Transportation and Sewer Projects

Lakewood City Hall and the Main Street SW project sent a positive message to developers that the City "puts its money where its mouth is" by putting City Hall where we wanted Towne Center to be. This encouraged the Towne Center investors to invest. The new development is convenient and inviting to citizens and visitors who enjoy the Towne Center.

Lakewood Police Station is an ongoing large capital improvement project. After breaking ground on February-2008, this $12.6 million and 42,000 square feet project will house the Lakewood's police officers, staff, and volunteers. It is estimated to be complete in the spring of 2010.

Lakewood has invested over $36 million in Capital Improvements over the past 12 years. The primary focus has been on the City's major corridors to help improve safety, traffic flow, aesthetics, and multi-modal access.

Over $5.0 Million has been spent to date on Bridgeport Way SW adding curbs, gutters, sidewalks, street lights, and storm drainage improvements between I-5 and the north city limits. Future plans include an additional $8.0 Million to complete the corridor. The City has already secured $3.0 million in grant funding toward this project. The next phase of this project will start construction Fall-2008. View Lakewood's 6-Year Transportation Improvement Plan (pdf 73 kB).

Over $7.0 Million has been spent to date on Pacific Highway SW adding curbs, gutters, sidewalks, bicycle lanes, landscaping, and storm drainage improvements between Bridgeport Way and SR 512. This project was in conjunction with the Lakewood Station project where the City developed a cooperative agreement with Sound Transit to build a garage instead of surface parking, which freed up valuable I-5 frontage for Lakewood Ford.

The next phase of Pacific Highway SW is a $6.0 million project between Gravelly Lake Drive and Bridgeport Way to add curbs, gutters, sidewalks, bicycle lanes, street lights, landscaping, and storm drainage improvements. In addition, the roadway section will be reduced from a five lane section to a three lane section which will free up much-needed right-of-way to the physically constrained northwest properties along this corridor for redevelopment. This phase will start construction in Fall-2009.

Over $12.0 Million will be spent to extend sanitary sewer to the neighborhoods of Tillicum and American Lake Gardens. In addition, the Lakewood Water District will spend approximately $1.0 million in water main upgrades. This project construction will start in fall / Winter-2008. Lakewood has contracted with BCRA to do a master Tillicum community redevelopment plan and with Huitt-Zollars for an industrial redevelopment master plan overlay for American Lake Gardens.

Lakewood understands that traffic flow is key to supporting business. The City is in the midst of a multi-year project to upgrade its traffic signal system. The City has over 70 traffic signals under its jurisdiction. In 2008, the City invested approximately $300,000 to upgrade its central control system and all of the local controllers on Steilacoom Boulevard. This has allowed the City to provide improved signal timing and coordination through the corridor. Over the next few years, the City will be upgrading all of its signals with first priority being on our major corridors.