Washington State University Spokane will be humming with new activity this year, both in construction and in medical education, on its health sciences-focused campus in the University District east of downtown.

On the construction side, Garco Construction Inc., of Spokane, plans to start work in coming days on the long-envisioned University District Gateway Bridge on the south edge of the WSU Spokane Campus, says Tim Hutton, project manager for Garco.

The $15.4 million landmark bridge will provide a pedestrian connection between the U District and the East Sherman neighborhood. It will have a 450-foot span, with a 120-foot-high central arch.

Hutton says Garco likely will have 10 workers on-site throughout the project, and multiple subcontractor crews will be working there at times.

The Gateway Bridge will span Martin Luther King Jr. Way and the BNSF Railway Co. tracks. The south landing for the bridge will be constructed along an unimproved section of Riverside Avenue north of Sprague Avenue, where the city of Spokane has acquired about 20 parcels of land.

The north landing of the bridge will be just north of Martin Luther King Jr. Way, and just east of the Jensen-Byrd complex.

The project is scheduled to be completed in 2018.

Near the north landing of the bridge, Jensen Byrd Development LLC wants to redevelop the historic former Jensen-Byrd warehouse building and surrounding properties as a $45 million-plus, 300,000-square-foot mixed-use development. Developers are marketing that project as having the potential to be a vibrant east extension to Spokane’s central business district.

Dean Allen, CEO of McKinstry Spokane LLC, and Wally Trace, CEO of Seattle-based Trace Real Estate Services, head up the development company.

Kim Pearman-Gillman, a McKinstry spokeswoman, says the developers have nearly completed ground lease negotiations with Washington State University, which owns the 108-year-old Jensen-Byrd Building.

“I do know projects will definitely get under way in 2017,” Pearman-Gillman says.

She says several prospective tenants are showing interest in the development.

“We can’t sign tenants until there’s a ground lease,” she says.

The Jensen-Byrd complex, located at 131 E. Main, at the south end of the WSU Spokane campus, includes the historic, six-story Jensen-Byrd Building and attached structures on three parcels totaling 4.1 acres of land. 

Washington State University selected Jensen Byrd Development to preserve and redevelop the long-vacant building about a year ago, after two earlier redevelopment plans fell through.

In the latest vision for development, the Jensen-Byrd Building would have 40,000 square feet of main floor retail space, a 14,400-square-foot rooftop conference center to be constructed on the current rooftop, and 60,000 square feet of conference space.

A four-story, 83,000-square-foot office building is proposed west of the Jensen-Byrd Building, at the northeast corner of Main Avenue and Pine Street.

A 55,000-square-foot athletic wellness center with 3,000 square feet of retail space is planned on the east side of the Jensen-Byrd Building.

The development team also has purchased the 9,200-square foot former Pacific Fruit & Produce warehouse building at the southeast corner of Main and Pine, on the block just south of the Jensen-Byrd Building.

The developers envision the building as a destination restaurant, retail, and entertainment center.

Pearman-Gilman declines to predict which part of the development would proceed first.

“The buildout hasn’t been determined yet,” she says, adding, “It could go several different ways. It will be determined by the market.”

She says the Jensen-Byrd redevelopment, the Gateway Bridge, and redevelopment in the East Sprague neighborhood south of the campus have long been aspirations of the U District master plan that’s been in the works for over a decade.

“We’ve been incubating ideas a long time,” she says. “Now it’s time to hatch some things.”

Among those ideas, the city of Spokane has said it hopes to spur private development and economic growth with a $6.9 million extension of Martin Luther King Way from Sherman Street to Trent Avenue, with an accompanying extension of the Ben Burr Trail, starting this year.

Terren Roloff, a WSU Spokane spokeswoman, says the university isn’t planning major capital projects on its own in the near future.

WSU Spokane, however, is asking the Legislature for $4.9 million to renovate the recently renamed Center for Clinical Research and Simulation, at 412 E. Spokane Falls Blvd. The project would enable the center to accommodate growing demand for clinical research and active learning.

The building is home to the Sleep and Performance Research Center, which includes a sleep lab and a simulated hazardous operational tasks lab where researchers study the effects of sleep loss and distraction on the performance of law enforcement and military personnel.

The sleep center operates in 10,000 square feet of space in the building formerly known as the South Campus Facility, which the WSU Spokane Bookie bookstore also occupies.

The structure, originally a Montgomery Ward warehouse, was built in 1938.

Medical education

On the medical education side, WSU is requesting $10.8 million in the 2017-2019 biennium to support 60 first-year students and 60 second-year students at the new Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine on the WSU Spokane Campus.

The funds would support the inaugural class, which is scheduled to start medical school on the campus in August, and another class of first-year medical students would join next year as the inaugural class enters its second year of medical school, Roloff says.

The new medical school received preliminary accreditation from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education in October to begin enrolling students for the 2017-2018 academic year.

The new medical school’s community-based model will include third and fourth-year medical education at WSU campuses in Spokane, Tri-Cities, Vancouver, and Everett, she says.

Students will study most of their first two years on the WSU Spokane campus and will spend an additional three weeks each year on WSU campuses in the cities in which they will attend their third and fourth years of medical school, Roloff says.

So far, the new medical school has a roster of 187 faculty and staff members, many of whom will work part time for the school, she says.

The new Spokane Teaching Health Center at 624 E. Front, on the WSU Spokane Campus, opened in August with a lofty goal of increasing the number of medical residents in Spokane by 60 percent over the next five years.

Medical residents are new physicians who must complete at least three years of training before they can practice medicine without direct supervision.

The teaching health center is supported by a consortium made up of Empire Health Foundation, Providence Health Care, and WSU Spokane.

The center currently has 67 residents providing patient care, says Judy Benson its medical director. Most are residents in internal medicine and family medicine, and six are psychiatry residents.

The center will add three psychiatry residents in each of the next two years through the Providence Psychiatry Residency program here, Benson says.

The teaching health center is developing an interdisciplinary approach to health care, which also will include pharmacy, nursing, and social-work students, to work in a collaborative environment, Benson says.

The growth of the residency programs will depend on funding, she says.

“Several national and state agencies assist to pay for program slots,” Benson says.

Because residents require direct supervision, each resident is mentored by five to 10 faculty members, she says.