The busiest new corner in West Richland got City Hall, the police department and a middle school before it got much else. The new buildings that opened around Keene Road and Belmont Boulevard in 2026 followed the same pattern. They include a primary care clinic, an electric cooperative's headquarters and a conservation district office. The places for an evening out, like a sit-down Italian restaurant, a gym and the city's first McDonald's, are still in permitting or review. The gym's target completion date is in 2028.
This shapes how the district works for anyone who lives nearby. For the next couple of years, the Keene and Belmont area will be most useful for appointments, morning coffee and a quick lunch, with a growing row of fenced lots and permit signs next to the parts that are already open.
The Civic Anchor Came Before the Storefronts
The Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business traced the order in August. The city moved its City Hall campus and police department to the Keene Road corridor. The Richland School District followed with Libby Middle School, its administration building and Desert Sky Elementary. Gas stations, restaurants, a credit union and subdivisions like the Heights at Red Mountain came after that.
In 2026 the next layer arrived, and most of it is institutional. These three buildings opened within about two months of each other:
| Building | Address | When it opened | What's inside |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kadlec Clinic Candy Mountain | 4100 Keene Road | Ribbon cutting June 2, 2026 | Primary care, with room for 10 providers in a $10.7 million building |
| Benton Conservation District headquarters | 3131 Belmont | Construction finished June 1, 2026; opened summer 2026 | 4,804 square feet of office and shop space, a conference room for meetings and community workshops, and a native-plant demonstration garden |
| Benton REA headquarters | 2121 Cooperative Way | Grand opening in June 2026; opened in July | 40,000 square feet for administration, engineering and operations, plus a community room for up to 190 people |
The Conservation District sits across from the city offices. Benton REA's building combines several offices and warehouses that used to be spread around the area. Both buildings have community meeting space, so a workshop, co-op meeting or neighborhood group can now meet on the west side of town. Benton REA serves members across western Benton County, which means some readers already get their power from the cooperative that now has its headquarters here.
What You Can Use This Week
If the clinic, the co-op and City Hall are the district's anchors, the coffee and food places are what people use every day. Two of them have been open long enough that they no longer count as new.
- Kadlec Clinic Candy Mountain, 4100 Keene Road. Providence lists family medicine, nurse practitioners and physician assistants at the clinic. Kadlec's directory doesn't publish office hours and asks patients to call 509-371-1777 to book. Plan on an appointment, since the clinic isn't listed as walk-in or urgent care.
- Miss Tamale, 6447 Keene Road. The restaurant's second location opened Sept. 22, 2025. The menu has handmade tamales, tacos, burritos, quesadillas, tortas, bowls and breakfast items. Online ordering opens early in the morning, so it works for breakfast as well as lunch.
- Dutch Bros, 6429 Keene Road. It opened in early 2025, on the same stretch of Keene as Miss Tamale.
- The Brick Box, 4001 Kennedy Road, Suites 15 and 16. This one is newer and less obvious. The Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business reported that owners Sara Hutchings and Wendy Mitchell modeled the shop on Pike Place Market. It sells coffee, local baked goods, fresh flowers and work by local artists, from candles and keychains to vinyl records. The shop took over the former Endive Eatery space after Endive moved near Howard Amon Park, and it soft-opened in early August. The September business listings gave its hours as 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday. Check before a Sunday visit, because hours at a shop this new can change.
Look at the hours on that list. Nearly all of it is built for the morning and midday. As of mid-October, nothing open in the district is aimed at a weeknight dinner out or an evening workout. The projects below are meant to fill that gap, and none of them has an opening date yet.
