Boeing Creek's New Culvert Is In. Innis Arden Way Is Waiting on the Road Above It.
November 5, 2026
November 5, 2026
NW Innis Arden Way did not reopen on October 31. On October 28 the City of Shoreline extended the full closure to Monday, November 30. The closed stretch still runs from NW 166th Street to the Shoreview Park entrance. The City says its contractor needs extra time to rebuild the roadway and Seattle Public Utilities needs to connect the water lines. The new culvert and stream bed have been in place since September.
The biggest piece of the project is in the ground. What's left is roadwork, utilities, stream bed finishing and planting. Over the same weeks, the neighborhood has a short list of open jobs of its own. One of them is the Innis Arden Club's December party, which still needs someone to run it.
The City says crews have dug out the old roadway down to full depth and set the new culvert and stream bed since the closure started in June. In the City's words, the culvert it set "is the largest size available." The state bid notice for the job, published in September 2025, called for a steel arch culvert.
The size matters because of what the culverts were blocking. The City's Hidden Lake Dam Removal project page names the dam and the old NW Innis Arden Way culverts as barriers to fish. It notes that native cutthroat trout and planted salmon live in Boeing Creek upstream of Hidden Lake. The dam came out in Phase 1, which was substantially complete by fall 2023. Phase 2, the culvert, was the last piece.
The project has been around a long time. Hidden Lake started in 1920 as a private fishing pond and small hatchery. King County rebuilt the dam in 1996. From 2002 to 2013 the City spent more than $600,000 dredging sediment out of the lake seven times, then voted in 2014 to stop. Next to that history, an extra month of closure is a short delay.
The City gave two reasons for missing Halloween. Its contractor, Strider Construction, needs extra time to rebuild the roadway, and Seattle Public Utilities has to connect the water lines. Both have to be finished before the road can open.
Here is what the City says to expect for the rest of the work:
That last item affects how December's driving will go. November 30 is the date the full closure ends. Flaggers may still be part of the trip for a while after that.
The planting isn't just tidying up after the job. The City's tree plan for Phase 2 calls for removing 24 trees from the project area, 18 of them classified as significant, and replanting about 69, close to three for every one removed.
| Significant trees slated for removal in Phase 2 | Count |
|---|---|
| Red alder | 7 |
| Western red cedar | 4 |
| Douglas fir | 3 |
| Bigleaf maple | 3 |
| Western hemlock | 1 |
| Total significant | 18 |
The species list was confirmed in the field by Herrera biologists after Pacific Geomatic Services surveyed the trees. The planting happening now is the first step toward the creek corridor neighbors will walk past for decades. The City lists funding from the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office's Land and Water Conservation Fund, a King County Flood Control District Flood Reduction Grant and a King County WaterWorks Grant.
The City's crew does the replanting at the culvert. Shoreline Green City Partnership runs volunteer events in the parks nearby, and two of them land during the closure.
The Shoreview event isn't part of the culvert project. It does take place in the same park the closed road leads to, on a Saturday morning while crews are still planting nearby. Since the road is closed right up to the Shoreview Park entrance, check the City's project page for the detour map before you head over.
The Innis Arden Club's Holiday Soiree normally happens the first weekend in December. The Club's events page describes it as an all-ages evening at the Clubhouse with appetizers, desserts, music, a campfire on the patio, a holiday movie in the kids' zone, hot chocolate and a visit from Santa. If it follows the usual schedule, it would come within days of the road reopening.
It still needs a lead. The Activities Committee page says the 2026 Soiree needs an event lead or committee because the past lead has retired. The Club says the event has "an easy 'recipe' to follow" and a budget already set aside. Anyone interested can contact [email protected]. The Clubhouse already hosted the Halloween Spooktacular and the Oktoberfest party this fall, and before that the Salmon Barbeque, a mid-July tradition for almost 60 years. The December event is the one on the list without a host.
Here's what else is on the Shoreline calendar while the closure runs, and just after it ends:
The ShoreLights kickoff on December 3 is the first event on this list after the closure is set to end. If the road reopens on schedule, it falls during the first week of open traffic, possibly with flaggers still on site.
If you live along Innis Arden Way or close to Shoreview Park and want to know how this year's work might factor into your home's value once traffic is back, Adam Cobb & Team can go through it with you, street by street. Request your complimentary home valuation, and we'll build it around your block.
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