Hundreds of Bothell residents gathered on Main Street on Saturday to celebrate the completion of the Main Street Enhancement Project.

The $5.8 million Main Street project began in April 2017 to revitalize and improve the area after the large fire that damaged the area in the summer of 2016.

Barbara Ramey, communications officer at the city of Bothell, said the project changes to the downtown included road reworking, additional parking and new utilities infrastructure.

“Some highlights of the project are that it straightened out the alignment of the road, there was a whole bunch of underground utility work, it was really important because underneath the road the utilities were super old and needed to be replaced,” she said. “We got almost $5 million from the State Transportation Improvement Board for construction, that’s just the construction cost, that really was what enabled the project to move forward.”

The event was co-sponsored by the city of Bothell, the Bothell Chamber of Commerce, the North Shore Rotary and Main Street merchants. In addition to several booths from local organizations and businesses, the celebration had a bounce house for young children, and live music was performed by the Canyon Park Middle School Jazz Band and local group Tweety and the Tomcats.

As part of the official ribbon cutting, all of the event attendees gathered behind the ribbon for a photo of of the street. The photo was intentionally recreating an older historic photo of the Bothell main street as a way to show how much progress has been made in the city’s history.

Washington Transportation Improvement Board Executive Director Ashley Probart (left) and Bothell Mayor Andy Rheaume spoke to the crowd about all the work that went into developing the project. Evan Pappas/Staff Photo

Bothell citizens explore the redesigned street. Evan Pappas/Staff Photo

Mayor Rheaume cuts the ribbon after a group countdown from the crowd. Evan Pappas/Staff Photo