Later this month, the Port of Centralia will hold the official welcoming ceremony for WinCo Foods. Port officials will also dedicate the newly constructed Art Lehman Drive, Port Executive Director Kyle Heaton said during the port’s Wednesday, June 5, meeting.
“On the 20th of June, we are finishing up the preparations for that … just hoping for good weather that day, that’s the one thing we don’t know,” Heaton said.
It will be held at 12:30 p.m. Thursday, June 20, at the intersection of Art Lehman Avenue and the newly extended Yew Street, which will give traffic access to the Interstate 5 Mellen Street exit.
WinCo is a warehouse-style supermarket chain that offers bulk food items and is open 24 hours a day. Port officials have long described WinCo as the anchor tenant for the Centralia Station — a shopping center development project — with hopes that it will attract other businesses to the surrounding area.
An official date for the opening of the supermarket has not been announced.
Art Lehman, the namesake of the new road, was a Port of Centralia commissioner from 1986 to 2011. He died March 21, 2019, at the age of 87.
