Grant PUD buys land for new Ephrata service center
Grant County PUD commissioners approved the purchase of land, pictured in green, for a new maintenance and service facility near Ephrata.
COURTESY IMAGE/GRANT COUNTY PUD
EPHRATA — Grant County PUD commissioners have approved the purchase of 34 acres near Ephrata for the eventual site of the new equipment storage and maintenance facility, known as the Ephrata service center. Utility district officials paid $525,000 for the property, located next to the site of the new Grant County Jail, at one time the Ephrata Raceway.
“The site was chosen among several properties evaluated for cost, infrastructure, size, land use and constraints,” wrote Christine Pratt, PUD public affairs, in answer to an email from the Columbia Basin Herald. The property was owned by Grant County and had been purchased as part of the jail project.
The new service center will house shops for electrical system and fiber system maintenance crews, a shop for PUD vehicle maintenance, locker rooms for line crews, materials storage, and office and training facilities.
Project cost and the start of construction are still being determined, Pratt wrote.
“(The PUD) won’t have an accurate cost estimate until sometime this fall. Contractors have recently spoken with employee groups about what they need in the new center,” she wrote.
The existing site is at the bottom of a hill about two blocks from Basin Street Southwest, with no room for expansion. Pratt wrote PUD officials think the current site is too small, and in an inconvenient location for future PUD needs.
Commissioners allocated $6.04 million to pay for the design and planning of the new facility in August 2022. Design and planning are scheduled for 2024-25, with construction starting in 2025 and completed in 2027.
The new maintenance facility will be located next to the new jail and at the intersection of Nat Washington Way and State Route 282, already a busy corner. A roundabout at that intersection has been under discussion for a few years, but Washington Department of Transportation officials hadn’t scheduled that for construction at the time the jail project was reviewed. The DOT was concerned about traffic impacts if the jail was completed before the roundabout, said Grant County Central Services Director Tom Gaines in February.
County officials agreed to build the roundabout, a project that will cost about $4 million, Gaines said during a Grant County Commission meeting Tuesday. Gaines said the PUD will pay a fee as its contribution to the construction.
The new service center is one of a list of capital projects to replace aging PUD facilities throughout the county. Other projects include a new service center in Moses Lake and a new headquarters in Ephrata.
Utility district commissioners approved a capital facilities master plan in 2022, opting to build two new, bigger maintenance facilities in Moses Lake and Ephrata. Existing maintenance facilities in Quincy, Royal City, Coulee City and at Wanapum Dam will stay there, with a periodic review to determine if they’re still needed.
A new service center in Moses Lake would be the second project, followed by the new headquarters somewhere in or around Ephrata. The facilities plan authors recommended consideration of building the headquarters at the same location as the Ephrata service center. But locations and schedules for the Moses Lake service center and the headquarters are still to be determined, Pratt wrote.
Cheryl Schweizer may be reached via email at cschweizer@columbiabasinherald.com.