Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Cheney takes on big project

Jared Paben Staff writer

About a mile from downtown Cheney, beyond the residential neighborhoods in the quiet, rolling fields along Highway 904, waits a sprawling, low-slung industrial complex.

The freshly mowed grass and bright white concrete exterior point to a living business.

The empty parking lot doesn’t lie.

“There’s not one vehicle” in the parking lot, Cheney City Administrator Paul Schmidt said as he drove around to the front parking lot. “I take that back. This guy pulled over to fix his (car) since we’ve been here,” he said, gesturing to a man looking under the hood of his car.

A former manufacturing facility for microprocessor chip components, the plant officially shut its doors more than a year ago, months after its owner, Honeywell Corp., decided to restructure operations and put the building up for sale.

The closure stung the town of Cheney and its population of about 10,000, both in terms of lost high-wage jobs and tax revenue for the city, Schmidt said.

“I don’t think there’s an argument it’d be nice to get those 600 jobs back again,” Schmidt said. “We’d like to see it occupied. We’d like to see it occupied with jobs contributing to the economy.”

That’s exactly what a group of city, business and university leaders are trying to do. By applying for $1.5 million in federal aid from the Economic Development Administration, the group hopes to kick start an effort to make the 113,000-square-foot building more palatable for smaller manufacturing companies. Some have expressed interest in the past but have backed away because the 14- to 16-foot ceiling is too low for many uses and they would need only a small slice of the large space.

Because those small companies are more common than multinational corporations like Honeywell, it isn’t surprising the building has been left vacant, according to the project proposal.

The city of Cheney gave the project proposal, written by the city’s director of public works, to the Spokane Area Economic Development Council, which reviewed it and gave it priority status because it would provide jobs in a town that doesn’t have much industry, said Robin Toth, director of funding and community projects at the EDC.

The council then put it and two other projects on the county’s Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy request, which was sent to the federal government. The EDA’s Seattle office approved that document and now local officials are crossing their fingers, hoping the project will make it all the way to approval in Washington, D.C., she said.

EDA spokesman Matt Crow said his agency judges projects based mainly on how many jobs they’ll create.

“We really try to focus on projects that have the biggest regional impacts,” he said.

Although the federal money is crucial, it won’t guarantee the project, which Schmidt admitted has several large ‘ifs’ connected to it.

First, the Cheney City Council requested an analysis from a consultant showing how much market demand there would be for a refurbished Honeywell building. The analysis, which is due in the next month, will help the council decide whether to even continue with the project, Schmidt said. The analysis could say the project is worth pursuing with or without federal funding. It could say that it’s not a good investment either way. Or it could say that it’s only worth pursuing with federal funding, he said.

Second, the total cost of the effort to divide the building into 20,000- to 30,000-square-foot units and upgrade utility hookups on the surrounding 38 acres is more than $4.5 million, according to the project proposal. The federal money, which would be used to divide the building’s space, represents about one-third of the total needed. The city would still have to chase about $1.5 million in state grants and loans for infrastructure work, and the city or a private partner would have to pony up $1.6 million to buy the property, the proposal states.A similar effort in Cheney met with limited success.

Across the street from the Honeywell building sits the privately owned 20-acre Cheney Technology Park. One portion of the park is occupied by a thriving ceramics-equipment manufacturing business, but most of it is covered with grass and pine trees. The city of Cheney wasn’t successful in getting state or federal money to spur development there by building infrastructure and installing utilities, Schmidt said.

City officials hope by subdividing the Honeywell building they can bring more stability to the bedroom community’s economy. Having more tenants makes the community less vulnerable to the whims of one large corporation, and diversifying the job sector locally helps wean the community’s economy from Eastern Washington University, Schmidt said.

They also hope that within the building they can create a research and development wing that EWU could use to complement its on-campus research facilities.

Ideally, the city would have a tenant agree in advance to rent space there after modifications are done, boosting the city’s chances of securing federal money, Schmidt said. But the project could go forward without that. Officials just don’t want to see the building sit empty or act as a barn storing hay, Schmidt said.

“It’s kind of fuzzy. Do you build it and they will come? Or is it someone shows up and you help them build it?” he said. “The preferred one is the latter.”