Service Center

Plans are beginning to take shape for the new Chelan County PUD Service Center in Olds Station.

Building on the pre-design work that was performed during the strategic facility planning process, in early 2019, the PUD worked on preliminary designs with TCF Architecture from Tacoma. We spent considerable time with employees to get an understanding of operational and work space efficiencies, ways to improve productivity and provide for customer convenience. In late spring, Absher Construction from Puyallup, WA was selected as the General Contractor/Construction Management (GCCM) firm to help us move into the next phase of the building process. During the summer, the early designs continued to be refined, more details were added and we moved into design specifics, construction scheduling and began to look at interior aesthetics and graphics for signage to navigate the large campus.

The PUD also is working with a group of customers from around Chelan County to provide ideas on what could be included in the public lobby spaces and the outdoor public plaza. That’s where you come in! We need your help. From now until December, we will be taking suggestions from our customers about how best to include information, history and/or facts about this beautiful County we call home. And how does your public utility play a role in connecting people throughout the county? Is it the PUD’s high-speed fiber? Is it the history around how Chelan County voted to create a public utility district? Is it the many ways to conserve our natural resources?

Tell us what your idea is and how it could be a part of the installation in the public space at the new Service Center. Tell us what you think!

Visit our FAQ's page for more information

Click here for a complete outline of staff presentations about the project. 

This website will be continuously updated at each step of the project to keep the community informed. Please don’t hesitate to reach out and contact us at any time by sending an email to ContactUs@chelanpud.org.

Image of a Birds eye view of Plaza Image of Service Desk in Lobby

Service center timeline update

Join us on an exciting journey

Chelan PUD spent almost three years looking at ways to improve the services we deliver to you. We even walked through the process of getting a new service connection from the eyes of customer – and what we found is that we’ve got great, helpful people, but unknowingly, we’ve created barriers to great customer service by the way our facilities are designed.

Looking back since the 1960s – when the third floor was added to the headquarters building – here are some comparisons:

  Then Now 
 16,700 customers  50,000 customers
 285 employees   858 employees
 200 vehicles  776 vehicles/equipment
 No telecommunications  County-wide broadband network
 No park systems  15 parks

               

Needless to say, a lot has happened in 50+ years at the PUD, but not much has happened with our facilities to keep up with the times and to meet the needs of our customers. Some buildings on the downtown, Fifth Street campus date back to 1920. At our Hawley Street facility, some date back to the 1950s.

Efficiency

Likewise, we encourage you to save money and be energy efficient. Sadly, our facilities aren’t energy efficient and it would be cost prohibitive to make most of the buildings efficient to today’s standards. It costs the PUD more than $3 million every year to maintain these aging, inefficient buildings.

And the traffic. No one wants to see the Wenatchee area become as congested as the Puget Sound region. Yet, we know that PUD trucks spend a lot of unnecessary time on Wenatchee Avenue – because 70 percent of all service trips are north of Wenatchee. Our estimates are that $750,000 could be saved on travel costs alone.

That’s all to say that the time is right to make some changes. And, we want you to take this journey with us and give us your thoughts along the way.

We have a fantastic opportunity to provide the greater Wenatchee community with a crown jewel of a redevelopment project almost in the heart of downtown Wenatchee.