Benefits & Resources
Make It Spokane has the City, County and State connections to guide businesses and developers to find the right location for their project and gather resources, bringing possibility to life.
Local, State, and Federal programs are available to revitalize underdeveloped areas that have been identified within Northeast Spokane. There are unique requirements for each project based on many factors. Make it Spokane’s team exists to navigate those unique requirements for incentives, simplifying the process to help ensure each business opportunity is maximized.
Opportunity Zone
An Opportunity Zone is a designation and investment program created by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 allowing for certain investments in lower-income areas to have tax
Brownfield Program
Spokane’s Brownfields Program works to provide assistance to minimize the risks associated with redeveloping a brownfield (possibly contaminated site). The program seeks out funding to conduct site assessments, conduct cleanup activities, along with providing technical assistance.
Business Environment
Make it Spokane is a publicly-funded organization that is gathering resources to facilitate economic development, job recruitment and growth for local businesses.
Outstanding Access
The greater Spokane region provides outstanding air, rail, highway and communication access, to meet the needs of 21st century business, and the rise of the global economy. Notably, northeast Spokane is at the intersection of over $2 billion in freeway and other transportation improvements.
Air
Spokane International Airport (GEG) is the second largest airport in the State of Washington and is recognized by the FAA as a small hub. It is a 25 minute commute from downtown Hillyard.
Highways
The North Spokane Corridor (U.S. 395) project will open direct access from northeast Spokane to I-90, significantly improving access and travel times for residents and businesses in the area. I-90 is the northernmost, east-west, coast-to-coast interstate, a strategic domestic and international freight corridor. US 395 is a 1,300 mile federally designated high priority freight route, extending from California to the U.S./Canada border.
Rail
Both the Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroads ship nationally out of the Spokane Valley switching yard, only 10 minutes from downtown Hillyard. On the direct Seattle to Chicago line for both railroads, Spokane is the gateway to and from the interior U.S. and the Pacific Rim, with efficient east-west access and reciprocal switching capabilities matched by few regions nationwide.
REF: Class 1 rail access in multiple locations in northeast Spokane.
Telecommunications
The Northeast has coax and fiber available presently, with new state-of-the-art fiber-optic investments in broadband telecommunications underway now. Broadly, Spokane is a regional telecommunications hub and home to major Tier 1 providers, as well as regional Tier 2, Tier 3 and local service providers. Redundancy and diversity in local and regional telecommunications, data networks, energy and power sources is common, affordable and reliable. The region ranked nationally as the 6th safest from natural disasters.
Northeast PDA Seeks Funding to Reconstruct East Wellesley Avenue
The Northeast Public Development Authority, led by City Councilman Michael Cathcart and Commissioner Josh Kerns, worked closely with the office of Congresswoman Cathy McMorris-Rodgers, to request $3,400,000 in funding for the reconstruction of east Wellesley Avenue in northeast Spokane. This is considered the first phase of a larger plan to build a grid network of new roads in the east Hillyard industrial areas, connecting to the North Spokane Corridor (US 395). According to a 2020 Economic Analysis prepared by Maul Foster Alongi for the NEPDA, over a 25-year period, investments in proposed new roads in Hillyard may result in:
- An increase of 311,500 to 426,500 new industrial square feet
- 520 to 711 new industrial jobs*
- $16.5m to $22.6m in new improvement value
- $1.2m to $1.6 in combined city and county property taxes
- $1.9m to $2.6m in sales tax related to new building construction
- $2.3m in sales tax related to right-of-way construction
*Importantly, wages for these types of jobs range from approximately $44,750 per year to $65,825 per year, significantly exceeding the current household median income in northeast Spokane.
- Community Project Funding Requests
- Member Designated Project Submissions (Transportation & Infrastructure)
