The Issaquah City Council unanimously voted at the Feb. 8 meeting to award the construction contract for the Southeast 62nd Street extension to Quigg Bros, Inc. of Aberdeen.

The project, which has been in the works since 2010 and is slated for completion at the end of next year, will create a new road that extends Southeast 62nd Street to Lake Drive and thereby connects Lake Drive with East Lake Sammamish Parkway Southeast. There will be two new roundabouts where the road extension intersects 221st Place Southeast and Lake Drive.

A tunnel will be constructed for the East Lake Sammamish Trail so that trail users can go under Southeast 62nd Street instead of crossing the busy road. In addition, Southeast 62nd Street will be realigned and widened, and the Pickering Trail will receive new lights and concrete.

Quigg Bros, Inc. beat out seven other bidders from around the state with its bid of approximately $23.1 million. The next-lowest bid of $23.3 million came from IMCO General Construction of Ferndale. Graham Contracting Ltd. of Bellevue submitted the highest bid, which amounted to $27.6 million.

“We feel that not only did we get a good set of bid documents and a very competitive environment, but we also got an excellent contractor to boot as a low bidder, so things have really lined up well for the city,” Public Works Engineering Director Sheldon Lynne said at the meeting.

Lynne stated that the estimated total cost of the project is $44,042,700, but noted that the city will not know the exact cost until next year. Roughly $23.25 million of funding for the project will come from Costco, while about $10.5 million will come from the Washington state Transportation Improvement Board and $5 million from the Department of Commerce. The city of Issaquah will cover approximately $4 million, which will come out of real estate excise tax revenues and impact fees.

Councilmember Bill Ramos brought up the question of the tunnel, noting that many walkers and runners may not be comfortable using it.

Councilmember Paul Winterstein said that the tunnel would have safety measures put in place, making it safer “than many other places we have in the city where you could be obscured from sight or sound of anyone else.”

“We know it’s gonna have lighting, we also know that it’s gonna have a very straight line of sight,” Winterstein said.

The construction will require an 18-month closure of the intersection of 221st Street, 62nd Avenue Southeast and Fourth Avenue Northwest, beginning in mid- to late-June of this year.

Ramos said that he wanted to get the word out about the closure as soon as possible. Lynne said that the city would be doing everything in its power to spread this information to residents beforehand. He did note that the traffic that would be affected by the closure would be “mostly industrial.”

“That’s gonna have a large effect on everyone, including us,” Ramos said. “I regret that we have to do that but I don’t know how else to build it otherwise.”

Deputy Council President Mary Lou Pauly asked Lynne how the construction trucks would affect traffic in the city.

“There is gonna be a heavy trucking element to this,” Lynne said. “They are moving and importing thousands of yards of material.”

Councilmember Tola Marts was not present for the vote.

The meeting was originally scheduled for Feb. 6, but was rescheduled due to the snow, which closed City Hall for the entirety of the day.