Concrete Pump Station Takes Shape in Ballard
ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN SEATTLE DAILY JOURNAL OF COMMERCE ON FEBRUARY 25, 2026.
BY EMMA LAPWORTH
A 65-foot-tall cylindrical concrete tower has sprouted at the corner of 24th Avenue Northwest and Shilshole Avenue in Ballard.
The structure is part of the new Ballard Tunnel Effluent Pump Station (TEPS), which when completed will collect polluted stormwater and sewage from a new 29-million-gallon, 2.7-mile-long underground storage tunnel and deliver it to King County's West Point Treatment Plant, where it will be pumped into Puget Sound as clean water.
The station is the only visible part of Seattle Public Utilities' and King County Wastewater Treatment Division's $570 million Ship Canal Water Quality Project, which also includes the tunnel and related conveyance facilities. The tunnel will extend from Ballard to Wallingford and collect flows from the Queen Anne, Wallingford, Fremont, East Ballard and Ballard neighborhoods. The new infrastructure will significantly reduce the amount of polluted stormwater and sewage that flows into the Lake Washington Ship Canal, Salmon Bay and Lake Union.
The concrete shell for the TEPS topped out in December. The 65-foot-tall cylindrical tower sits on top of a 110-foot-deep shaft, which serves as the terminus of the new storage tunnel.
Looking up from bottom of shaft / Photo via Delve Underground
Octopus Woman, public artwork by Jeffrey Veregge / Rendering by Johnston Architects
Flatiron/Dragados is building the pump station. For now, the tower looks utilitarian, but that will change. Eventually the concrete structure will be wrapped in a steel lattice with twinkling LED lights. The area around the station will be upgraded with new landscaping and public artwork by the late Jeffrey Veregge, celebrating the Coast Salish heritage of the station site.
The concrete tower will eventually be wrapped in a steel lattice with twinkling LED lights / Rendering by Johnston Architects
The design team for the pump station includes Johnston Architects; HBB Landscape Architecture; Delve Underground, project management and oversight; HDR, mechanical, HVAC, electrical, instrumentation & controls and design coordination; Bright Engineering, structural; Entitlement & Engineering Solutions, civil; Brown and Caldwell, I&C support, conveyance modifications; and The Greenbusch Group, vertical circulation (elevator).
According to SPU, the visible elements of the station are inspired by the underground infrastructure and the Ballard community. The cylindrical tower mirrors the below-ground equipment space while the steel lattice frame evokes the industrial feel and scaffolding of Ballard's shipyards.
SPU's website says the pump station should be completed early next year.
Flatiron/Dragados is also building a final section of the conveyance pipe in Ballard, and is currently working along 24th Avenue Northwest, Northwest 56th Street and 28th Avenue Northwest. Crews have set up a work area at the intersection of 24th Avenue and 56th Street to support upcoming small-diameter tunneling operations. The work area will be in place until spring 2027.
The rest of the tunnel corridor is built, with crews occasionally returning for minor restoration.
Lane Construction built the storage tunnel portion of the Ship Canal Water Quality Project, which includes the tunnel, drop shafts, diversion structures, and corresponding conveyance. Lane launched the tunnel boring machine from the Ballard TEPS site in 2021 and completed tunneling in 2023.
The entire Ship Canal Water Quality Project is expected to wrap in late 2027 when the system becomes operational.