Yelm official optimistic to complete the Fuller Footpath project by this September

During a Yelm City Council study session on Tuesday, March 3, Brad Chatwood, Yelm Projects and Programs Manager, told councilors that he’s optimistic to see the Fuller Footpath project go to bid by April and completed by “September-ish.”

According to Chatwood, the alleyway from First Street to Third Street, just north of Yelm City HAll, is currently being used as an alleyway for deliveries, garbage pickup and other drop offs. He and the City of Yelm see vast potential in the location as it’s within close proximity to Yelm City Park and the Yelm Community Center.

“We want to make it a gathering place and open it up to have connectivity to businesses from the parking lot,” Chatwood said. “We just want to make a nice space for everybody to enjoy. We will still be allowing local deliveries. Garbage trucks will still be able to get through.”
Liz Jones, City of Yelm grants manager, said the goal is to see the Fuller Footpath project go to bid by April. Chatwood added that Yelm is nearing the bid process, and though it’s a lofty goal, he believes the deadline of next month can be met.

“I think we can get this (project completed) before the end of summer. I’m thinking by September-ish,” Chatwood said.
Jones, speaking on the location of the Fuller Footpath project, said the stretch of alleyway goes from the paved parking lot to the beginning of the White Horse Tavern.

She identified project improvements as including: demolition and grading; permeable pavers and colored concrete; ADA sidewalks and ramps; stormwater management upgrades; pedestrian lighting and electrical infrastructure; benches, planters, bollards; wayfinding and decorative signage; and utility undergrounding coordination.

Additionally, Jones noted the project will cost $2.487 million to construct. Despite the near $2.5 million price tag, Yelm was able to secure $1 million in funding through Congressional Directed Spending (CDS) through Congresswoman Marilyn Strickland’s office.

“It’s important to understand that we’ve spent quite a bit of money to get to this point,” Jones said. “It doesn’t make any sense to go through the process of designing and engineering, coordination, having all the easements that we’ve done with these businesses, paid them money so we could do construction on their property, just to be like, ‘oh, no sorry. We’re not actually finishing.’ We need to finish this project. This is the best use of this money.”

She added that with the $1 million in funding from CDS, Strickland’s office wanted to see a project that “actually gets completed.”
“We get to do that, which also puts us in a better standing in the future as we continue to apply for additional CDS funding,” Jones said. “This is a good faith effort on our part to spend this money wisely.”

Councilor Stephanie Kangiser asked what the local funds being used in this project are, and Chatwood stated that the biggest share of the project will come out of the road and street fund. Additionally, the water portion of the project — which he stated is roughly $250,000 — will come out of the water fund.

Jones also provided an agreement history with SCJ, the City’s engineering consultant for this project.

“This is where we get into what’s going to come before you all, and that’s an amendment to the current agreement we have with SCJ — who’s our engineering consultant on this project,” she said. “There’s been seven amendments. This is going to be amendment number eight.”
Chatwood said that he and Jones wanted to be really clear to council, as they’ve received questions from councilors on various amendments relating to the project in the past.

“There’s several pieces of this. This started out as the one-way couplets / parking lot / Fuller Footpath,” Chatwood said. “Our original agreement was just for conceptual design of everything. We had that done and then Cody and I looked at it and said, ‘What can we do now? Well, let’s do the parking lots.’ So we amended the parking lot to do the final design for the parking lot. We did add in Fourth Street. We decided to put Fourth Street into that one-way system. We had a conceptual done for that. We did construction management for the parking lot. That was another amendment. We had a contract time extension, which was a no-cost amendment. Then, we threw in the water main from First to Second, which was another amendment. As you can see, as things grew with this many-phased project, it turned into several amendments.”

Says they wanted to provide clarity on how they “got to where we are” with eight amendments, why it continues to grow