Sehome's Winter Starts With Removal, on the Hill and Under Samish Way

This winter the City of Bellingham is removing an acre of Siberian elms on Sehome Hill and aging water and sewer mains under Samish Way, and in both places the plan is to take out first and build back better later.

Today, Thursday, November 12, is the last scheduled day of the second closure window at the Sehome Hill Arboretum. In about five weeks, work moves down the hill to Samish Way, and it happens overnight. Each project is the first step of a longer plan. The forest gets replanted after the elms come out. The street gets repaved and relit after the pipes go in. If you live in Sehome, your next year runs on that order.

The acre coming down along Arboretum Drive

In its Inside Bellingham update for October 29, the City announced that Arboretum Drive and the trails next to it would close November 2–5 and November 9–12. During those windows, City Urban Forestry and Washington Conservation Corps crews were removing a one-acre patch of invasive Siberian elm.

The City explained the timing plainly. These non-native trees spread aggressively and crowd out native plants. Taking out the mature patch now keeps thousands of new seedlings from coming up next spring. A November cut, in other words, is mostly about April. Leave a seed source in place for one more season, and a one-acre problem turns into a hillside-sized one.

Once the elms are gone, the acre won't stay bare. The City says crews and volunteers will move on to restoration next. Over the next few seasons they'll keep pulling English ivy and plant native trees, shrubs and pollinator species to support the forest's long-term recovery. Expect that stretch of the Arboretum to look raw this winter and fill in gradually after that.

Getting onto the hill while it recovers

When the closures lift, the Arboretum you know is still there. The City's park guide for the Sehome Hill Arboretum describes six miles of trails and says almost any of them will get you to the observation tower. The Huntoon Tunnel is among the features shown on the park's page.

The City lists these ways in:

• Main entrance: Bill McDonald Parkway and 25th Street
• Pedestrian access: Jersey Street at East Myrtle Street
• Pedestrian access: the north end of 25th Street
• Pedestrian access: Allen Avenue at 32nd Street

For visitors coming by car, Western Washington University's Arboretum directions say you can park at the top of Sehome Hill or at its base and walk up on the trails. Its route up the hill starts from Bill McDonald Parkway on the road just before Buchanan Towers, across from the Washington Archive Building at 26th Street.

If you walk with a dog, the City's Arboretum rules page says leashed dogs are allowed on paved trails, dogs stay on leash unless a sign says otherwise, and owners pick up after them. That page dates from 2022, so the signs at the trailhead are the most current version.

Who decides what grows back

Restoration on the hill isn't only a City decision. The Arboretum is run jointly by the City, Western Washington University and the Sehome Hill Arboretum Board of Governors. The board coordinates maintenance, operations and volunteer projects.

The board usually meets on the third Thursday of each month and skips June, July, August and December. Its November meeting is Thursday, November 19, from 4 to 5:30 p.m. at Western, with an online option. With no December meeting, November 19 is the last scheduled board meeting of 2026, and it falls one week after the elm removal ends.

If you'd rather help with the work than hear about it, the City's Parks Volunteer Program runs small community work parties through fall, winter and spring. They're usually on Saturday mornings, registration is required, and tools and gloves are provided. This month's calendar lists work parties at Cornwall Memorial Park, Lowell Park and Happy Valley Park. The ivy pulling and native planting described for the Arboretum are the same kind of hands-on work those crews do.

Down the hill, Samish Way gets the same treatment overnight

The City is following the same order on Samish Way: replace what's underneath, then rebuild the surface. Two separate projects cover this stretch, a year apart.

The first is the Samish Way Utility Replacements project. It replaces aging watermain and wastewater mains on Samish Way from Bill McDonald Parkway to East Maple Street. The City awarded the construction contract to Premium Services on September 14, 2026, for $3,677,652.89, paid from the Water and Wastewater Funds.

What stands out for Sehome is the clock. The Samish Way work includes up to 130 working days of night work, from 8 p.m. to 7 a.m., and the City says the reason is to limit the impact on businesses along the corridor. It's the same logic as the elm cut. The disruptive part goes into the hours that cost the street the least, so the daytime version of Samish Way keeps working.

What the City says to expect on Samish Way:

• Construction from mid-December 2026 through May 2027
• Lane reductions
• Bike detours
• Some pedestrian impacts
• Possible water and wastewater outages during construction, with residents notified ahead of planned outages

The second project is the surface. The City's Samish Way and Maple Street streetlight improvements project, which runs from Bill McDonald Parkway to Ellis Street, plans to repave the roadway, update the bike facilities, add electrical service and upgrade the lighting. It received a federal grant in winter 2026 and is in design now. The City expects to award the contract in late summer 2027 and start construction that fall.

Put the two together and the order makes sense. The pipes go in over the winter and spring, and the new pavement, bike facilities and lights follow after that.

Sehome Village's pending storefronts

There's also smaller-scale turnover just off the corridor at Sehome Village. The Bellingham Herald reported that a permit application for a J. Crew Factory at 226 36th St. was filed on September 16. In July, the Herald reported a permit application filed July 6 for a Jersey Mike's at 330 36th St., the space Massage Envy used to occupy. Like the hill and the road, the shopping center is replacing one tenant with the next.

Both kinds of change are on a schedule, and the schedules matter if you own here. Whether you're planning around the Samish Way night work or wondering how next year's repaving and new lights might factor into your plans, Michelle Harrington follows Sehome block by block and can walk you through what these projects mean for your home. When you're ready for a number to start from, Get Your Instant Home Valuation.