Slowly but surely the city of Covington is working on Southeast 272nd Street as it runs through downtown to the Maple Valley border.

Later this summer the next phase of work on state Route 516 will be put out to bid, according to Covington’s Public Works Director Glenn Akramoff, with $2 million of the price tag coming from money allocated by the state Legislature along with a transportation improvement grant.

“Bids will be going out mid-summer, end of July or early August,” Akramoff said. “It is widening and adding pedestrian facilities and landscaping consistent with the rest of Kent Kangley.”

Construction would start later this summer, Akramoff said, either in late August or September with work slated to run six to nine months tentatively, “but you can always run into things” that can cause delays.

This phase of the project will widen Southeast 272nd from Wax Road east to the Jenkins Creek Bridge just past MultiCare and Schuck’s Auto Supply.

“People are going to see an improvement now because a lot of people aren’t going to be using as a bypass now that the SR 169 bridge is open,” Akramoff said. “We know it’s an issue and it’s something that we’re working on.”

While crews work on that part of the road, Akramoff said, city staff will continue trying to find cash to design the next phase of work which will go from the bridge east to 185th Avenue Southeast, or the traffic light into Covington Esplanade.

“That’s one of our top priorities as far as getting funding because that’s one of the top priorities for us as far as the next capital project,” Akramoff said. “That bridge is such a choke point but a bridge is very expensive. Finding the money to design it is very difficult in today’s market.”

Akramoff said that because it’s a state route, Covington staff had to work with the Washington state Department of Transportation during design of each phase of improvements to Southeast 272nd.

“We have to get certain approvals from the state,” he said. “We definitely work very closely with them. All of the striping and signage, all of the signals are theirs. We have a very good relationship with them and they’re very cooperative.”