CHENEYIf community leaders here get their way, Spokane Countys second-largest city will be known as much more than a sleepy college town.


The city of Cheney is seeking grants to develop an industrial park, has set in motion about $5.5 million in street work and downtown enhancements, and is seeing healthy growth in residential development. The West Plains communitys population, now at more than 8,800, has grown a healthy 14.4 percent in the last decade, a faster pace than Spokanes 10.4 percent.


Meanwhile, Eastern Washington University has adopted a new master plan that puts greater focus on on-campus students and on tying its campus to downtown Cheney more closely. The downtown also recently received a historic-district designation that sponsors hope will spur revitalization there.


We like to think the future looks good, says Benji Estrellado, owner of Cheney Realty Inc., of Cheney. These are exciting times, with the city, university, businesses, and residents all focused on improving the community, he says. We hope to ride the wave and make it last.


Construction activity in Cheney has been strong and steady the past three or four years, says John Montague, the citys building official. Last year, the city issued 325 permits for building and remodeling projects valued at about $18.7 million, only slightly less than the 327 permits for $20 million in work permitted in 1999, he says.


Among the recent projects was Cheney Plaza, a 130,000-square-foot retail center developed last year by Sierra Development LLC, a Spokane company headed by developer Dick Vandervert. That shopping center, which is anchored by a Safeway Inc. supermarket and includes a host of other tenants, is located on the citys north side at the southwest corner of Betz Road and state Route 904.


Vandervert claims that no sizable commercial projects had been undertaken in Cheney for 25 year, and We saw a need with the growth of the town and the college.


I think we hit the nail on the head, he says, adding that all the tenants at the retail center say their revenues there have outpaced projections and his company is working with five additional potential tenants for the center. Three building pads there remain undeveloped, and Sierra is working with an unnamed restaurant that might build on one of them.


On undeveloped land that Sierra owns to the west of the retail center, Vandervert plans to develop a $7.5 million apartment project with 150 units. He says Russell Page Architects, of Spokane, is designing the apartment project, which will be built on the east and west sides of Al Ogden Way, and excavation work for the project should start next month.


An industrial push


Cheneys quest for state grants to help pay for the development of the planned industrial park is being headed by Joe Tortorelli, a former Avista Corp. economic-development director whom the city of Cheney has hired as a consultant to recruit and develop businesses.


The proposed industrial park would include about 21 acres of undeveloped land in southwest Cheney, south of state Route 904 and a quarter-mile west of Presley Drive.


The city hopes to find grant money to put roads and utilities in the proposed park. Through an arrangement with the landowners, long-time Cheney residents Louie and Juanita Nelson, lots would then be offered for sale at the same price as if the infrastructure werent in place, Tortorelli says.


He says the park would offer parcels ranging from one to six acres, and would be targeted at small manufacturers that already are located in Cheney, but might need space to grow. Among those possible tenants are North Star Equipment Inc., which makes clay-shaping equipment for potters, and Paul E. Eyraud Co., which makes baking pans and other sheet-metal products.


The park also would be near the manufacturing plant of Haakon Industries Inc., a British Columbia-based company that moved its U.S. production to Cheney in the early 1990s, and a milk-bottling plant operated by Roy, Wash.-based Wilcox Farms.


The city worked hard to recruit Haakon, Eyraud, and other small manufacturers, and, Everybody that came stayed and grew, says Cheney Mayor Amy Jo Sooy.


Adds Tortorelli, That speaks well when we go to recruit new businesses.


Residential growth


Meanwhile, the residential-construction market in Cheney is busy, says real estate broker Estrellado. EWUs enrollment growth in recent years has triggered a spate of multifamily housing construction, he says, adding, The city has probably gained 100 units in the last five years.


Indeed, last year, eight buildings with a total of 26 housing units were permitted by the city. The year before, the city issued permits for 10 structures with a combined 27 housing units.


Construction of single-family homes also has been steady in three subdivisions located on the north end of townthe 90-lot Avalon Place, at the southeast corner of Betz Road and Sixth Street; the 50-lot The Orchards, at the northwest corner of Betz and Route 904; and Golden Hills, at Sixth near Cheney High School, for which developers are seeking approval for a third phase.


Spokane homebuilder Gordon Finch has options to buy land for potential home sites along a new thoroughfare being constructed on the south side of Cheney Plaza shopping center between Route 904 and Sixth. That roadway will be named Parkway Drive.


