As efforts continue for the long-awaited construction of the Yelm Loop project, road crews have begun to prepare for the bypass project on the outskirts of Yelm near Walmart.
Yelm Public Works Director Cody Colt states the staging process has been ongoing for five months and will likely continue through April or May of 2025 when the project officially goes out for bid.
“You’ll probably have noticed there’s a lot of construction crews out around Walmart, the end of Walmart, the inside of Walmart Boulevard, and there’s even some staging around Five Corners,” Colt told the Nisqually Valley News on Monday, Dec. 16. “All of those are utility crews and what they’re doing is moving utilities like power, cable, internet, telephone in preparation of the loop coming.”
He added that other preparations for the Yelm Loop project have included negotiations with local home or property owners for right-of-way access for different amenities such as sidewalks or stub outs for curbs and other utilities.
“When the actual process takes place, we’ll be bringing some of our utilities like water, sewer and reclaimed water across or through different areas of the road,” Colt said. “That will be happening during construction, which we’re excited about as well.”
Once the bidding process opens, Colt said local drivers and residents can expect to see construction crews out surveying and looking at the land, channeling different information to inquire what they’d need to obtain for an accurate bid.
In addition to the Yelm Loop project, a portion of which will be constructed near Walmart, a roundabout is set to be constructed in front of the franchised store to alleviate traffic passing into Yelm.
Colt anticipates the Yelm Loop project beginning before the roundabout project but said that the roundabout should be constructed long before the Yelm Loop is finished due to the size of that specific loop.
“The Walmart section of the loop could be done first, but the whole loop will not be constructed before our roundabout is up and running,” Colt said.
Colt added that whoever wins the bid on the Yelm Loop project will have to submit a detailed traffic plan on how they’ll deal with congestion during certain hours of the day.
“If there’s any major cutdowns or delays, they’ll try to do that at night. You’ll see some of the crews right now are working at night, starting at like nine o’clock at night and finishing at 5 a.m.,” Colt said. “Just like everyone else, I’m hoping this project keeps moving forward. If you’ve lived here your whole life, you’ll know about the Yelm Loop. This project has been talked about since the early to mid-’80s, and I want this to happen more than anything. Hopefully nothing gets in the way, and we can keep pressing forward. It looks like it’s going to since we’re at a point we’ve never been at before.”
