The Dirt: House-building training facility struggles to find Spokane home

Spokane-based homebuilder Corey Condron has been raising concerns for years about two major issues contributing to the housing shortfall in the region: labor shortages and administrative barriers.

These two issues came to a head on a project to open a home-building training facility in east Spokane.

The facility, which could train as many as 125 students per year, has been shelved as energy code requirements, zoning regulations and permitting costs mount, Condron said.

“I don’t build in Airway Heights, Medical Lake, Liberty Lake, city of Spokane or Spokane Valley,” Condron told The Spokesman-Review in 2023 as he was wrapping up Wandermere Heights, a 185-home gated community near Mead High School. “I mean, they all have their own building departments and permitting processes, but they make it even more difficult than it needs to be.”

Condron, who is the CEO and owner of Condron Homes, has been working for five years to develop a facility that can offer students a pathway to become HVAC technicians, electricians, plumbers or general laborers for the home-building labor force.

He claimed the Spokane area often suffers from “trade gaps,” which is a period of inactivity between the exit of one subcontractor and the arrival of the next. Trade gaps are caused by a lack of subcontractors and results in increased costs and extended project timelines.

To combat this, Condron, in his capacity as board chair of the Washington Home Builders Foundation, has been working with state and local groups to fund education in home-building trades.

The foundation, which is the charitable wing of the larger Building Industry Association of Washington, opened a trade school in January 2025 in downtown Tacoma called the BuildStrong Academy of Pierce County.

The school was made possible by partnerships with the Master Builders Association of Pierce County’s BOLT foundation, Goodwill of the Olympics & Rainier Region, the city of Tacoma, and the Home Builders Institute.

Condron said Spokane is next up for a home builder’s school.

“Our goal is to get these spread across the state, and Eastern Washington is the next location in our crosshairs,” he said. “We’ve been turning over every stone to make it happen.”

Condron said the foundation is working with its vested partners, like Volunteers of America and Spokane Colleges, to win a $1.5 million grant from the Washington state Department of Labor and Industries to fund the school.

“These are good wage earning jobs that we need,” he said. “Trades can open avenues to break the homelessness cycle. We all have a desire for a trades academy.”

Though word is still out on the grant, Condron and his team have been at work finding a suitable building to buy or lease.

The group put in an offer for a roughly 8,900-square-foot industrial building located at 3003 E. Courtland Ave.

But after submitting predevelopment plans to the city of Spokane, which gives developers the opportunity to garner feedback from city building officials before construction permits are sought, the project was unfeasible.

“This building meets our needs. It seemed like a great fit,” he said. “From talks we’ve already had, we will be required to rezone the facility, update it to the new energy codes and other costs that put this building out of reach.”

Though his team and city officials are set for a meeting later this week, the foundation has already rescinded their offer on the building.

“I don’t see it happening,” he said. “I think we will have to look outside of city limits. It’s just too costly, too cumbersome.”

Condron said the progress on the project likely has to wait until grant recipients are announced, which should be around June.

Though the home-building academy project is paused for now, Condron said he found hope in some area schools.

Easy Valley High School updated its metal and wood shops in 2023, bucking the trend to focus on college readiness, according to Spokesman-Review reports.

“The pendulum is really swinging, and people are recognizing how important these jobs are,” he said. “Shop classes are coming back and hopefully soon will the workforce.”

Kalispel Tribe plans health facilities in Spokane

A project to construct a new building, and to renovate an adjacent one, will bring a new behavioral health and detox facility to downtown Spokane, according to plans submitted to the city.

The Kalispel Tribe of Indians purchased two lots located at 19 and 25 W. Pacific Ave. for $1.4 million in January, according to Spokane County property records.

Located south of the House of Charity, the site may be home to a new opioid treatment and a behavioral health facility, according to plans.

Plans were submitted as part of the predevelopment process, which gives developers the opportunity to garner feedback from city building officials before construction permits are sought.

If it proceeds, the work would include building a 3,200-square-foot, single-story building on a vacant lot.

The facility will house a fixed-site medication unit, plans show.

The Washington state Department of Health defines this type of facility as, “a specialized, brick-and-mortar facility licensed as part of an existing Opioid Treatment Program to dispense methadone and other FDA-approved medications for opioid use disorder,” according to its website.

The existing building next door is a two-story structure previously owned by Catholic Charities of Eastern Washington. It housed that organization’s Myrtle Woldson Institute, named for the philanthropist who gave generously to Catholic and civic causes before she died in 2014.

The institute hosted programs to help families facing homelessness, according to Spokesman-Review reports.

That building is planned to be remodeled and turned into a behavioral health facility, plans show.

In sum, the project is planned to be completed in two phases. The first step would be building the new structure, and the second would be the remodel project.

The estimated cost of the project is $3.5 million, according to plans submitted by Tim Nydegger, executive director of corporate strategy for the Kalispel Tribal Economic Authority.

Nydegger could not be reached for comment. Boulder Associates, of Boulder, Colorado, designed the project.