SPOKANE, Wash. — Since the North Spokane Corridor was first conceived in the mid-1940's, the goal has been to provide a north/south route in Spokane. The addition would alleviate heavily trafficked arterials. However, the impact goes beyond travel; the surrounding communities adjacent to the freeway are benefiting and growing.
One of the most obvious areas seeing significant change is the Market Street Corridor in Hillyard.
"It's a car place and it really should be a people place and we're very close to realizing that dream," said Jesse Bank, the executive director of the Northeast Public Development Authority (NPDA).
The goal of NPDA is to facilitate "the redevelopment, development, and construction of public benefit projects, resulting in increased economic activity and job growth within the Public Development Authority boundary."
While the city and county typically focus on the big picture of development in the region, Bank said the PDA can look at its boundaries and look at what they need to make significant impacts.
There's two other PDA's in Spokane County, one in the University District and the other in West Plains. These are two areas where the growth and development are visible.
The NPDA was originally created to focus on the industrial land east of the freeway. In anticipation of the North Spokane Corridor opening, it's since expanded to include Hillyard and the Market Street Corridor.
"This is still a federal truck route, NAFTA based federal truck trucking route, which will then switch over to the freeway once the freeway is fully open, but it's really been treated as a place you go through and not a place that you stop," Bank said.
Dave and Bri Musser, owners of Bellwether Brewing Co., see the potential of the freeway. In anticipation, the pair opened a food hall called the United Building.
"They really get it and see where this neighborhood is coming. And we're willing to invest a substantial sum into this beautiful building, and really rehabbing it the way that it needed to be," Bank said.
Some might compare the trendy spot to a place in the Perry District or Kendall Yards.
"This is a place that you can go for food and go for a drink and go for a stroll after your meal and all of those things," Banks added. "It's difficult to do that when you can't hear yourself talk, when trucks are whistling by at 45 miles an hour."
The North Spokane Corridor is now open from Freya to Wellesley Avenue, making the project more than 70% complete. It's not even done and showing signs of positively impacting businesses. Local real estate agents say it's also driving interest for home buyers to the area.
In 2004, Teresa Jaynes began selling real estate not long after the freeway broke ground. The median home price in Spokane then was $141,000.
In 2024, however, a home on the market in Lyons Park is a good comparison of how home values have skyrocketed, according to Jaynes.
"A house like this, that's approximately 1,500 {square feet} would have sold for around $150,000 in 2004. And today, now you're looking anywhere from $375 to $400 {thousand}."
Increasing sale prices are nothing new in the Spokane area. It's not specific to homes next to the freeway, at least yet.
"I think it will, over time, especially when you have these other developments that are coming in the pipeline, and once the expansion is all the way through, that we'll see significant growth in this area," Jaynes said. "Get in now while you can because we have the North Spokane Corridor, we have new communities coming in and values are just going to increase over time."
WATCH RELATED: Next phase of the north-south corridor breaks ground (June 2023)
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