A movement to create a biosciences hub in Spokane area could be a game changer for the Inland Northwest. Those involved in the early stages of the Evergreen Bioscience Innovation Cluster deserve to be lauded for positioning Spokane to become a leader in that sector, and in general, business leaders here should keep that effort on their collective radar moving forward.

As the Journal reported late last month, the cluster has secured a grant to design the Evergreen Bioscience Innovation Building. Such a facility would cost $30 million to $50 million to build and would include between 55,000 and 90,000 square feet of space. The goal is to create a space that would attract startups, established companies, and academics working in biosciences-related research, development, and other endeavors. Potentially, advocates say, such a facility could help to create up to 500 jobs. Site selection for such a facility is starting now.

But that’s small potatoes compared with a larger, long-term goal on which Evergreen Bioscience has set its sights: winning a federal innovation hub appointment. A federal request for innovation hub proposals is expected to be issued in early 2024, and if the Spokane effort secures one, it can lead to a half-billion dollars in funding, according to Andy Johnston, principal of Johnston Engineering PLLC and an Evergreen Bioscience board member.

Imagine the economic impact such a hub could have on the Inland Northwest, and it’s easy to see why the community should be throwing as many resources as possible behind this initiative.

Even if the federal innovation hub dollars never flow into the Lilac City, the Evergreen Bioscience cluster is encouraging for a number of reasons.

First, it’s a cooperative effort in which Greater Spokane Incorporated, the SP3NW business incubator, and Health Sciences and Service Authority of Spokane County all have a hand in developing. That combination of resources for such an audacious goal has a similar spirit as the Momentum economic-development movement of the late 1980s and 1990s.

To be clear, we aren’t comparing Evergreen Bioscience to Momentum as a whole, but it is reminiscent of some of the individual initiatives taken on during that era. Remember, Spokane’s now flourishing University District started with a bare plot of old railroad land, then years later, a single building. From there, the U District grew into what it is today.

As those who were around during the Momentum days know, the overarching goal of that effort was to diversify Spokane’s business community and dilute its natural resources economy, which relied nearly exclusively on the health of the mining, logging, and agricultural industries. Those sectors still play a role, of course, but the community’s economic fate no longer rises and falls with them.

Evergreen Bioscience provides the potential to diversify Spokane’s economy further, while creating jobs and providing another attractive element for companies looking to expand or relocate to the Inland Northwest. That’s a commendable initiative, one we hope the entire business community can get behind.