Rip-Roaring Road Sullivan Road Quickly Becoming New Retail Core Of The Valley
Along bustling Sullivan Road, commercial development is booming.
Restaurants, big-box stores and discount retailers are elbowing their way onto the corridor for prime exposure. And when the Spokane Valley Mall opens this summer, more retailers will lure more shoppers to the area.
The Valley’s new retail core - with nearly 3 million square feet of restaurants and stores recently built in the Sullivan corridor - is almost complete.
Developers have invested $300 million in this area during the past five years, said Mike Taylor of Taylor Engineering, who has been involved in several projects in the area.
The Sullivan Road retail explosion followed on the heels of a similar boom in north Spokane, said Marshall Clark, president and broker of Clark Realty. “The Valley was hesitant, it seems, to put new retail concepts in place,” he said.
“A lot of retailers were just waiting to see which way the wind blew,” said Joe Ward, retail broker for Pinnacle Realty.
Clark attributes the delay to the retail power struggle between J.P. Price Realty, the Valley mall developer, and University City Shopping Center.
“As people saw U-City wasn’t going to get it done, it became obvious that Sullivan Road would,” Clark said.
Indeed. Fred Meyer opened on Sullivan in November 1993. Petco opened in April, Hollywood Video opened in August, Jack in the Box opened in September and Future Shop opened in November.
This year, Taco Bell and Schlotzsky’s Deli opened in January and Huckleberries is slated to open in April.
Site work has started on a Noodle Express, affiliated with Mustard Seed Cafe, at the corner of Springfield and Sullivan. On the opposite corner, a small strip center is planned with a Mattress Outlet, Christian Gift Center and another tenant.
Site work has begun on the Spokane Valley Plaza, a power center being developed by Metropolitan Mortgage Co. along Broadway and Sullivan. Real estate analysts say Michaels, Ross and Toys ‘R’ Us are three tenants who have showed strong interest in locating within the power center.
“You can’t stop those people,” Ward said. “It’s going to be murder trying to pull them away from the magnet.”
One business that’s eager to see all the construction completed is the Spokane Valley Red Lion hotel, a mainstay of the Valley for more than 20 years.
“Tourism is a big part of our business,” said general manager Larry Ross. “More retail makes our business more attractive.”
For the next five to 10 years, “everything and anything will be focused on Sullivan,” said former county commissioner Steve Hasson.
The true impact of the Valley’s retail explosion is yet to come, he said.
“We haven’t felt the traffic transformation that will compliment the 3 million square feet of retail space in that hub,” says Hasson. “It will alter the way we travel or think of how we shop. From a sociological standpoint, it will shift how we think and do business.”
The center of the Valley’s retail strength used to be University City. The shopping center has lost most of its anchors - Rosauers, J.J. Newberry, Lamonts. As soon as the Valley Mall is complete, J.C. Penney will move from U-City to the new mall. Plans to bring an Albertson’s store to U-City are still in negotiations.
“I think U-City will eventually come out of this,” said Ray Murphy, president of Valley Chamber of Commerce. “These kinds of things evolve. The bottom line in retail is that it chases rooftops.”
The Valley’s residential development has shifted eastward in recent years with Bella Vista, Morningside, Ridgemont, Mica View, Highlands and RiverWalk adding more than 1,000 homes to the Valley. Liberty Lake’s MeadowWood development, with approximately 500 homes completed, will number 1,300 in a few years.
“As you get residential build-up, retail and commercial is just going to follow,” said Murphy. “It doesn’t take a genius to stick a pin on the map to see you’re in the middle of an economic region - and why someone would want to be in a location like that.”
Hasson cautions not to count Sprague Avenue out of the Valley’s future retail growth. “Sprague’s not going to go away,” he said. “You’ll see a lot more specialty shops rather than it being catch-all for traffic.”
Beyond the business boom Sullivan Road and the mall will provide, Hasson said it will give the Valley’s residents “something to coalesce around and serve as a matrix, a big matrix for a sense of community. And that’s one thing the Valley’s never had.”
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