We’ve reported previously on the upgrades – and art – planned for Seattle Public Utilities‘ Pump Station 38, on the water side of the 1400 block of Alki Avenue SW [map]. Now, SPU has announced the work is expected to start within a few weeks, so it’s time for a reminder. The city says the flow through the station has increased in recent years, so the upgrade will “convert the current pump station from an airlift-type station to a more standard pump station … to reduce the risk of failure.” The project has been awarded to Harbor Pacific Contractors, Inc. of Woodinville, for $2,066,085, according to project manager Jonathan Brown. (That’s up from the $1.2 million estimate last year.) The work is expected to last six to nine months once it begins; the start was estimated “as early as mid-May” when a notice was sent out recently, but now, Brown tells WSB, it’s “looking more likely that it will be a late-May or early June start” as the contractor is still working on right-of-way permits. The work will require parking restrictions and Alki Trail detours for people walking/running/rolling.

The project includes art funded through the city’s half-century-old 1% For Art program, commissioned from Idaho artist Sarah Thompson Moore. We reported last year on the updated design (shown above), including a safety guardrail that the site upgrade would require, with or without art. The city says the art “seeks to create an engaging and thoughtful space that highlights the history of local Indigenous communities and their relationship to the land and waterways surrounding West Seattle.”