By RYAN LANCASTER
Staff Reporter
City of Airway Heights officials may raise encroachment concerns if Spokane County sells surplus land near the Geiger Spur.
Earlier this month Spokane County commissioners learned that two unnamed companies have expressed interest in purchasing land on 80 acres located southwest of Craig and MacFarlane roads and due east of the main Fairchild Air Force Base runway. One company would like to build an energy plant, while another is looking to site a large distribution center.
The vacant land is part of a 200 acre tract the county purchased in 2008 to facilitate the Geiger Spur rail line relocation project. At that time commissioners said the extra land served as a way to protect the base from potential closure by eliminating the chance of encroaching development.
This is the same reason Airway Heights Mayor Patrick Rushing said the city has long opposed the land's inclusion into the county's urban growth area, which allows it to be linked with public sewer and water services for development. Currently much of the land is part of an “urban growth study area” and may be incorporated into the UGA as part of a 10-year review this fall.
“We have spoken out against that study area being developed or being included into that UGA,” Rushing said. “We're still fighting that fight. We need that buffer to remain between Craig and Russell (roads) so that the encroachment issues don't go anywhere.”
But Commissioner Al French said the Geiger Spur line was realigned specifically to attract and accommodate new businesses in the area. The potential sale is also reviving talk of building a transloader facility at the site, enabling shipping containers to be loaded and offloaded from train cars, and French said one of the companies is
looking at the land specifically because of its access to rail.
Because much of the property lies within the airfield's accident potential zone the height of any development there would have to be addressed, French said, but otherwise he doesn't see any non-compatible use issues. “You're allowed to build within an APZ, it's just what you build,” French said. “The big focus is on no housing or other residential in crash zones.” He pointed to other airfields that are surrounded by manufacturers and industries.
Rushing said he's troubled that Greater Spokane Incorporated, the regional chamber of commerce, was involved with recruiting one of the companies showing interest in the land. He and other city officials have in the past accused GSI of working against the Spokane Tribe's casino/resort project on the grounds that it would encroach on the base.
“The interest for me there is that you've got GSI that has been fighting development out here because of encroachment on Fairchild and they're the ones that recruited this company to come in at the end of the runway, which is the biggest encroachment you can have,” Rushing said.
GSI president and CEO Rich Hadley said the chamber's board has not yet taken a position regarding the Spokane Tribe project, although board members have in the past expressed concerns that building a hotel within the airfield's noise contour area could affect the base's mission.
But likening the Spokane Tribe's project to a potential industrial development on the county's land is an apples to oranges comparison, he said. “If you're talking about building a warehouse, distribution center or manufacturing center, it would be different than a residential property or even a hotel, because we're talking about a population of people,” Hadley said.
Mark McLees, a real estate broker with NAI Black who is handling the county land deal, said a sale of the county land is anywhere from two to six months away. “We still have not identified where exactly the parcel will be located as we have multiple deals on the property and need to coordinate them all,” he said in an email.
Meanwhile Airway Heights is also hoping to attract a distribution center to the city's long vacant industrial park, which comprises nearly a square mile of land between South Lawson Street and Craig Road.
“It's been there for a while but it hasn't developed because there's been no interest,” Rushing said, adding that he's asking City Council members to sign off on a letter he's written to solicit the interest of several big box corporations, including ShopKo, Lowe's and Walmart.
Several years ago Walmart considered building a regional distribution center on 40 acres near Craig and McFarlane roads but the plan fell through, Rushing said, adding that the region has only improved since then. “We have the perfect opportunities here because we've got a major highway, we have a freeway with an airport and we've got a rail. So we have all these transportation availabilities,” he said.
Walmart spokeswoman Tiffany Moffat said while she could not speak to whether the corporation would entertain the idea, at this time there is no plan to site a distribution center in the Spokane area.
Ryan Lancaster can be reached at ryan@cheneyfreepress.com.
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