The Evening Half Is Still on Paper
Every project here has a confirmed address. None has a confirmed opening date. This is the status as of the Journal's Oct. 13 West Richland roundup and the city notices from early October.
| Project | Address | Status, October 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| La Bella Vita Kitchen and Bar | 2850 Belmont Boulevard | Owners of the Richland restaurant bought the parcel; a March 2026 city notice describes a proposed two-story, 14,375-square-foot restaurant |
| Planet Fitness | 6260 Keene Road | 22,500-square-foot gym in environmental review; public comments due Oct. 20 |
| McDonald's and gas station | 145 Belmont Boulevard | Plans filed for the city's first McDonald's; no construction start date |
| Scott Smith Insurance Agency, a State Farm business | 6397 Keene Road | Broke ground; $2.1 million commercial building permit issued in September |
| D9 Contractors | 2943 Belmont Boulevard | Bought the long-vacant building; plans to use half and lease the other half to a tenant |
The gym has the clearest timeline, and it's a long one. The Tri-City Herald reported Oct. 6 that the applicant wants to start construction in spring 2027 and finish in spring 2028, if the project is approved. For the McDonald's, the Journal's August construction briefs said building would take about five months once plans are approved, with no start date set.
The McDonald's site is at the other end of Belmont, on vacant land west of the new roundabout at West Van Giesen Street and Ruppert Road. Eric Mendenhall, the city's community development director, told the Journal he expects it to act as a "springboard," and that "other businesses will take note and want to co-locate next to McDonald's." That would give Belmont activity at both ends. Keene and Belmont is the civic end. Van Giesen and Ruppert would be the drive-thru end. The same Journal report says 180 apartment units are under construction near the planned McDonald's.
The Biggest Piece Is Also the Slowest
The Mid-Columbia Children's Museum may end up as the district's main draw, and it's the furthest from opening. The city offered the museum a 2.5-acre parcel on Keene Road, across from City Hall and Libby Middle School, at a lease rate of $0.78 a year for up to 150 years. The Journal reports that the number comes from the year Mayor Fred Brink graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy.
The museum went through a formal request for proposals and chose West Richland after other cities had courted the project, including with sites at Pasco's Broadmoor development, Richland's Bradley Landing and the Port of Kennewick's Vista Field. Board chair Chelsea Blair described its role in the district in plain terms. "We can be part of the story of that area, help make it family-friendly and be the anchor of the Belmont Business District," she told the Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business.
The timeline is long. In August the museum planned to hire an architect and exhibit designer, and expected design alone to take about a year, after which it would ask the community for input again. Since forming in early 2023, the group has raised about $400,000 and received $1 million in state funding for early design. The full project is estimated at roughly $30 million. The city is also working with Ben Franklin Transit on a bus stop and route to connect the site with the rest of the Tri-Cities, and the council considered buying another 1.5 acres next door for outdoor space. For now, the parcel across from City Hall is a future museum site, with no building on it yet.
Keene Road Gets Its Turn After the Buildings
More traffic on this stretch means road work, and the road schedule trails the buildings. The city's transportation program puts a signal at Keene Road and South Highlands Boulevard in 2027, then widening of Keene from Bombing Range Road to Belmont Boulevard in 2028. The Journal's October report gives the same order, with the signal first and widening in later phases.
Put next to the project list, the dates line up closely. The Planet Fitness applicant is targeting spring 2028, the same year the widening is scheduled between Bombing Range and Belmont. That puts both the clinic at Keene and Bombing Range and the cluster at Keene and Belmont inside the construction zone. If you use Keene for a morning coffee run or a doctor's appointment, 2027 and 2028 are the years to expect cones on that stretch.
South of here, the Highway 224 Red Mountain Vicinity Improvements Project is still underway on Van Giesen. That $33.7 million rebuild covers 3.5 miles of highway and adds five roundabouts. In the city's Oct. 15 update, the Keene Road intersection and the section from Ruppert Road to 62nd Avenue were open, while other stretches still had weekday lane restrictions and pilot cars. Both ends of Belmont are being rebuilt at once, on separate schedules.
Here is how it stands for this fall. The clinic, the two headquarters, Miss Tamale, Dutch Bros and The Brick Box are open now. La Bella Vita, the gym, the McDonald's, the insurance office and the museum are all approved, applied for or under construction. The Keene Road signal is scheduled for 2027.
If you live near Keene and Belmont and want to know what a new permit sign on your route means, the team at Desert Edge Realty Group follows these West Richland projects closely and is glad to walk through what's planned near your street. Contact us anytime.
