WSU Health Sciences Spokane campus

The Jensen-Byrd Warehouse as pictured in 1914, located just below and to the left of the smoke stack in the center of the image

Sitting in the middle of the WSU Health Sciences Spokane campus is the Jensen-Byrd Building, also known as the Jensen-Byrd Warehouse. The six-story, 200,000 square-foot historic brick warehouse[18] was originally constructed in 1909 and has changed hands a number of times over its history.[19] It was acquired by the WSU Foundation in 2001 and leased back to its prior owner for use until its transfer to Washington State University in 2004[20] with plans to eventually make the building, or its land, a key part of the campus. Due to its history and its location in the heart of a rapidly developing campus, the role and future of the building on the campus has been the source of much controversy and seen a number redevelopment proposals for the last couple decades.

The warehouse was designed by Spokane architect Albert Held for the Marshall-Wells Hardware Company, which was based in Duluth, Minnesota.

At the time of its completion, it was one of the largest warehouses in Spokane, and as of today remains the second largest warehouse in Spokane County and one of the largest historic buildings in downtown Spokane.

Several additions were made to the building over the years, including its eastern annex in 1946 and the Pine Street wing in 1973.[21]

In 1958, the building landed in the hands of the Jensen-Byrd Co., now known as Jensen Distribution Services, after its acquisition of the Spokane branch of Marshall Wells[22]

As of 2017, the building's future is awaiting a revised master plan from the university. While still standing, it has remained mostly empty and unused since its acquisition by Washington State University in the early 2000s. However, it has been used occasionally in recent years, hosting some small events and having its basement serve as a filming location for several scenes in the SyFy series Z Nation.[23]

Eastern Washington University operates EWU Spokane, which houses EWU's College of Health Science and Public Health and its College of Business, from the WSU Health Sciences Spokane campus. Operations are primarily based out of EWU Center, the second building constructed on the campus, which opened in 1996 as the Phase I Classroom building.[5] The building used to be shared with WSU Spokane, but EWU took over the building for exclusive use in 2014.[27] The university also shares space in the Health Sciences Building, where it collaborates with WSU Spokane and houses its programs in dental hygiene, physical and occupational therapy, and speech and hearing disorders.[2]

Eastern Washington University will expand its Spokane campus presence in the fall of 2020 by occupying the newly built Catalyst Building, the first zero-energy building in Spokane[28] as well as the first office building to be constructed out of cross-laminated timber in the State of Washington.[29] Several programs will be relocated into the building from its main campus in nearby Cheney, Washington.[30]

Washington State University operates its Health Sciences Spokane campus operates from the now-eponymously named campus, housing three colleges, its College of Nursing, College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine.

Ignite Northwest is a local business accelerator that was founded in 2015 in the wake of the defunding and shutdown of the state-funded Innovate Washington. Its functions can be seen as similar to that of the former Innovate Washington agency, however, as an accelerator as opposed to incubator, it is involved in a later stage of a business start-up timeline.[26] It occupies space in the Ignite Northwest Building, which is the Spokane Technology Center that was originally constructed by SIRTI. WSU Spokane is one of Ignite Northwest's partners[25] and has had a history of partnering with Ignite Northwest on grant funding.[26]

Riverpoint Academy, is a STEM-focused high school established by the Mead School District in 2012.[31] The school occupied space in the then-named Innovate Washington Building, originally the SIRTI Building, which was the first building to be built on the campus,[24] and remained there for one year, before outgrowing the space and relocating to a new location within school district's attendance boundaries north of Spokane in the fall of 2013.[32] The school's original location near Downtown Spokane on a higher education campus was intended to provide several new opportunities for learning. These included networking and mentoring opportunities through Greater Spokane Incorporated (GSI), a local economic-development organization, as well as collaboration opportunities with the university community. Access to university libraries was provided for Riverpoint Academy students, and several college-level classes were also taught by EWU Spokane staff.[24]

Innovate Washington was a state-funded business incubator whose roots partially began as the Spokane Intercollegiate Research & Technology Institute (SIRTI). Innovate Washington was created in 2011 by a merger between SIRTI and its Seattle-based counterpart, Washington Technology Center.[33] Innovate Washington was defunded by the Washington State Legislature in February 2014, and shut down in June of that year.[34] Some of it operations were assumed by the non-profit Innovate Washington Foundation. One of its buildings, the original SIRTI Building, was turned over to Washington State University while the non-profit organization assumed ownership of the Spokane Technology Center. The foundation was later relaunched as Ignite Northwest and still occupies space on the WSU Health Sciences Spokane campus.[35]

SIRTI was a state-funded business incubator and predecessor state agency to Innovate Washington. It created in 1994 under the administration the Joint Center for Higher Education (JCHE), the entity which had originally developed the WSU Health Sciences Spokane campus. In 1998, when the JCHE was dissolved, SIRTI was spun off into a separate state agency and given ownership the building it occupied, along with 2.5 acres (1.0 ha) of land, while ownership of the rest of the then-named Riverpoint Higher Education Park campus was transferred over to WSU Spokane.[36]

The Spokane Technology Center pictured in 2013 under the Innovate Washington banner. The building remains in use today by Ignite Northwest and WSU Spokane

SIRTI broke ground on a second building on the campus, which was named the Spokane Technology Center, in March 2005,[37] on a parcel of land that it acquired from WSU Spokane for $850,000.[38] The building was designed to have about 28,000 to 29,000 square feet of leasable area,[39] 12,000 of which was dedicated as wet lab space designed primarily for pharmaceutical or biotechnology research in hopes of supporting the goal of making the WSU Health Sciences campus a biotech-health care center.[38] In June 2011, a bill was signed by then-Washington State Governor Christine Gregoire that abolished SIRTI and its Seattle-based Washington Technology Center counterpart. The two were merged into a new state agency to be called Innovate Washington, with the change taking effect on August 1, 2011.[33]