WA Legislature delivers $4.8M+ for Tri-Cities stadium and parks. PNNL to get $7.5M
Public parks and facilities in the Tri-Cities got a big financial boost this year from the Washington state Legislature with nearly $5 million in funding.
The 105-day session ended Sunday, and Tri-City lawmakers highlighted more than $46 million in local projects included in the state’s 2023-25 capital budget.
Among the appropriations included for public parks and facilities included:
$3 million for Gesa Stadium in Pasco, Wash., for facility improvements.
$750,000 for Burden Boulevard soccer fields in Pasco for new turf.
$700,000 for the Richland Players community theater, as well as renovations and additions.
$258,000 for a Kennewick Kiwanis project to build a playground at the Boys and Girls Club on Seventh Place in Kennewick.
$155,000 for Peanuts Park North in downtown Pasco.
Washington’s capital budget also funded projects at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Pasco’s process water reuse facility, the Yakima Valley Farm Works Clinic in Kennewick, utilities for Kennewick’s new light industrial area south of Interstate 82, and infrastructure and maintenance repairs at Columbia Basin College.
PNNL will receive $7.5 million of the $46 million total to expand the regional energy analytics ability of its Electric Infrastructure Operations Center in Richland.
That will help utilities and energy planners, both in Washington and across the nation, compare options as they transition to a clean energy system.
“The capital budget is about taking just a little bit of the money that our taxpayers send to Olympia and bringing it back home, where we can invest it in improving our infrastructure, bettering our quality of life and creating good-paying jobs for our people,” Sen. Matt Boehnke, R-Kennewick, said in a statement.
