Puyallup to renovate 30-something-year-old restroom for $1.7 million. Here’s what to know
There’s a public restroom in Puyallup that’s closing for renovations.
The city will close the restroom building at Pioneer Park starting Monday, April 10, for about six to eight months. It is expected to reopen sometime in the fall.
Portable toilets will be available in the meantime. The Puyallup Public Library also has restrooms open during normal business hours.
The project has a $1.7 million price tag. It will be paid for by a $1.5 million state grant as well as the city’s parks capital improvement projects budget and utility budgets. Previously, the city told The News Tribune that the project would cost about $1.59 million.
City spokesperson Eric Johnson said the price increased because of inflation.
“We have gotten some feedback from the community about the cost of the project,” Johnson said. “It’s all the stuff underneath those toilets — that is the main reason for the cost. We have to upgrade our utilities and those are very costly.”
The city also told The News Tribune in February 2022 that construction would begin in October of that year. Johnson said they rescheduled the start date because additional paperwork needed to be done before expanding the restroom building’s size.
There’s a sidewalk behind the current restroom building. Before the city can expand the building, the sidewalk and a few parking spaces need to be removed to accommodate the expansion. The city needed time to go through a public hearing and apply for permits before before doing that, Johnson said.
The new restroom building will have five toilet stalls for the women’s side. It will have two toilet stalls and four urinals for the men’s side. There will also be two new family restrooms with diaper-changing stations.
The building will invite more natural light in and have ADA-accessible features, according to a news release. The electrical, mechanical and plumbing systems will also be updated.
The restroom building was built in 1990. It handled the demand at the time. Plumbing and sewer issues emerged over the years as more people used the restrooms, especially when the city installed the spray park nearby in 2014.
