demands when scheduling outreach, rather than adding another engagement process immediately.

“We chose to push this off till next year,” he said.

Council members approved the grant agreement without opposition.

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