Washougal rail crossing costs outrun estimate

City of Washougal leaders are optimistic that they’ll be able to fund their 32nd Street rail crossing project despite initial cost estimates coming in higher than originally projected.

City engineer Scott Collins told the Council during the Nov. 4 workshop that the project is estimated to cost between $69 and $80 million, significantly more than the City’s original estimate of $60 million.

“We were targeting a June 2024 meeting with the state’s project review committee — you have to be either registered through the state to move forward with alt-delivery or get approval,” Collins said.

However, about one week before that meeting, the City received a higher-than-anticipated cost estimate from its engineering and professional services consultant firm, WSP.

“We felt we had to pull the application because we wanted to do some thorough analysis before we move forward,” Collins said.

The project will reconnect Washougal’s Addy Street neighborhood with its downtown and Port of Camas-Washougal areas by reconstructing five intersections along 32nd Street. It will include a new railroad bridge and underpass structure between Main Street/“B” Street and Evergreen Way move forward with the project. I cannot speculate on whether there will be any changes that will impact our grant award,” Scott said. “If something changes with respect to our grant award, we will need to evaluate the situation at that time.”

On Nov. 4, Scott told Washougal City Council members that he is still confident the project will move forward.

“If during the feasibility stage, we land somewhere (and the construction team) comes back and says, ‘Yep, $69 to $80 million is very feasible,’ we’re good to go,” Scott said during the Council’s Nov. 4 workshop. “We feel really confident that that’s going to be the case, but we need to get through that process.”

The City has selected a Progressive Design Build (PDB) process, in which it will select one contractor to design and construct the project. The process will validate the cost estimates and provide “innovative design and construction solutions” to reduce cost and mitigate impacts, according to Collins.

“A huge benefit with PDB as we move forward and secure funding, we know what our ultimate funding is going to be,” Collins said. “You can really value-engineer and find ways to either stay within budget or add scope if for some reason we get additional funds.”

The City sent out request-for-qualification documents to PDB teams in October. It will finalize a shortlist and issue request-for-proposals in December, and select a team in March 2025. The selected team will begin design work in the second quarter of 2025, start construction in the second quarter of 2027, and complete construction by the end of 2029, according to a project timeline on the City’s website.

The first task for the PDB team will be to conduct a “feasibility” phase to determine whether the project is a “go” or “no-go,” according to Robynne Thaxton, the principal of Thaxton Parkinson PLLC, a Woodinville, Washington-based law and consulting firm.

“Once we get through this feasibility study, we will have a deep understanding of, hopefully, a very feasible way forward, and that’s going to be your true ‘go-no go,’” Thaxton said during the Nov. 4 workshop. “(The study is) going to be vetted pretty thoroughly and be brought back to you.”

The team will then conduct a “validation” phase, which will strive to discover material information to create the most accurate good-manufacturing-process and risk assessment plan possible, according to Thaxton.

The PDB team will collaborate with the City to verify or validate the project’s program, scope, schedule and budget, and verify baseline project requirements such as Geotech, existing conditions, permitting, supply chain and other major risks.

“Validation is an incredibly important part of the design build process,” Thaxton said. “At this point in time, we completely verify and validate the program scope, schedule and budget, the baseline project requirements, and the big risks. After we get through validation, you guys are going to see a baseline scope-schedule-budget. Since we’ve gone through this feasibility, it should be, hopefully, not anything different. But as we’re going along, we’re going to be able to take that feasibility study and this baseline validation study to make sure that we start off on the same page, and if we start off on the same page, then we have something to track the future understanding of the costs by and get to the next thing.”