Spokane Rock Products Inc. has won a $724,000 contract with Spokane County to construct a new road just south of Spokane International Airport to help spur future development there.

County contract engineer Chad Coles says the work is to begin soon and will be completed this construction season. He says the road, which will be named Dowdy Road, will be built near Spokane International Airport, between Electric Avenue and Geiger Boulevard about a quarter-mile west of Interstate 90.

The road will bisect 17 acres of land being developed by Electric 90 LLC. The project is part of about $1.2 million worth of improvements being made on or around that property through a tax-increment financing district.

Tax-increment financing allows a city or county to issue bonds to pay for infrastructure improvements in a defined development area, then use most of the resulting increases in property-tax revenues in that area to pay off the debt. After the debt is paid, those tax revenues would flow to the normal taxing authorities in that area.

Dick Edwards, of Hawkins Edwards Inc., which is a member of the venture that is developing and marketing that property, says the developers don't have specific buyers lined up for the property, but have been involved in the tax-increment financing district to promote development in that area. The company has bought bonds from the county to help finance the projects, he says.

The new section of road will be about 2,400 feet long. Spokane-based Spokane Rock Products also will construct curbs, sidewalks, and roadside landscaping along the new stretch of roadway, Coles says. It will be a 40-foot-wide, two-lane road suitable for larger trucks that is referred to as an urban collector.

Edwards says that subdividing the land and installing infrastructure will make it easier for businesses to develop facilities on the properties.

"We've got faith in this economy that we're going to make things happen here," Edwards says. He says Eller Corp., of Newman Lake, is making infrastructure improvements on the planned light-industrial development, including installing curbing, sidewalks, and pavement so the property can be divided into 1-acre lots for light-industrial use through a binding site plan process.