City Delays Intersection Work In/Around: Manito

Business owners near the intersection of 29th and Grand Boulevard won a victory of sorts at City Hall this week.

About 30 owners signed a petition earlier this year seeking a delay in reconstruction of the intersection with concrete pavement. They complained that their businesses had suffered in four of the past five years from street closures in the vicinity.

Last summer, the city closed and repaved a section of Grand Boulevard along Manito Park. The year before the city rebuilt the utility lines.

This summer, the city’s public works engineers were seeking approval of a $461,000 contract to rebuild the intersection starting this month.

On Monday, the Spokane City Council voted to postpone the construction until next spring.

The council took the action after receiving assurances that the state grant money for the project would still be available next year and that the contractor would do the work for the same price.

City Clerk Terri Pfister said Acme Materials and Construction Co. of Spokane agreed to maintain its bid into next year.

Don Budig, owner of the Manito Exxon at 29th and Grand, said he and other business owners contacted several council members and asked for the reprieve.

Street closures in four of the past five years have caused business revenues to fall, and the owners were seeking to go a full year this year without losing business to more traffic restrictions.

The intersection project would have caused restrictions and possible delays for about a month.

“What we are saying is give us a reprieve,” Budig said. “We need time to make profits and get financially healthy.”

Budig has invested in rebuilding his business into a gas station and convenience store. He eliminated his service bays.

He said he telephoned state transportation officials in Olympia to make sure the grant money could be spent next spring. They told him it could, and that information became part of the argument for the delay, he said.

“We tried to educate them (council members) as to what this meant to us,” Budig said.

Along with offering concrete pavement, the project will add an additional right-turn lane for traffic westbound on 29th Avenue turning north onto Grand.