After years of planning, construction of a $50 million, 250,000-square-foot development on the West Plains, dubbed Hayford Business Park, is expected to begin this summer, says owner Guy Byrd.

The development is located on over 18 acres of vacant land at 2001 S. Hayford Road, in Airway Heights, less than 1/2 mile south of the busy U.S. 2-Hayford Road intersection.

The first building to be constructed at the business park will be an 85,000-square-foot industrial warehouse at the northeast corner of the property. The rest of the site will be constructed in phases over the next few years as tenants are secured, he says.

Byrd, who also is managing director of Spokane-based commercial brokerage SVN Cornerstone LLC, has spent the last three years getting the site ready for development.

"We've got a design now, and we're just an eyelash away from having permits for the first building," says Byrd. 

Permit approval from the city of Airway Heights is under review and is expected by this summer for the first building to be constructed at the business park. Ideally, in two to three years, Byrd says the majority of the park will be developed.

Preliminary design plans for Hayford Business Park have evolved since the Journal last spoke to Byrd about the project in 2021, when between three to five distribution buildings were envisioned at the property at the time.

Updated designs call for two industrial warehouses about 85,000 square feet in size, two 25,000-square-foot office buildings, and either one 17,000-square-foot flexible building or two flex buildings with about 6,000 square feet of space in each structure.

"The idea is to be a little bit flexible to meet the market demand for smaller users," Byrd says. "If we don't get one tenant for a whole building, we can lease it to smaller tenants."

Hayford Business Park is designed to support manufacturing, light industrial, office, and retail uses more than Byrd's previous plans for a distribution-focused site, he says.

"We have a couple of different users that we've been visiting with about some of the buildings," he says. "We should be able to build something within 10 to 12 months once we get the signature on the lease." 

Companies will find leasable spaces as small as 10,000 square feet in the large industrial warehouse.

"The vast majority of industrial users in Spokane aren't large ones like Amazon. They're smaller contractor purveyors with satellite warehouses or manufacturing and distribution for the larger geographic area," he says, adding that there's more opportunity for stable occupancy at the business park by accommodating smaller tenants as well. 

Spokane-based Bernardo Wills Architects PC is the architect for the business park. The general contractor is Yost Gallagher Construction LLC, of Spokane. Coffman Engineers Inc., also of Spokane, is providing engineering services, he says.

Hayford Business Park will accommodate small-scale manufacturing, light industrial, office, and retail uses. 

The 18-acre property is a good fit for the envisioned business park due to its proximity to heavily trafficked arterials and nearby commercial businesses, Byrd explains.

"There's a good circulation of traffic and accessibility to the site and being located close to the airport is obviously a good thing as well," Byrd says. "Long term, I think it's positioned very well. You have a good variety of industrial users out in that area and it will just continue to be a very healthy market for that."

Industrial warehouses will have tilt-up concrete construction, the office buildings likely will be wood-framed, and concrete block construction is proposed for the flex building. Building materials will be selected based on market prices for supplies at the time of construction, he notes.

Hayford Business Park will be leased at market rate, Byrd says.

"We're being flexible and patient, but also more importantly, ready to go when the user arrives."

On the West Plains, other industrial properties under development include Spokane Valley-based King Beverage Inc.'s new $8 million distribution warehouse, at 3520 S. Geiger Blvd., where construction is expected to begin in May. Another is Panattoni Development Co.'s $46 million, three-building West Plains Logistics complex, at 10015 W. Hallett Road, west of Spokane. 

"When you get larger institutional builders that come into the market and build, they're looking for the institutional tenants and everybody's clamoring after those. They forget the homegrown, smaller manufacturing businesses that are peppered around Spokane," explains Byrd. "We're providing space to meet the market for smaller users."