Booth and Sons wins $5.8M Peanuts Park project

The city of Pasco awarded a $5.8 million contract to update Peanuts Park to Booth and Sons Inc. on Feb. 1 after years of planning.

The ambitious project is linked to the city’s planned Lewis Street Overpass project and will include updates to the Farmers Market Pavilion.

The project is supported by federal Community Development Block Grants and appropriations from the city as well as local finds. The city previously solicited bids in early 2020 but rejected the lone bid in May because of cost discrepancies.

The project was put out for bid a second time in November. Booth and Sons of Kennewick was the lone bidder. Its bid was $800,000 above the engineer’s estimate.

2021 Home & Garden Show canceled

The 2021 Regional & Home and garden Show, traditionally held at the HAPO Center in Pasco, has been canceled because of restrictions surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Home Builders Association of Tri-Cities board voted to cancel the popular event in January.

The association mailed refunds to participants in January.

The HBA expects to conduct its 2021 Fall Home Show. Registration will open in late February for returning exhibitors and early March for new ones.

Call 509-735-2745.

Tri-City contractor wins bid for Sunnyside athletic complex

A Kennewick contractor won the contract to build the new Sunnyside School District Athletic Complex.

The district awarded the $7 million contract, which included alternate bids, on Jan. 28 to Chervenell Construction of Kennewick. Three other companies submitted bids.

Bids were opened in September 2020 but because they were higher than anticipated at $11.3 million, the project was put on hold while a redesign was completed.

The redesign eliminated a parking lot and bus road, visitor grandstands, lighting for baseball and softball fields, a storage building, field turf on the baseball field. The district also scaled back some items including reducing the track size from 10 lanes to nine lanes, some fencing, changing from sod to hybrid seed, irrigation systems, stadium bleacher system, reduction of hard surfaces, storm water systems, video scoreboard display and other miscellaneous materials.

The athletic complex project includes a stadium, track, synthetic turf field, baseball field, parking, sidewalks, community walking path and roadway. It’s the second phase of improvements made with proceeds from the 2019 $16 million voter-approved bond.

Construction will start in coming weeks with completion expected in spring 2022.

Chervenell is familiar with Sunnyside school projects, overseeing construction of Washington Elementary in 2015-16.

New system tracks fingerprint status

Real estate brokers and managing brokers are being reminded that fingerprint background checks are required as a condition of their licenses.

The Department of Licensing launched a new online system in 2020 that tracks if the fingerprint requirement is met.

The previous system did not alert licensees or the department if fingerprint documents were missing or expired. The new system alerts licensees about expiring fingerprint reports and prevents them from renewing or transferring licenses if they are missing.

In Washington, go to identogo.com to schedule an appointment to be electronically fingerprinted.

Create an account on the new online licensing system at secureaccess.wa.gov/myAccess/saw/select.do.

Port of Pasco dedicates Reimann Industrial Center

The Port of Pasco formally dedicated its next industrial development in January as its existing business parks build out.

The dedication sets the stage to promote commercial development on the 300 acres the port bought in 2019. The port is selling parcels ranging from 5 to 100 acres for new and expanding industrial businesses.

The property is named for the late Ron Reimann, who served as a port commissioner from November 2011 until his death in July 2017.

Reimann Industrial Center is east of the Pasco Processing Center on Railroad Avenue.

Foreclosure storm is coming after moratorium ends

There were 214,323 foreclosure filings on U.S. properties in 2020, a small fraction of the home losses recorded in the Great Recession and less than half the foreclosures recorded in 2019.

In its yearend look at foreclosures, ATTOM Data Solutions, an arm of RealtyTrac, said lenders acted against 0.16% of all U.S. housing units. But the news isn’t good, it said.

Government orders have stopped most foreclosures, leading to a backlog of actions against homeowners who have fallen behind..

“While it’s still unlikely that we’ll see another wave of foreclosures like the one we had during the Great Recession, we won’t really know how big that backlog is until after the government programs expire,” said Rick Sharga, executive vice president of RealtyTrac.

Among metro areas with populations of at least 200,000, the highest foreclosure rates were recorded in Peoria, Illinois; Rockford, Illinois; Trenton, New Jersey; Atlantic City, New Jersey; and McAllen, Texas.

The states with the highest foreclosure rates in 2020 were Delaware, New Jersey, Illinois, Maryland and South Carolina.