Hillyard marketplace gets grant
A $250,000 grant will help a Hillyard marketplace expand and potentially add up to 140 jobs to benefit one of Spokane’s poorer neighborhoods.
Federal officials Tuesday said the grant is one of just four approved this year by the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Human Services.
It was won by the Spokane Neighborhood Economic Development Alliance (SNEDA), a nonprofit group that focuses on boosting living-wage jobs in lower-income areas of the city.
SNEDA will invest the funds with the Market Street Market, which for the past two years has operated a public marketplace along a two-block stretch of Hillyard, at 5906 N. Market. The market holds outdoor weekend vendor fairs and also uses 75,000 square feet of space in three former lumber storage buildings.
In the past year, more than 185 vendors have used the weekend fair, said Paul Hamilton, director of the Market Street Market.
With the money, Market Street Market will expand and add improvements that will help develop more businesses and add jobs for area residents, Hamilton said.
“We plan on creating between 70 and 140 new jobs in this area,” said Hamilton.
The grant is an example of federal money being awarded to a nonprofit, which then invests the money with a for-profit operation, said SNEDA Executive Director Eric Loewe. SNEDA will gain a 10 percent stake in the Market Street Market based on a $50,000 investment from the grant.
Market Street Market will use the other $200,000 for a variety of facility improvements. Using vendor fees and rent, it plans to repay the $200,000 to SNEDA over an eight-year term starting in 2006, said Loewe.
Currently, the vendor market runs from May to October on a Friday-through-Sunday schedule. The loan will help pay for heating equipment that will allow vendors to sell indoors during the winter, said Hamilton. Other improvements will create better kitchen facilities inside the buildings, he added.
As the indoor shops grow more successful, Hamilton and Loewe expect more visitors will be attracted to Hillyard.
Because the land used by the market will eventually become part of the North-South freeway, the grant specifies that all improvements must be “movable,” said Loewe.
The state now owns that land, but leases it to the city for $1 per year. The city in turn leases it to the Hillyard Festival Association, which hires Market Street Market to operate there.
When the freeway comes in, Hamilton said he’ll relocate the business. “We have a number of places to relocate to,” he said. “That could happen in 30 days or it could be in 10 years. It depends on when they find the money to proceed.”
Visitors come to the market both for the weekend sales and for special events. This weekend, for instance, the market expects to draw more than 1,000 people for a car auction. “Those people will then explore the things for sale nearby, and come away saying, ‘Hey, I didn’t know this was going on here,’ ” said Hamilton.
Hamilton, a 50-year resident of Hillyard, said he’s seen a few examples of companies starting out selling goods at the weekend fairs and evolving into larger firms. For example, Brad Hilmoe, of Spokane, began selling bundled firewood at the market and now operates his own mill in Elk, Idaho. His company sends its products back to the market for sale, creating more than six jobs in the process, said Hamilton.
The market also works with a program for entrepreneurs at Eastern Washington University to help other start-ups move from space in the buildings to their own shops, Hamilton said.