Still under construction, the intersection of Water Avenue and Ferry Street looked like this on July 2, 2025.
When the contractor on Albany’s Waterfront Project started building the new “plaza street” on April 14, the city expected the closure of that section of Water Avenue to end in mid-June. The work has taken longer than that.
The west end of Water Avenue between Washington and Broadalbin streets, part of my normal bike route, remains closed. This holiday weekend, of course no work was going on.
The block from Washington to Ferry Street looks pretty much finished, but in the block from Ferry to Broadalbin, the street has yet to be surfaced with stone pavers.
It’s easy to see why the job may be taking longer than expected. At the various edges, especially the curved ones, each paver must be individually shaped to fit its allotted space.
In the meantime, though, the utility poles between Washington and the Lyon Street Bridge have been taken down after power lines were placed under ground and the remaining communications cables were taken down.
Under an agreement approved by the city council, Albany customers of Pacific Power will be billed for the cost of undergrounding the electrical systems along that section of Water Avenue. The final amount has not been announced, but it was estimated to be about $2.4 million before the work began last year.
The waterfront contractor, K&E Excavating, told the city engineer last month that two blocks of Water Avenue would be finished before the first summer concert in Monteith Riverpark on July 10.
That gives the paving crew three days starting Monday to wind things up. (hh)
You can see from the intricacies of the paver placement why the job may be taking longer than expected.
It looks like the railroad tracks will not be surrounded by pavers. Too bad. I have seen that done on light rails in the middle of city streets. Maybe heavy rail traffic is too much for a paver system
Originally the tracks when down the middle of the street the full length of Water. It would be nice if the tracks were moved back to the middle of the street where they belong (street running).
The pavers (people responsible to do it) should have been able to figure out how long it would take to do those “intricacies” with the street brick pavers.
If only ________ would learn listen to the experts here in the comments section. Boundless knowledge about ________ left untapped, unheeded! It’s a miracle Albany’s survived this long.
I don’t understand why we couldn’t just have red dyed and stamped concrete if it’s going to have traffic on it. If it’s just for pedestrians it’s taking a lot of Labor but it does look nice. Just keep the traffic off of it because like a lot of money being spent, especially on the burying of the power lines. They’ve been there a very long time in my opinion. I think the the power lines and communication lines were fine. They spent all of that money and now when you sit in front of the big new stage in Monteith and look up you see even more power lines. Kind of seems to make the ones they buried some kind of bizarre joke, but when you’re at the concert don’t look up.
So, now The Council, in all their wisdom!!, has their pavers….well, almost, that is.
What now? There’s nothing on Water Street. Does the Council expect people will stroll Water Street on Sundays after church….the ladies with parasols a la early 1900 New York City? You can’t even see the water from Water Street!
And a huge part of the rest of Albany has streets that are barely driveable!!
RE: not being able to see the water… How to say you haven’t been down Water Avenue recently, without saying you haven’t been down Water Avenue recently.
It must make you feel special to complain about people that complain.
Where, when walking on the new pavers in the middle of Water Street, can anyone see the Willamette River? Are you referring to when the river is at full flood stage?
The whole “Waterfront” project is becoming more ridiculous as it develops!
It seems we’re competing with Corvallis, and unnecessarily so!
The outpouring of money this project generates, and those who will benefit is astronomical, and a waste of taxpayer funds.
Contractors are granted huge amounts of funding, and always given extended completion dates, and overage funds…in my days contractor won the bid, budgeted their allotment, and had so many days to complete their project… the city obviously hasn’t learned any lessons in the past!
“Under an agreement approved by the city council, Albany customers of Pacific Power will be billed for the cost of undergrounding the electrical systems along that section of Water Avenue. The final amount has not been announced, but it was estimated to be about $2.4 million before the work began last year.”
So the City Council decided that customers of Pacific Power will be billed for burying the power lines at an estimated cost of $2.4 million. Thank you City Council for spending our hard earned $. Now is that being passed onto every City of Albany PP & L customer or just the ones that use those power lines downtown?
Albany City Council is more and more like Oregon’s State Legislators… you have money – we will spend it. We know better. Too bad if you don’t have enough left over to save up for something you want, or need. Your money belongs to the government!