Big upgrades to begin on Redmond’s S. Canal Blvd.

(Update: Comments from city, merchants)

The Redmond City Council is expected to award a nearly $7 million contract to Knife River Northwest at Tuesday night’s meeting for an extensive project along South Canal Boulevard.

A stretch of Canal from Obsidian Avenue to the roundabout at 27th Street and Yew Avenue will see major upgrades, including new pavement, curbs and sidewalks, more dedicated left-turn lanes and a continuous shared bicycle and pedestrian pathway that will run along the canal from Salmon to Highland avenues.

“Right now, if you’re biking or walking along Canal Boulevard, it’s actually not very safe,” City Manager Keith Witcosky said Monday. “In some places there are bike lanes, in others there aren’t. The sidewalks are really sporadic. So it’s a pretty primitive street, by modern-day standards.”

Many people use Canal Boulevard as an alternative to Highway 97, so it’s a high-traffic street, and there are plenty of homes and businesses in the area. They will be affected during construction, but the city and contractors said they are working to make the impact as minimal as possible.

“Concerns would definitely be the fact that we are mere convenience for people, where for my fellow neighbors are not,” said Crystal Richmond of Mudd House Coffee said. “So just hoping that our loyal customers continue to come on through, even though it’s going to be a little bit of a hassle.”

Richmond said a similar thing happened when she worked at another coffee shop in Bend, and it actually put them out of business.

Because the city recognizes how impactful this project will be, it made a decision it rarely makes. Instead of choosing the lowest bidder, it chose the proposal it said would least affect businesses and residents.

Knife River Northwest was the median bidder of five, but was selected because of its plan to break the project into short sections and do extensive community outreach.

“It’s something we don’t do frequently,” Witcosky said. “It’s something we are doing on this project. It’s a decision the City Council made last October, because what we want in this project is not just the finished product to be good, but the experience throughout to be good as well.”

The work is scheduled to start in March and wrap up in April 2019.

For more info on the project, visit: http://www.ciplist.com/plan/?Redmond/city/82717/plan/2317