Sound Transit, Kent city officials and Puyallup-based Absher Construction officially broke ground Oct. 1 on the $62 million parking garage scheduled to open in 2027 with 400-plus stalls. The garage will go up along Railroad Avenue North, just south of West James Street and east of the Kent Station shopping center, on property where a closed cold storage warehouse once sat.

A second parking garage for Sounder riders in Auburn is expected to open in 2027. The Sumner garage is slated to open in 2026.

“This is a project that has been a long time in the making,” said Kent Mayor Dana Ralph at the groundbreaking. “There’s been the strong and consistent voice of South King County and Auburn saying that this is important to our residents coming from the east and west hills to be able to utilize their cars from where we don’t have that connectivity through other forms of transit to get to use Sounder.”

The garage will serve Sounder S Line passengers and users of Sound Transit Express buses and King County Metro buses in Kent, which is a key mobility hub for South King County residents. As part of the project, a bus layover facility with electric charging stations will be constructed for King County Metro. Previously, Sound Transit added 14 new smart bicycle lockers (reservable by the hour) at Kent Station. The agency also funded an improved pedestrian crossing at Second Avenue North and James Street. The city of Kent completed that work in 2021.

Sound Transit Deputy CEO Terri Mestas said that the Kent Station garage, which opened in 2001 just south of where the new garage will go up, is currently about 70% full and trending upward.

Prior to the pandemic, that garage filled up and commuters even parked in nearby neighborhoods. Voters approved funding for garages in Kent, Auburn and Sumner in 2008 with an expected opening of the facilities in 2015. But the Great Recession in 2010, the pandemic in 2020 and other funding issues continually delayed the project.

“It’s so great to be here to celebrate this important investment in South King County,” said Auburn Mayor Nancy Backus, also a Sound Transit Board member. “Mayor Ralph and I have partnered on this for a long, long time and talked about the day it would become a reality and we are here now. I knew we knew it was coming, but we had to have faith as well.”

Backus said Sounder has served the Kent and Auburn area for more than 20 years and that ridership has been recovering since it dropped off during COVID-19.

“We need to increase access to the Sounder and the economic growth this train provides,” Backus said. “This is a major step in that investment.”