Enatai's Beach Is a Work Site Through Year's End, So the Neighborhood Faces the Slough This Winter

Flaggers are now posted at three spots along the Mercer Slough Connector Trail. They hold walkers and cyclists for up to 10 minutes at a time while construction vehicles cross the path. Crews are allowed to work there 24 hours a day, seven days a week. At the other end of the work zone, the swim beach, dock, boathouse and playground at Enatai Beach Park have been closed to the public since early October.

All of it traces back to one sewer line under the shoreline. The work is expected to continue through the end of the year. For the rest of 2026, Enatai's lake edge is a construction site, and the open parts of the neighborhood sit on its other side, in Mercer Slough Nature Park.

The pipe under the shoreline

The line belongs to King County. It carries wastewater from the North Mercer Island Pump Station to the Sweyolocken Pump Station in Bellevue. It serves north Mercer Island, the Town of Beaux Arts Village and the part of southwest Bellevue around Enatai Beach Park. The North Mercer Island/Enatai Sewer Upgrade began construction in spring 2022 and is split into eight project areas. The county expects the new pipes to provide service for 50 years or more.

Most of the Mercer Island side is now in restoration. Final paving is done on several north-central Mercer Island streets, and crews have cleared out of the full South Parking Lot at Luther Burbank Park. Enatai's turn comes last. In Area 7 and Area 8, the stretch of shoreline between Enatai Beach Park and Sweyolocken Boat Launch, the county is relining the existing pipe rather than digging up and replacing it.

King County's October notice describes how that works. Crews install a temporary sewer diversion pipe at Enatai Beach Park so service keeps running, then line the old pipe from the inside, which extends its life without a full replacement. The diversion pipe has to sit at the park, so the park's beach facilities stay closed for as long as the relining lasts.

What closed, and what has partly reopened

The City of Bellevue's Enatai Beach Park page calls it a "full beach closure," starting Monday, Oct. 5, 2026. Picnic-site rentals at the park are paused until further notice. The closure covers these areas:

• Swim beach and swimming dock. Both closed since Oct. 5.
• Boathouse. This is where Best Kayak Rentals runs the park's seasonal canoe and kayak rentals. It's also why the park normally works as a launch point for the water trails of Mercer Slough.
• Playground. Closed along with the beach facilities.
• Mercer Slough Connector Trail. Closed from Oct. 12, with signed detours along 112th Avenue SE, 113th Avenue SE, Bellevue Way SE and 118th Avenue SE. It reopened Oct. 20 with flaggers at three spots, under a plan the City of Bellevue reviewed and approved.

The trail reopening came with a change in the work schedule. The early-October notice listed approved work hours of 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday. By the Oct. 20 update, approved hours had become 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The update also says to expect noise, dust and vibration typical of active construction. So the trail is open again, but people using it now share it with a job site that runs around the clock.

King County says it will post an update when the swim beach, playground, boathouse and dock reopen. Questions go to the project team at 425-305-3578 or [email protected].

A second project overhead, on a different clock

The sewer work runs beneath the shoreline. A separate project is happening on the freeway above the slough. The Washington State Department of Transportation's I-90 eastbound Mercer Slough Bridge Rehabilitation covers nearly a mile of eastbound bridge between Bellevue Way SE and I-405. Crews are installing bearing seats and modifying expansion joints and seals to extend the bridge's service life. According to WSDOT's October announcement, work started the night of Sunday, Oct. 25, and is expected to wrap up in June 2027.

The overnight closures matter most for Enatai drivers. The City of Bellevue's traffic advisory lists about two months of closures beginning in November, from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m., Sunday through Thursday nights. They include:

1. The right lane of eastbound I-90 between Island Crest Way and I-405
2. The East Mercer Way on-ramp to eastbound I-90
3. The Bellevue Way SE on-ramp to eastbound I-90
4. The eastbound I-90 off-ramps to northbound and southbound I-405

Signed detours will be posted during the closures. The same advisory also lists a separate maintenance closure. All lanes of eastbound I-90 will close from Rainier Avenue South to North Mercer Way, starting at 8:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 6, and reopening at 6 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 7. Late-evening drives home from Seattle that weekend will need another route.

Both projects sit at the water's edge, and both will still be running into the holidays. The parts of the neighborhood they don't touch are mostly to the east.

The slough side of the neighborhood

The Mercer Slough Environmental Education Center, at 1625 118th Avenue SE, is open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. It overlooks the forest canopy and wetlands of the 320-acre Mercer Slough Nature Park. Inside are an interactive library and interpretive displays, and rangers there run free weekly programs. The building is set back from the shoreline work zone, and its fall schedule fills the weeks when the beach is closed.

These are the remaining dates in Bellevue's September–December 2026 Natural Resource Programs guide. All are free.

The ranger hike is an easy 1.5 miles. It starts at the education center and ends at the channel bridge in the middle of the park, so anyone who wants to keep going can explore on their own from there. The night hikes walk the same wetlands after dark. At Nocturnal in November, kids dissect an owl pellet to find out what the owl ate. At Breakfast for Birds, they make a pine-cone feeder to take home for backyard birds in winter. Every program requires online preregistration at register.bellevuewa.gov, children included.

The Winters House, the historic home in the slough, isn't part of the winter schedule. The city's Winters House page lists it as closed for all programs and rentals until further notice.

The station side of the neighborhood

The other open edge of Enatai is South Bellevue Station, and it has changed more this year than the beach has. Since Sound Transit opened the Crosslake Connection on March 28, 2026, the 2 Line has run from South Bellevue across Lake Washington to Seattle. It connects with the 1 Line at International District/Chinatown. Trains run from about 5 a.m. to midnight daily, roughly every 8 minutes at peak and every 10 to 15 minutes at other times. The station garage has 1,524 parking spaces.

This is the first holiday season with the cross-lake trip available. It also makes the overnight Bellevue Way on-ramp closures easier to work around on a late night out. Downtown Bellevue is a short trip north. The Downtown Bellevue Network reports these dates:

• Bellevue Downtown Ice Rink. The covered rink is scheduled to open daily from Nov. 13, 2026, through Jan. 18, 2027. Cheapskate Mondays, Nov. 16 through Dec. 14 and Jan. 4 through 11, cost $12 including skate rental.
• Snowflake Lane. The free parade runs nightly at 7 p.m. from Bellevue Square to Lincoln Square, Nov. 27 through Dec. 24.
• Bellevue Place Wintergarden. The 30-foot tree is lit on Nov. 27 after the opening Snowflake Lane parade, with Santa, music, cocoa and cookies.
• Diwali at Bellevue Square. The Downtown Bellevue Network also reports that the Bellevue Collection's displays run through Nov. 8. The free celebration on Saturday, Nov. 7, has live performances from noon to 5 p.m. and free henna from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Through December, the lake edge belongs to the sewer crews and the freeway crews. The education center on 118th Avenue SE and the platform at South Bellevue Station are both open, and the next King County update will say when the swim beach, dock and boathouse come back.

If you'd like help keeping up with what's changing around Enatai this winter, or a plain-English read on how a project like this one could affect plans for your own home, Michael Nix is happy to help. Let's Connect.