Construction will close Canterwood Boulevard beginning this summer

Interim improvements for highway interchange could lead to three-month shutdown of road

Paige Richmond

of the Gateway

For months, the City of Gig Harbor has been steadily taking steps forward on the Burnham-Borgen-state Route 16 interchange project, a major traffic revision to coincide with the opening of St. Anthony Hospital in Gig Harbor North.

Recently, the city took two more steps — and one will mean improvements to and temporary closures on Canterwood Boulevard as early as August.

City staff decided earlier this week that Canterwood Boulevard will close for up to three months this summer while interim improvements, including widening the road and improving a culvert to meet environmental standards, are completed as part of the interchange project.

City Administrator Rob Karlinsey was making calls to developers, business owners and homeowners’ associations in Canterwood as early as Tuesday morning to alert them about the impending closure, which will begin in early August.

These interim improvements are a necessary step in preparing the roads around Gig Harbor North for increased traffic when the hospital opens in early 2009, since the long-term solutions for improving the interchange are still a long way down the road.

The city announced its decision at last week’s council meeting to spend $172,000 to hire another consultant to work on designing the long-term changes to the interchange. City staff hired two other consultants in the past year to establish several traffic options.

Now, this consultant will narrow those options to the final design by the end of the summer.

Either option will cost the city $30 million to $40 million to construct. So far, the city has spent nearly $300,000 on consultant fees just to analyze traffic.

That cost, Karlinsey said, is typical for a project of this size and scope. Architecture and engineering costs on an interchange improvement project are usually about 20 percent, he said, meaning that it will cost at least $6 million to design the interchange.

“I know it’s a lot of money, but it is a very small amount compared to the overall project cost and the economic ripple effect it is going to have,” Karlinsey said, referring to the revenue that the new hospital will generate.

But those long-term design improvements to the interchange won’t happen until after the hospital opens next year — which means the city has to implement interim improvements first. Those involve widening Canterwood Boulevard, the highway’s on- and off-ramps at the Burnham-Borgen interchange and the roundabout on the east side of the freeway.

The improvements also include adding two slip lanes that will bypass the east side roundabout, which will allow greater traffic flow. The roundabout on the west side of the interchange will eventually be widened to two lanes.

The improvements to Canterwood, Gig Harbor Mayor Chuck Hunter said, are an essential first step in a much longer process.

“I feel that it’s very, very important for us to get the Canterwood job finished prior to the opening of the hospital,” Hunter said.

Increased hospital traffic without widening Canterwood Boulevard would lead to nearly unmanageable congestion. Any brief traffic jams on Canterwood Boulevard, both Hunter and Karlinsey said, will cause a quick gridlock of cars in the nearby roundabouts.

Canterwood improvements are also beginning early for two reasons: First, so the city can meet the requirements of a $5 million Community Economic Revitalization Board (CERB) grant to pay for the interim work; and second, because of regulations from both state and federal agencies, including the Department of Ecology and the Army Corps of Engineers.

When city staff was undergoing the necessary steps to begin construction on Canterwood — including permitting with environmental agencies — they learned that a fish culvert, or a pipe used to enclose a flowing body of water, runs underneath the street. State and federal environmental agencies mandated that, since the city was already going to have the road open, it should also rip out the culvert’s pipe and replace it with a rocky creek bed that will better replicate the natural fish habitat.

The staff, Karlinsey said, were first alerted to the culvert just a few months ago and were told that the project must take place between July 15 and Sept. 15, a time known as a “fish window” — that is, the period of time when the culvert can be altered without disturbing the fish’s natural swimming patterns.

The rush on the time period and the extent of the project will lead to a closure of Canterwood Boulevard during construction, which could last for three months. The city decided to close the road completely because flagging and one-lane closures are ineffective, Hunter said.

These kinds of hiccups are due to the project’s complicated nature. A project like this, both Karlinsey and Hunter said, is usually the responsibility of the state, but the city is spearheading the task to ensure it is completed in a timely manner.

“Rarely is a little city like us tasked with designing and building a freeway interchange,” Karlinsey said.

Closure meeting scheduled

By the end of this week, more than 2,300 letters will have been mailed to homeowners and businesses in the Canterwood and Gig Harbor North areas, alerting them of a possible three-month closure of Canterwood Boulevard. Those letters will also alert residents to the city council meeting at 6 p.m. June 9 at the Gig Harbor Civic Center, where city staff will present the project to the council for approval. The meeting is open for public comment and input.