Neighborhoods New developments, some years in the making, are rising up along the Spokane River
RIVER RUN
UNIVERSITY DISTRICT
Nestled down the hill from the most remote part of the Bloomsday course, River Run appears to be a fully formed neighborhood in the middle of nowhere. The feeling of isolation is part of the charm, since town isn’t actually far away — it’s a 10-minute drive to the big stores in Airway Heights, and only one traffic light away from downtown Spokane. “It’s 5 minutes from downtown, but you’re situated right on the river,” managing broker Jim Powers says. Home construction started at the former gravel pit in the halcyon real estate days of 2005; sales picked back up in 2012, and by early 2013, only a few of the 170 lots were still unclaimed. A new phase built by Copper Basin in the area nearest to Spokane Falls Community College will add four-unit townhomes and other singlefamily homes. A number of residents are members of the neighboring Life Center Church, and parents are also drawn by the school zoning: Hutton Elementary, Sacajawea Middle School and Lewis and Clark High School. The streets wind down the slope toward the river, and all residents have river access for instant fishing and recreation.
Spokane’s urban campuses are getting used to doubling as construction zones. North of the river, on the Gonzaga side of the designated University District, major construction projects are underway — a new retail center and an indoor golf and tennis facility, plus a $60 million university center. South of the river, at Washington State University’s Riverpoint campus, the glassy Biomedical and Health Sciences Building opens for classes in 2014. East Spokane Falls Boulevard reopened in June with new medians, and additional road work will improve traffic flow. The historic Jensen-Byrd building, once slated for demolition to make way for student housing, will be renovated for some academic use. But the most potential, and uncertainty, is farther south in the East Sprague area, where the vision calls for new affordable, urban housing for students and faculty. “Housing is one of our top goals for the University District,” says project manager Brandon Rapez-Betty. The necessary link is the proposed pedestrian bridge over the train tracks that bisect the neighborhood, and property owners are eagerly watching to see plans take shape. The bridge is still years away from completion, but the design is expected to be completed in 2014.
WEST SPOKANE
KENDALL YARDS
RIVERSTONE
For observers watching month after month from across the river in downtown Spokane, the glances have turned from skepticism to curiosity as Kendall Yards has started rising along the bluff. The first residents unpacked their boxes in 2010, after Greenstone took over the beleaguered development, but the area started hitting its stride as a neighborhood this past year. Perched on the north side of the Spokane River to the west of the Monroe Street Bridge, the former railyard is a perfect location for an urban neighborhood, sales manager James Evans says. The neighborhood has a diversity of price points and styles for housing — both single- and multi-family — with commercial and civic spaces mixed in, all within walking distance of downtown and bordered by the Centennial Trail. Central Food is being joined by several other restaurants, along with Spa Paradiso and The Inlander. When people walk around the neighborhood for the first time, Evans says, they always say it reminds them of somewhere else — Santa Monica, parts of Seattle — but never anywhere else in Spokane. “It’s a fresh take on urban living,” he says.
Some of Riverstone’s best features make it sound like North Idaho’s answer to Kendall Yards: urban-style housing, walkability, access to the Centennial Trail along the river. But the scope of the project is much bigger than that — along with the popular 14-screen cinema, hotel and storefronts, plans are in the works for a regional transit hub and possibly a 5,000-seat sports arena for North Idaho College. There are enough restaurants to eat dinner at a different place each day of the week. Just a few years ago, the development was a vacant emblem of the post-bubble real estate days. Now retail space is filling up, and developer John Stone is seeing his project come to life the way he envisioned it. “It’s starting to really take on a village feel,” he says. Housing includes the full range of price points, from lakefront homes to upscale condos to affordable rental apartments. The 155-acre development is self-contained but not for the sedentary — the park is popular with residents, as are the paved bike trails to McEuen Park and the Salvation Army Kroc Center. –LISA WAANANEN
WEST CENTRAL SPOKANE
A N N UA L R E P O RT
DOWNTOWN EAST
COEUR D’ALENE
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