Bruce Munholand spent 32 years racing for the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, mostly in Alaska, where he met his wife, Keri. His last assignment was in St. Louis, where he oversaw the cleanup of a suburban landfill infected with radioactive tissues dating back to the Manhattan Project era. In early 2021, shortly after retiring from the Corps, Bruce, now 71, and Keri, now 55, connected their van: a 1969 cobalt blue Citroën pickup truck modernized in Europe to serve gourmet coffee. — to their pickup truck and drove 1,870 miles. They had chosen the city for its natural beauty, moderate costs, proximity to two of their three adult children (one in Seattle and one in Spokane), and its coffee-like flavor. it was a big company in the Northwest, we knew it was a company that would travel,” Keri says.
Today, the Munhollands are positioning their Surge Coffee Co. pickup truck. in downtown Spokane, near the 100-acre Riverfront Park (site of the 1974 World’s Fair) and at sporting and other events. They distribute batches of beers, mochas and chai lattes between $6 and $8 per cup and make about $70,000 in sales a year, donating all of their tips to charity, adding local and foreign Christian relief agencies. “I like repurposed parts more than reprocessed parts because there’s something to do,” Bruce says. They plan to upload a second van serving ice cream from a local dairy and eventually hire a professional manager so that, as Keri says, “we can go to Italy after all. “
In recent years, many other people have made their way to this eastern Washington enclave, 20 miles west of Idaho, in search of an affordable lifestyle. The U. S. Census Bureau (CDP) The U. S. Department of Health estimates that between 2010 and July 2023, Spokane County’s population grew 17% to 551,455, while the city of Spokane, the county seat, saw an 11% increase to 231,000.
Not everything went smoothly. The housing supply in Spokane was already inadequate when the Covid pandemic and fleeing home led to a new wave of arrivals. A 2021 study by the Spokane Association of Realtors found that vacant rental pools had fallen to 1% and new homes were receiving up to 30%. offers, with local youth being left out of the market. That year, the mayor declared a housing emergency.
Between the time the Munhollands moved to Spokane in 2017 and were in a position to move in 2021, costs rose so temporarily and sources of employment became so scarce that they moved into a condo in South Perry, a community that was once in ruins. which is now home to restaurants and trendy shops. (This is a temporary solution; they also bought two wooded acres just 10 minutes from town and are building a house using large amounts of lumber from Washington state. )
Three years after that emergency, Spokane is still suffering from a housing shortage. Median housing costs in the county have increased two-thirds since 2019 and are now hovering around the national average of $394,000; however, that’s still less than part of the $879,000 average in Seattle, a major source, along with beloved California, of migration flows.
The fact that its housing costs are still moderate is one reason Spokane earned a spot on Forbes’ list of the most productive selling options for retirement in 2024, which emphasizes quality of life at an affordable price. Other points that helped him make the decision The list comes with good air quality, low risk of natural disasters, plenty of primary care doctors, and no source of income taxes, unless you make sure capital gains exceeding $250,000 per year. (The downsides come with an above-average crime rate, a wealth tax, bloodless winters, and an average economy. )
In terms of lifestyle, the city is very bike-friendly and the domain offers numerous hiking trails and seven public golf courses. The ski slopes are about an hour away. Additionally, as the largest city in what is known as the Inland Northwest, which includes eastern Washington, Oregon, and northern Idaho, Spokane has a tendency to outperform its demographic when it comes to concerts, restaurants, and sporting events. Spokane hosted any of the men’s events, and the March Madness girls’ school basketball games and the Gonzaga boys’ team, the largest local personal college, reached the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament for nine consecutive years. The Podium, a $53 million indoor sports facility, opened in 2021 next to Riverfront Park is designed to host professional volleyball, basketball, wrestling, and track and field events.
As for the housing shortage and the trendy economy, local leaders are taking advantage of it. The city has passed new regulations to allow for more housing complexes and needs in residential areas. The concept is to allow for the structure of more housing in existing neighborhoods.
“Our purpose is to particularly develop our ability to build housing for all levels of income sources, many of which will be dense urban housing, so that the quality of life can remain the same here,” said Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown, who ousted the outgoing president who promised last November to address the housing crisis. homelessness and the growing fentanyl problem. “It’s a superior quality of life. I just don’t need that to go away because of immigration and the emerging prices of space,” he adds. Brown, 67, is an economist whose resume includes terms as the first female Senate majority leader and the state’s first female chancellor. Washington State University, Spokane.
Before the arrival of American infantrymen in the 19th century, the Spokane River was a livelihood for the Spokane tribe, who led a semi-nomadic life, fishing for salmon and rainbow trout in the river. Today, the tribe’s reservation is about an hour away. northwest of downtown Spokane and is home to a hotel and two casinos.
The city itself was incorporated as Spokane Falls in 1881, just as the railroad arrived in the city. It has become a transportation hub for the gold and silver, timber, and grain mining industries. Even today, you can see and hear the trains pounding the widened tracks. about downtown Spokane.
