Walk the Des Moines Waterfront Farmers Market on a Saturday this month and you will notice the lot feels smaller. Vendor tents that used to spread across the full north marina parking area are now squeezed into its western half, with a shuttle running continuously from the south lot to make up the difference. Most shoppers assume it is routine construction, the kind of temporary inconvenience every waterfront town lives with. It is not routine. It is the tail end of a project that nearly lost its splash pad, its playground, and its lighting in a budget fight barely a year ago, and that is now, by the city's own reporting, about three months from finished.
That project is the Des Moines Marina Steps, and understanding what almost didn't get built tells you more about what's coming this winter than any construction sign on Cliff Avenue South.
The Meeting That Decided This
On September 4, 2025, the Des Moines City Council held a study session that turned into one of the more contentious public debates the city has had over a single capital project. The Marina Steps, a pedestrian connection meant to link downtown at South 223rd Street down a 36-foot elevation change to the marina floor below, had already been in planning since 2008, when the University of Washington first identified the missing link between downtown and the waterfront in a district master plan. By 2025, it was finally up for a construction vote, and residents showed up on both sides.
Opponents called the roughly $10 million project "stairs to nowhere" and warned that the planned splash pad would be a "nightmare to maintain." Supporters, including former mayor Matt Pena, argued the connectivity would support every business along the route and that the cost was short-term pain for long-term gain. The council split. Three members, JC Harris, Gene Achziger, and Yoshiko Grace Matsui, voted no. The project advanced anyway.
What made the vote closer than the final number suggests is what was actually on the table for elimination. Value engineering had already brought the estimated cost down from $11.7 million to $10 million, and the city identified roughly half a million dollars in further possible cuts, specifically by removing the splash pad, the playground, and the lighting. Those features, the ones that would make the plaza at the bottom of the stairs feel like a place families actually use rather than just a route through, were the first things on the chopping block when the budget got tight.
What Actually Got Built
None of those cuts happened. The splash pad, playground, and lighting stayed in the design, along with a plaza, an amphitheater, and a water feature at the base of the stairs, plus water infiltration planters that will treat runoff from a 60-acre watershed east of the site. The project covers 44,856 square feet, threading switchback ramps and ADA accessible walkways alongside the stairs so the same connection works whether someone is climbing down for the farmers market or rolling a stroller.
Construction has moved fast enough that by June 2026, the city manager's report described the southern retaining wall as nearly complete, with work continuing on schedule through the summer. The city's public reporting on cost has shifted too. During the 2025 funding fight, the figure quoted publicly was $10 million. By this summer, city updates were describing it as an $8.5 million effort. That gap is worth noting rather than smoothing over. It likely reflects a different accounting point (bonded construction cost versus total project cost including design, land, and contingency) but the city hasn't published a reconciliation, so the honest answer is that the number depends on which report you're reading.
The completion date has moved too, and in a direction worth paying attention to. During the September 2025 debate, the target was described as "summer 2026." As of this summer's construction updates, that target is now December 2026. A project that was headed for a summer ribbon-cutting is instead headed into winter, which matters if you were planning to see the finished plaza before the holidays.
Here's how the timeline actually breaks down:
| Year | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 2008 | UW master plan first identifies the missing downtown-to-marina pedestrian link |
| 2016 | City begins actively pursuing funding and design |
| Summer 2023 | Design team begins work incorporating resident survey feedback |
| Sept 2025 | Council approves construction after split vote; bids due Oct 9 |
| Originally projected | Summer 2026 completion |
| June 2026 | Southern retaining wall nears completion |
| Currently projected | December 2026 completion |
A Second Project Just Days Old
While the Marina Steps head into their final stretch, a separate and much earlier-stage project is starting to take shape one block away. At its September 3, 2026 meeting, the Des Moines City Council Committee of the Whole received a design update on the Des Moines Creek Estuary Project, a salmon recovery effort that will reshape Beach Park itself, removing failing seawalls and reinforcing recreational areas against rising tides. Councilmember Harry Steinmetz asked whether shrubs could replace a proposed fence as a more natural barrier, and Councilmember Pierre Blosse pushed for a playground to be built into the new design. Nothing about this project has a construction date yet. It is still in the design conversation stage, the same stage the Marina Steps were in back in 2023.
The two projects sit close enough together, geographically and in the news cycle, that it would be easy to assume they're the same effort. They aren't. The Marina Steps are a pedestrian connection nearly finished after a budget fight that's already been resolved. The Creek Estuary Project is an environmental and shoreline effort that hasn't been through its own funding debate yet. If you're a Des Moines resident trying to figure out when the waterfront stops feeling like a construction zone, the honest answer is that one piece finishes this winter and another piece is only just beginning its public process.
That same September 3 meeting also included a joint session with the Planning Commission on downtown revitalization, where consulting firm ECO Northwest walked through a map showing how much of the downtown core sits on tax-exempt land, part of a broader conversation about why the area's economic recovery has lagged behind other cities since the recession. It's a separate thread from either waterfront project, but it's the same council working through the same few blocks, which is part of why 2026 has felt like a year where downtown Des Moines is under discussion from every angle at once.
What This Means for Your Saturday
None of this changes what the farmers market is doing right now, which is running its 21st season every Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. through September 26. The market's move to the west half of the north marina lot is a direct, stated response to the stairway project, and the free shuttle from the south lot is there specifically to cover the gap. The calendar still has Hispanic Heritage Month programming on September 12 and a Harvest Festival before the season wraps, so the disruption hasn't slowed the market down, just repositioned it.
One detail worth knowing if you're planning around the finished plaza: the market's regular season ends September 26, well before the Marina Steps' December completion target. The market does return once more this year for a Holiday Market on November 7 at Des Moines Beach Park, but even that lands before the Steps are done. Practically, that means the first market to actually use the finished plaza, amphitheater, and water feature will be next year's opening day, not anything left on this year's calendar.
While the stairs and the marina lot dominate the headlines, other marina infrastructure work has finished quietly in the background. The replacement of aging docks on the L, M, and N piers wrapped up in early 2026 without the kind of public debate the Steps generated, and the marina was recertified this year under the state's Clean Marina program, a voluntary environmental standard it has held since 2004. None of that made the news the way "stairs to nowhere" did, which says something about which infrastructure fights residents actually show up for.
If you're at the market this month, the construction fence behind the produce stands isn't a delay. It's the visible cost of a project the council almost trimmed down to bare concrete a year ago, and one that's closer to done than most people walking past it realize.
If you're watching how the marina district's transformation is shaping home values in the streets above it, AMP Properties Group NW tracks these changes block by block across Des Moines and the rest of South King County. Reach out for a free instant home valuation or to talk through what a finished waterfront connection might mean for your corner of the neighborhood.
