SPOKANE, Wash. — It's an announcement nearly 11 years in the making; a new section of the North South Freeway (NSF) is now open.
The next drivable section of NSF from the Freya to Wellesley Avenue interchange opened Thursday after a ribbon-cutting ceremony to commemorate the milestone. It's the first time a new section of the north-south corridor has opened since the first 5.5 drivable miles were celebrated in October 2012.
The new section adds an additional one and a half miles of new freeway between Freya and Wellesley, according to the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT).
“Opening the next section of the North Spokane Corridor is years in the making,” Regional Administrator Todd Trepanier said in a statement. “Opening to Wellesley Avenue now puts us at over 70% of the entire corridor completed and our sights on the finish line, Interstate 90.”
Wellesley Avenue closed around four years ago as part of the project and has been a blockade for Hillyard businesses since.
“All the morning traffic is on that one-way or coming across Wellesley, so when I lost my Wellesley traffic, all the rest of my traffic was on the one-way going that way," Ryan Miller gestured toward Haven, which runs behind his coffee shop Give It a Shot. "I have a sign out there but didn’t do a whole lot of good.”
Miller turned to delivery services and his regulars to keep his business open, but it still took a hit.
“Yeah it cut me in half, it cut my business right in half," he said. "It was devastating.”
Miller said he'd expected the avenue to be closed for only a couple years, but with COVID and other delays, that stretched to what he guesses was nearly five.
“We’ve all heard for years this would never get done. That’s simply not true," Trepanier said during Thursday's ceremony. "Today we’re one step closer to completion: we’re reopening Wellesley Avenue for the first time in four years.”
The newly-opened one and a half miles will bring the total number of accessible miles to seven, out of the full ten and a half miles planned for the entire NSF. That leaves approximately three-and-a-half miles of the freeway left to complete, which crews estimate will be done by 2030.
While it may seem a small chunk, the opening is huge news for businesses in the area.
“There was and is a sense of expectation and optimism in Hillyard tempered by the very understandable worry the project would never be completed," said Jesse Bank, the executive director of the Northeast Public Development Authority.
Bank said over the next five years, more upgrades will come to Wellesley to the east along with Market Street, making it a more walkable business district. That will also come with new development and housing.
"You’ll see beautifully restored historic buildings and a renewed streetscape," Bank said. "You’ll see new buildings rising from blighted vacant lots.”
Along with Wellesley Avenue, drivers can also travel on the NSF from Wellesley northbound to Freya/Francis and beyond on 395. During Thursday's ceremony, cars were already making their way north on the newly-opened 1.5 mile section.
The southbound section of the freeway is set to open on Friday afternoon.
Miller is excited to see what business will come back in on Wellesley and hopes the new section of freeway will also drive more people to his door.
“Yeah I’ve just been waiting for this road to open, I’m tellin’ ya," he smiled.
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