Liberty Lake-based real estate development company Greenstone Corp. has announced a new partnership with Spokane Transit Authority that will enable residents, business owners, and employees in the Kendall Yards neighborhood access to free transit.

STA spokesman Brandon Rapez-Betty says Greenstone Corp. has agreed to a $26,000 contract for a one-year pilot test of the program, which is the first such program with a private-sector partner.

He says program officially started Oct. 1.

“It’s a contractual agreement that tracks each ride and is then billed at the end of the month,” he says. “Greenstone will pay per trip until they hit that $26,000 cap, which may or may not happen. If the pilot is extended, the contract amount would be adjusted and based off actual ridership during the first year.”

Rapez-Betty says the agreement is specific to Kendall Yards residents, whether they rent or own property, as well as business owners and their employees within the neighborhood. All those eligible for the services were notified via the Kendall Yards neighborhood website.

Jim Frank, founder of Greenstone Corp., says the company had been considering the transit partnership for the past several months, as part of a focus on improving mobility in the neighborhood. 

“We’d brought an urban planner to the area over the summer to give us a kind of peer review of the project that would help us find ways to further improve the neighborhood,” he says. “Some of what came out of that were initiatives to improve walkability and transit use, such as adding new connections to the Centennial Trail and more bike racks. We also spoke with STA about several more ideas and settled on making bus passes available to workers and residents.”

Rapez-Betty says the new partnership is modeled after STA’s Universal Transit Access Program, which provides transit service to students and employees at all Spokane-area universities and colleges, as well as employees of the City of Spokane and Spokane County.

“STA feels that Greenstone is kind of a trailblazer in showcasing how transit complements urban development, particularly how developers can spend less on surface or structure parking, and focus more on building walkable, interesting, and socially engaging environments,” he says.

Now that a contract model has been established, STA potentially would be open to interest from other private developers, Rapez-Betty says.