A new retail building planned for the busy Road 68 corridor of Pasco is expected to significantly increase traffic in the already busy area, and renderings hint that a Target store may be the anticipated tenant.

The proposed project puts a spotlight on the city’s plan to relieve Road 68 congestion that spills over onto the streets behind the Pasco Walmart and in front of Lowe’s.

Plans call for extending Road 76 over Interstate 182 into the Chapel Hill Boulevard neighborhood, a plan Pasco’s new mayor calls the Pasco’s Duportail Bridge project, referring to the city of Richland bridge that connects the Queensgate shopping area anchored by Target and Walmart with central Richland neighborhoods on the other side of Highway 240.

The overpass will become key to relieving congestion in the coming years, especially if the future tenant is a store with a draw like Target.

Multi-building retail center 

Seattle-based development company Pacland submitted plans to develop the retail building off Burden Boulevard in Pasco, just west of the Lowe’s on Road 68, according to documents filed in December in the State Environmental Policy Act, or SEPA, register.

Called Pasco Black Development Retail, the proposed project features a 148,000-square-foot retail building with associated parking, pedestrian walkways, landscaping and utilities. 

The project also includes a building pad along Burden Boulevard – a tenant is unknown at this time, but plans show space for a 2,300-square-foot fast food restaurant with a drive-thru, according to traffic impact documents.

The land, about 14.5 acres, is owned by the state Department of Natural Resources.

Construction is projected to start in summer 2026, according to the documents, and occupancy is anticipated in 2027. 

While Pasco officials can’t speculate about the project’s tenant, it’s a project that the city’s excited about, said Haylie Matson, community and economic development director with the city.

“The proposed use is appropriate and desired for the Road 68 area, and new businesses like this tend to generate excitement and positive energy for the community,” she said.

In the meantime, the city is planning improvements, including the Road 76 overpass, to alleviate traffic in the area. 

A possible Target 

While no tenant is identified for the retail building, it’s referred to as a “discount superstore” in traffic impact documents and renderings show a distinctive red and white building exterior, with red spheres lining the pedestrian walkway outside of the store, a crosswalk made up of red and white dots and a row of red shopping carts, characteristic of Target’s red-and-white branding and bull’s-eye logo.

Target is “continually evaluating potential store locations to serve new guests,” a company spokesperson told the Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business, but currently no Washington sites make the list of upcoming store locations. 

The company, founded in 1962, has 1,989 stores in the U.S., according to Target’s website. 

The proposed Pasco retail building is significantly larger than the Tri-Cities’ two existing Target stores. 

The Kennewick Target at 1106 N. Columbia Center Blvd. is 113,826 square feet, while the larger Richland Target at 2941 Queensgate Drive is 127,195 square feet. 

However, the larger size would be consistent with Target’s shift toward bigger stores. 

Target announced in 2022 the launch of new, larger-format stores, a focus for the retailer in the next few years. 

At nearly 150,000 square feet, the larger stores are about 20,000 square feet bigger than the chain’s average store size, according to the company’s 2022 release. 

In the new, larger stores, the backroom fulfillment space is five times bigger to support Target’s digital orders and same-day services, which account for more than 10% of the company’s overall sales. 

Six of seven new stores Target opened in fall 2025 were upward of 140,000 square feet. Target also announced in 2024 that it plans to build more than 300 new stores in the next decade. 

More traffic

The new retail building will be along the already-busy Road 68 retail corridor. A 183-page traffic analysis included with the SEPA documents highlighted some of the anticipated impacts of the building. 

The proposed project is estimated to add 5,398 vehicle trips on weekdays and 6,612 on Saturdays, according to the document.

At five of eight intersections studied, traffic was expected to meet Pasco’s level of service standards in 2027 – the year occupancy in the new building is anticipated – either with or without the new retail building. 

The remaining three intersections either currently have or are anticipated to have unacceptable operating levels by 2027, resulting in vehicle delays. 

At Road 76 and Sandifur Parkway, which is forecast to have heavy traffic flow by 2027 either with or without the new building, Pasco has laid out future improvements, including conversion from a two-way stop to a potential roundabout or signalized intersection.

Traffic impact fees from the retail project – expected to be just over $1 million – will help offset costs for the road improvements.

At Burden Boulevard’s T-shaped intersection with a private commercial driveway to the south, the new retail building is expected to create long lines of traffic. As part of the development’s frontage improvements, the intersection will be restriped to accommodate two eastbound through lanes. 

The intersection of Road 68 and Burden is already operating at substandard levels and will continue to do so in 2027 with or without the project, according to the traffic impact analysis.

I-182 and Road 76 overpass 

The Road 76 overpass project is included in Pasco’s Transportation System Master Plan, created in 2022 to supplement the city’s Comprehensive Plan. 

The overpass would extend Road 76 across Interstate 182, connecting the neighborhoods south of the interstate with the commercial areas on the other side of it.

The proposed bridge over the highway “supplements the carrying capacity of the Road 68 overpass to allow local trips to cross the freeway without passing through the ramp intersections and provides quality walking and bicycling options that are not available at Road 68,” according to the Transportation System Master Plan. 

The new overpass also would reduce travel distances and decrease daily vehicle miles by 6,300 by 2045, Matson said. 

Pasco has already received a $3.79 million Federal Surface Transportation Block Grant to be matched with $1 million in city funds for design and right of way acquisition. 

The city is currently requesting $30 million from the state for construction, she said, and can be ready to use those construction funds as early as 2028.

Pasco also named the overpass as a top legislative priority for this year. At a special city council workshop on Dec. 8 in a discussion with state legislators, now-mayor Charles Grimm highlighted the project’s importance.

The intersection of Burden and Road 68 “is the busiest intersection in the third largest metropolitan area in the state,” he said. “It’s jammed. It’s cramped. People don’t even want to go there. And so this project would alleviate a lot of that congestion. … It’s really – it’s our Duportail Bridge.”