A Spokane University District could give region boost by bringing together tech transfer and commercial development

The next Expo may be on Spokane’s horizon.

This will not be a world event, like the 1974 World’s Fair. The president will not appear on the floating stage. The legacy will not be the city’s signature park.

Bert Caldwell
The Spokesman-Review

It could be much better than that.

Spokane community leaders have worked for months on a concept dubbed the University District, an area that potentially stretches from the hospitals on the South Hill to Sharp Avenue, and extending east to Hamilton. The district would integrate the academic resources emerging at the Riverpoint campus with new residential and commercial development that could accommodate 15,000 students, as well as businesses spun off by bio-medical research at the universities and hospitals.

The U-District could — at last — exploit the expertise and promise trapped inside the cliche "the biggest city between Minneapolis and Seattle."

Monday, a group of Spokane academic and civic leaders introduced the U-District to Washington Gov. Gary Locke. And the city of Spokane applied for a $350,000 Economic Development Administration grant that will provide the same kind of introduction for residents and businesses in the Logan and East Central neighborhoods, as well as developers and others who would be caught up in the sweeping redevelopment east of downtown.

"That will be the point of embarcation," says new city Economic Development Adviser Tom Reese. "The idea of the U-District has really just exploded. What we haven’t had is a public process."

He says the district should focus on an economy based on knowledge and technology the way Expo focused on the Inland Northwest environment and its historic dependence on resource industries. The energy created by a dynamic campus and surrounding neighborhoods should attract the kind of industry succored by a high quality of life and educational opportunities.

If neighbors and businesses are not involved, Reese says, "all we have is a campus."

The research that can provide the foundation is already under way in Spokane, Patrick Tam told Locke. The executive director of the Spokane Intercollegiate Research and Technology Institute said the list of local studies includes those of Alzheimer’s disease, fetal heart abnormalities, and the detection of toxins like anthrax. Other researchers are exploring the matching of chromosomes. Commercializing the results of this work could mean hundreds, if not thousands, of new jobs.

And the therapies that emerge from those laboratories will have to be administered by someone, like nurses from a new and expanded intercollegiate nursing program facility. Coupled with that would be an academics building housing a library and other resources that constitute the core of a higher learning center. That’s where Locke’s support would come in. The combined cost of those facilities is around $75 million. Someone has to work those projects higher up the list of state capital construction priorities.

They have stayed on the drawing board too long.

Meanwhile, the city has applied for $6 million to convert Trent between Division and the Spokane River to a treed extension of Spokane Falls Boulevard. Improvements to create a new "gateway" to downtown and the U-District would also be funded, as would a foot and bicycle bridge over the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad tracks. The bridge would alleviate potential congestion on South Division by providing an alternative link between the campus and East Sprague areas.

SIRTI, too, is pursuing a $3 million grant to fund a wet lab for use in bio-medical research.

Many obstacles besides money lie ahead. As Washington State University President Lane Rawlins said in the meeting with Locke, campuses that in the past have competed for state resources will have to settle their differences. And, he cautioned, "Let’s not promise anything to Spokane we can’t deliver."

Spokane Regional Chamber of Commerce Chairman Chris Marr said the question is not if, but when. "For the sake of the region, we’d like to see this happen sooner rather than later."

Locke said he will try to find the necessary state dollars. But he cautioned that Eastern Washington must speak with one voice if his efforts are to succeed.

"We know that research is going to occur," he said. "The question is `Can Spokane capitalize on it?"’

The answer must be yes.

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/news-story.asp?date=070603&ID=s1376441&cat=section.business