I drove past the old Staples building on Mount Hood Street last week and, for the first time in over a year, saw racks of clothing through the windows instead of paper covering the glass. Two minutes later, cutting through downtown toward Second Street, I hit a detour sign where the sidewalk used to be. Same ten minutes, same town, two completely different projects, both aimed at finishing sometime this fall.
That's the real story of downtown The Dalles right now. It isn't one comeback narrative or one inconvenience. It's both, running on parallel tracks, and if you only notice one of them you're going to be surprised by how different downtown looks by the time the leaves turn.
The empty box finally has a tenant
The former Staples location at Columbia River Center sat dark after the store closed in March 2025. After more than a year of renovation, a 24,477-square-foot TJ Maxx opens there on Sunday, August 16, with extended opening-day hours from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. before settling into a regular schedule of 9:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. The building sits right next to Safeway at 460 Mount Hood Street, which means the errand run that used to be one stop is about to become two, without adding a second parking lot to find.
The redevelopment wasn't cosmetic. Crews redid the facade, replumbed the building, and rebuilt the interior for a retailer that plans an open shopping layout and single-line checkout. As part of the grand opening, the company is donating $10,000 to a local charitable organization, which is a nice detail if you're the kind of person who tracks which national chains actually show up for the towns they move into.
Two blocks away, the sidewalk is gone until October
Meanwhile, the Federal Street Plaza project has been tearing up its namesake street since construction began on May 11, 2026. The city's own timeline puts substantial completion at the end of October, which means anyone who works downtown or eats there regularly has already adjusted their route at least once this summer.
This isn't a surprise project dropped on downtown overnight. The design came out of a public process that started with five initial concepts from the design firm Walker-Macy, narrowed down through a February 2025 open house and resident feedback, before landing on the plaza layout crews are building now. The city has kept three public parking lots open during construction: the 1st Street Public Lot between Washington and Federal, the newly paved eastern portion of the Sunken Lot between Washington and Court, and the 3rd and Lincoln Lot across from St. Peter's Church. None of them are new information if you already live here, but knowing all three exist saves you a lap around the block.
So the honest way to describe downtown this month isn't "improving" or "under construction." It's both, on different blocks, on different timelines, and they happen to be converging in the same ninety-day window.
The weekend that already set the tone
If you wanted proof that downtown can absorb a construction zone and still pull a crowd, you got it on August 7 through 9, when Cruise the Gorge rolled through for its 33rd year. Friday's Neon Cruise sent classic cars up and down Second and Third Streets from 7 to 9:45 p.m., an open cruise where the rule is simple:
"just like back in the day, so just show up and start showing off"
Locals lined the sidewalks the same way they have for three decades, and the weekend wrapped Sunday morning with the Dufur Threshing Bee Car Show, thirteen miles south in Dufur Community Park, starting at 9 a.m. It's a reminder that The Dalles and its smaller neighbors trade weekend traffic back and forth all season, not just during harvest.
What's actually on the calendar this month
| Date | Event | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Every Saturday through October | The Dalles Farmers Market, with a rotating live music lineup | City Park, at Union and Fifth |
| Aug. 16 | TJ Maxx grand opening, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. | 460 Mount Hood St., Columbia River Center |
| Aug. 21 | Cherry Town Divas Drag Show, billed as Ginger's 50th birthday party | Granada Theatre, 221 E. Second St. |
| Through late October | Federal Street Plaza construction, expect detours near Federal and Second | Downtown core |
The farmers market itself is worth building a Saturday around even without a special event. It runs every Saturday from June through October, and this season's schedule pairs the produce and craft vendors with a themed weekly music lineup the market is calling its Market Musical. If you've been going for the tomatoes and leaving before the band sets up, you're getting half the market.
Over at the Granada Theatre, the August lineup swings from family comedy to a full drag show inside two and a half weeks. The Timothy Patrick singing cowboy show opened the month on August 5, and Cherry Town Divas takes the stage August 21. It's a small venue with a wide range, which tracks with a downtown that's simultaneously getting a national retailer and rebuilding its own plaza by committee vote.
Where to eat while all of this sorts itself out
If detours have you avoiding the Federal Street block entirely, 6th Street Station at 2638 West 6th Street is unaffected and worth the drive on its own merits. It's The Dalles' first food cart pod, visible from I-84, with a heated and air-conditioned dining room, covered and open outdoor seating, and beer and wine sold on site. The current lineup includes Solstice Wood Fire Pizza, which has been slinging slices and gluten-free pies since setting up there in 2023, along with Kimberly's Cauldron for breakfast and lunch, Luncheria Jalisco for burritos, and Bobatastic if you want boba instead of a beer with your food.
None of that requires navigating a single detour sign.
If you only have an hour downtown this week
- Saturday morning: the farmers market at Union and Fifth, before the day heats up and before the vendors sell out of the good stuff
- Any evening this month: 6th Street Station, especially if you want to sit outside and don't want to think about downtown parking
- August 16: swing by the new TJ Maxx once the opening-day rush thins out, probably closer to the 9:30 to 9:30 hours it settles into after the first weekend
- August 21: Granada Theatre, if a drag show doubling as someone's 50th birthday sounds like exactly the kind of night this town does well
The bigger picture, if you're the kind of person who tracks these things
Downtown The Dalles has spent most of this decade being described as "on the verge of a comeback," which is the kind of phrase that starts to feel permanent after enough years. This year is different in a specific, checkable way. There's a dated retail opening on the books, a dated construction completion on the books, and a public design process that residents actually shaped through an open house and committee meetings, not a proposal that showed up fully formed.
By the time Federal Street Plaza is finished at the end of October, TJ Maxx will have been open for two and a half months, the farmers market will be closing out its season, and the Granada will already be into its fall calendar. Downtown won't look like it did in June. Whether that's an improvement is a matter of taste. That it's happening on a schedule you can actually track is not.
If you're weighing what any of this means for property values or timing a move in or out of the neighborhood, that's a longer conversation, and one I have with clients across Wasco County every week. But if you just wanted to know why there's a detour sign near Federal Street and why the old Staples finally has lights on, now you know both halves of it.
For anything beyond that, from figuring out what a specific block is worth to understanding how downtown investment tends to ripple into residential streets nearby, Tiffany Hillman is always glad to talk it through. Contact Tiffany to start your Eastern Oregon search.
