Port Approves Payments for Ongoing Centralia Station Project

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As work continues on Centralia Station, mainly focused on stormwater pipe installation as Yew Street is extended, the Port of Centralia recently approved two more pay estimates to construction company Midway Underground. 

Centralia Station is a proposed shopping center and mixed-use development with WinCo Foods planned as the anchor tenant. Once completed, it will be located just off the Mellen Street exit of Interstate 5.

The first estimate was approved on Feb. 15 to the tune of $300,926.95 and the second, of $248,921.09, was approved March 15. 

There have now been four payments made totaling $1,858,976.74 including these latest two going back to the first made in January.  

Midway Underground, a Toledo-based contractor, was awarded the project on Aug. 26, 2022, for a bid of $6,116,322.03. 

While weather has caused some expected delays, there have been other issues slowing the progress, including an excavator hitting a gas line, equipment thefts and problems setting up trash removal services. 

“I really want to, especially on the record, thank (Lewis County) Commissioner (Sean) Swope, who stepped in and restored the ability for the port and its contractors to contract with LeMay directly (for trash collection) when we’re doing these demolition projects just like the school district does and just like everyone else is allowed to do,” Port of Centralia Executive Director Kyle Heaton said in a March 1 meeting. 

Since the gas line was struck in January, no others have been hit either and no other thefts have been reported by Midway Underground since last month. The work currently underway is the first of two project stages and once completed, Yew Street will be extended south past Brotherson Road and parallel to Long Road.



The second stage will involve a dedicated ramp and turning lane extending off the I-5 Mellen Street exit and will begin once the first is complete. 

“We expect the project (stage one) to be wrapped up by mid July,” Heaton told The Chronicle in an email. 

In a Feb. 1 Centralia-Chehalis Chamber of Commerce forum, Port of Centralia Commissioner Kyle Markstrom said he expected the second stage to be completed by the end of 2023. 

After stage two is completed, WinCo will begin construction but no date has been set for a possible opening. 

“They have their own developer, so we’re not intimately involved with what their timeline is for construction,” Markstrom said at the Feb. 1 forum. 

WinCo is a warehouse-style supermarket chain that offers bulk food items and is open 24 hours a day. The port is currently working with WinCo to finalize site plans for the shopping center. 

“We’re getting very close on that, we expect to have something to present to the city within the next month or so,” added Heaton at the March 1 meeting.