Business is still slow for Kim Yong Hyun at his convenience store at Jackson Highway and North Fork Road seven months after the nearby Newaukum Bridge was closed for reconstruction.
“It’s very bad right now,” said Kim, owner of the Minute Stop Market. “It’s very, very difficult. ... Everybody asks when the bridge opens.”
Closure of Jackson Highway and a detour have rerouted the daily traffic that would typically pass by his store in the tiny crossroads community of Forest. Kim says he is hoping the bridge opens soon, because business is slower than ever.
He is banking on more traffic passing by his store once the bridge opens back up again.
“Hopefully things will get better,” Kim said.
Initial open dates have come and gone. The bridge was scheduled to be finished by late November or December, but is now on track to open again in February, according to county officials.
“We’ve had all kinds of problems with that project,” Lewis County Commissioner Ron Averill said.
Archaeological finds in the construction area and bad weather have derailed the project, extending its timeline and adding an estimated $150,000 to the $2.15 million project. The bridge is still set to come in below the county’s original estimate of $3.2 million.
County officials anticipated finding artifacts and had an archaeologist tag along from the beginning of the project. However, after unearthing rock shards and other potential clues of something larger, the project was put on a three-week hiatus in October.
“Ultimately it was determined that we didn’t find King Tut,” said Rod Lakey, assistant engineer with Lewis County Public Works. “Nothing significant was found.”
Lakey said archaeologists are still investigating the site, but work has been allowed to continue.
Plans to replace the bridge built in 1929 with a new precast two-span concrete bridge have stalled from the get-go. County officials hoped to replace the bridge a couple years ago. However, the December 2007 flood scoured the river, significantly changing the landscape — so much so the original plans had to be scrapped and the bridge redesigned.
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Marqise Allen: (360) 807-8237, Twitter @marqiseallen