Mayor Sooy says the Parkway Drive road project, which also includes the installation of sewer and water lines, will be paid for with a combination of city money and funds from developers. It should open the way for construction of new single-family neighborhoods and multifamily developments on currently vacant land between the Cheney Plaza retail center and Sixth, she says.


Estrellado says that while towns typically must attract employers to spur residential growth, Cheney sees itself somewhat as a bedroom community that already has residents and wants to encourage commercial and industrial growth to provide jobs closer to home for those residents.


He claims that each of the communities on the West Plains has different strengths, and together they provide a complete package of residential, commercial, and industrial opportunities. Airway Heights has a strong and growing industrial sector, while Medical Lakes strongest suit is housing, he says.


To take a more comprehensive approach to development on the West Plains, the Cheney Chamber of Commerce remade itself in 1999 as the West Plains Chamber of Commerce and has expanded its focus to serve all of western Spokane County. This spring, the organization hired its first executive director.


Improving infrastructure


In Cheney, much is being done to improve the communitys transportation infrastructure and enhance its downtown.


Eller Corp., of Newman Lake, started work earlier this month on a $1 million city-state project to upgrade state Route 904, which also serves as First Street, Cheneys main downtown street. In the project, First Street will be repaved between H Street and Mullinix Road, and sidewalks will be added to both sides of the street, Schmidt says. Most of that nearly two-mile stretch of road on the citys southwest side will be widened to three lanes from two to accommodate a turn lane in its center. Several blocks of First closer to downtown already have four lanes and wont be widened. The project also will include planting trees and installing streetlights along the roadway and fiber-optic cable in the roadway, says Sooy. In addition, crews will build a tourist-information kiosk at the southern corner of First and Cheney-Plaza Road, just across First from a park-and-ride commuter lot that the Spokane Transit Authority built in 1999. Eller also is building the new $780,000 Parkway Drive.


Next year, the city plans more than $2.5 million worth of road projects, including reconstruction of a half-mile stretch of Mullinix to handle heavier traffic flows, rebuilding of about a half-mile of Cheney-Spokane Road in town, improvement of a mile of Betz Road near the EWU campus, and widening of Salnave Road, Schmidt says.


This summer, the other big street project thats expected to get under way involves $950,000 worth of improvements to streets and sidewalks downtown. A contract for that project likely will be awarded next month.


In it, First Street between D and G streets and College Avenue between First and Fifth streets, will be made more pedestrian friendly, says Sooy. Those sections of both streets will be repaved and will get bike paths and racks, benches, trees and planters, decorative street-lights, trash bins, bus shelters with old-fashioned styling, and wider brick-paved sidewalks, she says.


The project will be paid for with federal grants, funds from Spokane County, the city of Cheney, EWU, and private donations from the business community, Sooy says.


A nonprofit group called Pathways to Progress headed up the drive for the private donations, raising $98,500, says Lisa Watts-McKee, a volunteer with the organization. Pathways, which formally has organized and has hired an executive director, is supported financially by the city of Cheney and EWU, which provides grants and helps staff the organization with students from its Department of Urban Planning.


Pathways also helped develop a central-business-district plan thats now part of Cheneys comprehensive plan, and also supported efforts to place parts of the downtown area on the National Register of Historic Places, says Pat Malone, the organi-zations executive director.


That designation, received last year, opens the door for owners of historic properties to get federal tax credits if they rehabilitate their buildings to meet federal historic standards.


Pathways other economic-development activities have included working on market studies that identified the types of businesses students and other residents wanted to see in Cheney, and Pathways is planning a brainstorming session to generate ideas on uses for a building on Second Street that Bonanza Ford will vacate when it moves to its new location near Interstate 90.


We cant tell anybody what to do, but we are a resource for the community and its businesses, says Ruth Jordan, a volunteer with the group and the wife of EWU President Stephen Jordan.


The downtown revitalization plans mesh with EWUs master plan, adopted last year, which calls for pedestrian improvements and signs that would link the campus to downtown Cheney. In its focus to serve on-campus students, the university has upgraded several residence halls and hopes to move forward soon with plans to build a new $10 million dormitory.


EWU also plans a $15 million to $18 million expansion and modernization of Cheney Hall, the building that houses several of the universitys technology-related programs.


To tap technology for growth in other ways, the city of Cheney is installing fiber-optic cables around town as it does its road projects.


The city will provide a highway for other service providers, such as cable companies, Internet service providers, and telemedicine practitioners that can use the high-speed connection, says Tortorelli, the economic-development consultant.