Signs abound of Spokane’s future and its continued revitalization. A former flour mill is now a grocery shopping center situated on the banks of the river that provided it. A former Wonder Bread factory (which produced Hostess cupcakes until 2000) has been remodeled into a corridor with regional chefs and coffee roasters. A deserted rail yard across the Spokane River from downtown has evolved over the more than 18 years to become Kendall Yards, a mixed-use urban community with apartments, homes, restaurants, and a weekly outdoor market. the warmer months and access to a 37-mile paved nature trail.
“There’s a lot of opportunity here for real estate development and to enjoy the scenery,” says Steve MacDonald, the city’s director of networks and economic progress, to the sound of Spokane Falls, a waterfall of grasses that a century ago was meant to generate electric power. Designates a parking lot for Canopy Credit Union occupying a prime oceanfront lot. “It’s the old idea of ‘put the car parking lot or the factory next to the river’ that will disappear. “
The city has also shed its former reputation as a Wild West fraud. The Spokane Stock Exchange, founded in 1897, was shut down in 1991 due to pressure from the SEC. (At the time of closing, this was the last regional exchange in the country committed to dubious penny stocks. ) As recently as 2009, Forbes called Spokane the “scam capital of America. “
South of the river, at a Washington State University building, a handful of local marketers put their case to investors to work at an event hosted through the university’s incubator and LaunchPad INW, a local organization that advises startups. They’re preparing to introduce investors like the Spokane Angel Alliance, a 19-year-old investor organization that has pumped $76 million into 75 tech and other startups. That’s little compared to genuine venture capital cash in Seattle, but it’s part of an ongoing effort to bring the local economy into the 21st century.
Locals are also pushing for a percentage of the medical and healthcare sector; Spokane County Health Sciences
Not long ago, the University of Washington in Seattle had a near monopoly on medical education in the state. But in 2015, Washington State University received help from the state legislature to identify a medical school in Spokane. It is now fully accredited and named after Elson S. Floyd, the former president of Washington state who championed its creation, with the concept of educating professionals for underserved rural areas. At the same time, the University of Washington has created a program with Gonzaga that allows 60 medical fellows to stay for the first 18 months of their studies in Spokane, with the idea of encouraging them to return to the eastern part of the state.
Despite those efforts, the largest employer in Spokane County remains Fairchild Air Force Base, which was initially established as an Army depot during World War II and is now a medium-sized refueling base just west of Spokane International Airport. It’s a source of young retirees, because foot soldiers like the region and return (or stay) to spend their post-army years.
Kevin Williams has been stationed at 11 other bases around the world during his 25 years as an administrative officer. He had been with Fairchild for 4 years when he started thinking about his next assignment. “My son was in his sophomore year of high school and when it came time to think about whether he was going to continue a little longer (in the Air Force), and he said, ‘Come on Dad, we still have to move,’ it was perfectly understandable,” Williams recalled. I temporarily learned that I really enjoyed Spokane, too. Williams, now 54, was speaking as he hopped between booths at a job fair he helped organize as vice president of the Spokane Workforce Council, a nonprofit that is helping to link employers and workers. Today, Williams’ son is 23 years old and recently graduated from Eastern Washington University with a bachelor’s degree in finance. He plans to stay in Spokane.
A business organization that opened its first workplace in Spokane’s university district in April offers insight into how dominance is slowly becoming. In a county where 88% of citizens are white, the workplace is owned by a multi-ethnic industrial agreement. known as AHANA, an acronym for Asian, Hispanic, African, and Native American. The organization was established in 1998 but actually grew the pandemic with the help of current Mayor Lisa Brown, who was then director of the Washington State Department of Commerce. turned to AHANA to make sure business owners of color got their percentage of federal repayable loans from the Paycheck Protection Program and other Covid relief efforts.
“The grants have just started to arrive, they have been renewed, and the pandemic has evolved,” marvels Marvo Reguindin, 67, AHANA’s executive director since 2020. He was born in Seattle after his parents immigrated to the United States from the Philippines and lived in Seattle, Hawaii, California, and the Pacific Northwest before landing in Spokane in 1991 and starting his own advertising and graphic design agency. (AHANA has become a customer. ) Today, Reguindin lives in an up-and-coming network in Spokane with his spouse and two Yorkshire dogs. He feels relatively safe in Spokane and has built a network there through his involvement with AHANA, the Inland Northwest Business Alliance, and LGBTQ issues.
But Reguindin poses an uncomfortable question for foreigners contemplating moving to the area. In April, members of the University of Utah women’s basketball team, traveling to Spokane to compete in the NCAA tournament, were allegedly subjected to racial slurs while on their way to a place to eat and their hotel near Coeur D’Alene, Idaho. This popular city hotel is located in Kootenai County, where Richard Butler’s notorious white supremacist group, Aryan Nations, founded in the 1970s, is based. (In 2000, a Coeur D’Alene jury returned a $6. 3 million verdict that put Butler out of business. His complex was sold and died in 2004. )
“When I first got here, I wasn’t aware of the challenge of the Aryan nations in northern Idaho, and then I temporarily discovered it and thought, ‘Okay, I’m not going to Idaho unless I want to. ”” said Réguindin. Se adjusts, and yet remains the same. “