Spokane's historic Hillyard neighborhood - once its own city - was a bustling center of commerce and community in the early 20th Century. Anchored by the Great Northern's Hillyard Shops, and the abundant jobs provided therein, it had all the essential elements we know today are vital for a community to thrive - from walkable streets to diverse housing types, markets, saloons, theaters, and recreational facilities, as well as other, more colorful opportunities. It was a little slice of the “Wild West," due largely to the outsized presence of the railroads, but by all accounts, it functioned well even after being swallowed up by a growing Spokane in 1924. But as activity at the railyards slowed to a trickle - and eventually ceased - a cycle of decline, poverty, and disinvestment took hold. By the early 2000s, Hillyard was home to one of the poorest census tracts in the state, and the once-thriving commercial core along Market Street was marked by abandoned buildings, boarded up windows, and was little more than a thoroughfare for trucks bound for Canada. To begin to turn things around, the City of Spokane created the Northeast Public Development Authority in 2011. This tax-increment-funded organization is charged with making targeted investments back in Hillyard to catalyze growth, and private-sector investment, and to guide Hillyard back toward a path of progress and prosperity.

 

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Program coordinated by Dave Troyke.