Last Friday night, I passed the site of the Chelan County PUD's service center under construction in Olds Station, and and saw the inside of the headquarters building lit up for the first time. Chelan County PUD General Manager Kirk Hudson calls last year's experience with building the new service center a challenge. Most of that was caused by the discovery of cultural artifacts on the construction site in November of 2021 which caused the groundwork to be suspended for more than seven months. Also contributing to the challenges were labor shortages, supply chain issues and inflation, all of which cost the PUD time and money:
But with the new year, Hudson says the plan is to get the new center open:
Ground was broken on the Olds Station site more than two years ago; at that time, the PUD had hoped to be moving in around now. That has been pushed back to late this year, with the cost of the project now around 165 million dollars.