WSU eyes new building near Jensen-Byrd site

Plans are progressing on what could become a new $60 million to $80 million medical training facility on Washington State University’s Spokane campus.

The project, called the Team Health Education Building, could be built at one of two different locations as part of the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine. One potential site is the southeast corner of Spokane Falls Boulevard and Sherman Avenue.

WSU Spokane spokesperson Chantell Cosner said the planners could be leaning toward constructing the new building on the northeast corner of North Pine Street and East Main Avenue, near the historic Jensen-Byrd warehouse building at 131 E. Main.

“We are evaluating both,” Cosner said. “We are looking at the economic impact and how the development of both sites would fit in with campus, and where that fits in with the bridge and urban amenities. At this present moment, that southwest side of campus is looking like an opportunity we are looking to move forward with.”

No decision has yet been made for the future of the 200,000 -square-foot Jensen-Byrd building, a six-story brick structure that has survived several previous demolition efforts.

However, none of the plans thus far call for refurbishing the Jensen-Byrd warehouse, which is different from the similarly named and related Jensen-Byrd Hardware Building at 320 W. Riverside Ave.

In 2015, the estimated cost of refurbishing the warehouse building on Main Avenue was $55.5 million to $61.3 million.

Eric Smith, director of facilities and capital projects for WSU Spokane, said he does not believe school officials have updated the estimated costs to refurbish the building since those last figures were published.

Cosner said the next building is going to complement the future, without specifying what may happen to the Jensen-Byrd building.

“It’s not just how we are situating the new building, but how we build out around that,” she said. “As a result, we are hoping to provide a more detailed vision for the development on the south side of our campus, which is the side we have more room to grow.”

WSU owns and maintains the Jensen-Byrd warehouse that was developed by O.C. Jensen and Henry Brooke, which founded a hardware store in 1883 in Sprague.

The store was moved to Spokane in 1895. The business, which became Jensen-Byrd Co. in 1925, ran out of the two buildings on Riverside and then later shifted in 1958 to the warehouse on Main for its wholesale business.

Jensen-Byrd later built a distribution center on the West Plains. The company has been known as Emery Jensen Distribution since Ace Hardware Corp. acquired it in 2015.

The closest the university previously came to demolishing the Jensen-Byrd warehouse was in 2011, when WSU had tentatively agreed to sell it to a Texas company that wanted to build a new mixed-use facility featuring apartments and retail space.

Spokane Preservation Advocates challenged the legality of the demolition permit, and the company pulled out of the deal in 2012.

The Washington Trust for Historic Preservation includes the building in its lists of “most endangered places.”

As for the new building, WSU Spokane has already obtained about $7 million in state funds, and that initial money is being used to both plan the building and to study how it fits into the overall vision leaders have for the campus, Cosner said.

The Team Health Education Building would house up to 1,200 students and a state-of-the-art health care simulation facility, according to WSU.

School officials have selected Bouten Construction and NAC Architecture as its design partners, and Cosner said construction could begin in 2025.

“We are committed to developing a facility that is responsive to the local community and regional health provider needs as well as modeled after the most innovative health education spaces in the country,” Eric Smith, director of facilities and capital projects for WSU Spokane, said in a news release. “These ongoing discussions are absolutely key to the process.”

As the design and planning continues, school officials are also trying to raise the funds needed to build the structure.

“We plan to go to the state for additional funding as well as engage with our philanthropic partners,” Cosner said. “Those things take time and impact the scope and size and feasibility” of the building.

It’s not yet clear when the decision will be made with how WSU will incorporate or demolish the Jensen-Byrd building, Cosner said.

“Obviously, whenever you have a major vision for development you have to think about the existing structures and how best to utilize them for the entire future of the property,” she said.