MATTAWA — A Washington State University student design team will be here on Dec. 5 to start work on the makeover for Government Road.

The Rural Community Design Initiative team has visited Mattawa three times to collect the community input by which it will be guided. The team of five interns is headed by Associate Professor Robert Krikac.

“Two of the interns are WSU students from Mattawa,” Government Road Improvement Committee President Lars Leland said last week. “I think that’s really good.”

Leland recently attended a Wenatchee conference about grant sources and the process for acquiring their grants. Private and public sources were present.

“We met the people who make the decisions,” Leland said.

A grant that caught Leland’s attention was one for $8.5 million from the Washington State Department of Commerce. One of the reasons for improving Mattawa’s main street is to spur new commerce. It’s also about improved safety, especially of school children.

From several public input meetings over the past year, the wishes that were identified as a general consensus were:

• New sidewalks
• Widening the street to include a left turn lane.
• Improved street lighting.
• Roundabout at Government and Boundary.

The purpose of the December workshop is to come up with a design to hand to the city’s engineers, Gray & Osborne of Yakima. Their approval or disapproval will dictate how the GRIC moves forward.