Walk down Federal Street between First and Second right now and you will hit orange fencing, a stretch of exposed dirt where the water feature plumbing is going in, and the low hum of Ajax Northwest's crew finishing out a project that started as a conversation in September 2024. For as long as most residents can remember, this block of Federal Street has been the kind of street you cut through to get somewhere else, not somewhere you go. That is the point of what is being built here. Whether it actually changes how The Dalles spends a Saturday afternoon depends less on the plaza itself than on what happens to the vacant lot sitting right next to it, and that decision is still very much up in the air.
A Street Built to Be a Destination Instead of a Shortcut
The Federal Street Plaza carries a total project budget just under $4.92 million, layered across $520,000 in grants, $2.67 million in special enterprise zone funding, $390,000 in transportation and ADA program dollars, and $437,000 from the city's general fund. The construction piece of that, a $3.4 million contract with Ajax Northwest LLC, was approved by a 4-1 council vote on April 13, 2026, and ground was broken a month later on May 11. The city's own project page now puts the target completion at the end of October 2026, a slight slip from the original council estimate of October 2 that ran in local coverage back in April.
What you get for that money is not a simple repaving job. Walker Macy, the Portland landscape architecture firm that led the design process, built the plaza around a splash pad and pump station, porch swings, a shaded arbor, ADA-accessible walkways, and a Gorge bike hub with lockers and tools. The design leans on regional materials, basalt columns and boulders that echo the Gorge landscape, and takes cues from the temporary fishing platforms Indigenous communities built along the Columbia, worked into the shape of the benches and shade structures.
How Close the Signature Feature Came to Being Cut
The splash pad almost did not survive the funding conversation. At that same April 13 council meeting, Mayor Rich Mays asked whether the water feature could be pulled from the plans to save money without delaying the timeline. City Attorney Jonathan Kara told him no. Removing a central element at that stage would trigger a rebid of the entire contract, so the $925,000 the splash pad consumes out of Ajax's total bid stayed in. Councilor Scott Randall made the case for keeping it in blunt terms, pointing to how much water features do for tourism elsewhere.
"All the water features there, and how attractive that is to tourists."
It is a small moment, but it tells you something about how tight the margins were on this project. The plaza almost came out of the ground without the one feature designed to draw families in the summer heat, and it stayed only because pulling it would have cost more than keeping it.
The Six Weeks When Downtown Trades One Gathering Space for Another
Here is the part that will actually shape your next few weekends. The city's own traffic update page, last refreshed September 8, 2026, confirms that Lewis & Clark Festival Park is closed from September 14 through October 4. That is the same stretch of calendar during which the Federal Street Plaza is supposed to open. First Street itself remains closed for its own streetscape project, also under an Ajax Northwest contract, with no fixed reopening date attached beyond "when the work wraps."
That means for most of the next two weeks, downtown does not actually gain public space, it swaps one closed lot for one almost-finished one. The festival park that has hosted the Fourth of July celebration and the Farmers Market Community Mixer goes dark right as Federal Street starts to look like something people might use. If the plaza's completion slips past October 4 by more than a few days, which construction timelines on public projects tend to do, The Dalles could find itself with zero fully open outdoor civic space downtown for a stretch this fall. Worth knowing before you plan around either location.
The Empty Lot That Decides If Any of This Sticks
The plaza sits directly next to Tony's Lot, the site of the old Tony's Town & Country building, and that lot's future is still unresolved. The Columbia Gateway Urban Renewal Agency Board met just last week, on September 15, to weigh recommendations from six University of Oregon student teams who spent a term studying what the site could become. Their proposals ranged from permanent commercial redevelopment to a flexible public space built for markets, food vendors, and community gatherings. City staff framed the choice directly for the board: keep the lot positioned for eventual private redevelopment, or pursue interim improvements and programming that would complement the plaza next door.
That choice matters more than the plaza's ribbon cutting. When the council approved the plaza's final design back in spring 2025, committee member Bets Stelzer told them plainly why the city needed this kind of space at all, describing growing up in The Dalles with nowhere downtown to spend time except the furniture section at the local Fred Meyer.
"We had one place to hang out, and that was the Fred Meyer furniture section."
A single well-designed plaza does not undo decades of that habit on its own. A plaza flanked by a vacant lot with an uncertain future is one nice block. A plaza flanked by a programmed public space, markets, food vendors, events, is a district. The Urban Renewal board's decision on Tony's Lot is the difference between the two, and as of this month it has not been made.
What a Preview Weekend Actually Looked Like
For a sense of what downtown gathering space can do when it works, look at what happened just two days ago. Sunshine Mill, the restored 130-year-old flour mill on East Second Street, held its fourth annual Harvesting Sunshine festival on September 19, opening its doors for grape stomping, mill tours, live music, and vendor booths from local businesses. Assistant Manager Anna Jasso described the appeal simply.
"It's one time of the year where we open all of our doors."
About 320 people took the mill's rooftop tours during last year's event, and this year's festival showed off a newly completed east-side tasting area with turf and a children's play structure, along with a mural created through The Dalles Art Center's youth art camp depicting creatures found in the Columbia River. It is proof that when The Dalles has somewhere worth showing up to, people show up. Federal Street is betting it can replicate that pull on a Tuesday, not just once a year.
What to Watch This Fall
- Lewis & Clark Festival Park reopens October 4, assuming no delays
- Federal Street Plaza is targeted for completion by the end of October, a shift from the original October 2 estimate
- First Street stays closed with no confirmed reopening date beyond "at completion"
- The Urban Renewal Agency's decision on Tony's Lot has not been finalized as of this month
- Watch for a formal ribbon cutting announcement once the splash pad and bike hub are operational
Downtown The Dalles has spent two years and nearly five million dollars trying to give itself a place to be, rather than a place to pass through. The construction fencing comes down soon. What happens on the lot right next to it is still an open question, and it is the one that will actually determine whether this fall marks a real shift in how the town spends its weekends or just one very nice block surrounded by the same old habits.
If you're watching these downtown changes and wondering what they might mean for property values in the area, Kenzie Carlstrom tracks Gorge market shifts alongside the civic ones. Get your free home valuation to see where your address stands as downtown The Dalles finishes this next chapter.
