Two years after taking the helm at S3R3 Solutions, executive director Chris Pengra says the public development authority has evolved from a fledgling group into a key player helping shape the West Plains into one of the Inland Northwest’s premier industrial hubs.

The agency’s pitch, he says, hinges on highlighting the advantages that the West Plains offers — affordable land, a capable workforce, and proximity to major air and freight routes. Pengra says those factors, combined with a collaborative network of local partners, make Spokane an increasingly attractive alternative for companies looking to relocate or expand, compared with costlier markets on Washington’s West Side.

“When I first joined two years ago, my goal was really to build a high-performance economic development organization capable of attracting capital investment and creating jobs in the region,” Pengra says. “I feel like we are in a better place than we were two years ago.”

When he joined S3R3 in September 2023, Pengra says the West Plains PDA was still a relatively new organization. It had gone through a rebrand in 2020, shortening its name from the West Plains-Airport Area Public Development Authority to the more succinct S3R3 Solutions. It had also recently gone through a leadership change after Todd Coleman, the agency’s founding executive director, left for an outside opportunity, leaving the PDA with an interim leader for a year before Pengra was appointed.

“The stability we’ve had over the last two years in consistent engagement with regional partners and stakeholders to build a more cohesive, collaborative approach to economic development has been game-changing,” he says.

Founded in 2017, S3R3 facilitates the recruitment and retention of companies to the 9,500-acre area that it oversees.  Its focus is on attracting businesses in the aerospace, advanced manufacturing, pharmaceutical manufacturing, life sciences, and distribution industries. S3 represents the three entities involved in the partnership: Spokane County, the city of Spokane, and Spokane International Airport, and R3 represents the three methods of transportation available within the public authority area — road, rail, and runway. The organization has two staff members, and its offices are located at 7106 W. Will D Alton Drive, east of the Spokane International Airport.

Pengra, 47, says S3R3 is actively working on multiple industrial recruitment efforts that represent hundreds of millions of dollars in potential capital investment. Some are in the early-stage recruitment phase, while others are moving into due diligence, he says.

“Even when a project ultimately goes elsewhere, Spokane is now consistently representing itself as a competitive location,” he says.

Although he can’t disclose specific names or details of the organization’s potential partnerships, one project that he can talk about is the King Beverage Inc. facility, at 3520 S. Geiger Blvd., located half a mile east of Spokane International Airport, he says.

“It represents growth for the region,” he says of the 200,000-square-foot warehouse and distribution center.

To showcase the area as a competitive location, Pengra says S3R3 focuses on highlighting its strengths that other markets may not have. The West Plains offers a combination of development-ready land, access to a major interstate, a commercial airport, an industrial workforce, stable costs, and strong public partnerships.

“In many regions, companies have to sacrifice one of these,” Pengra says. “Here, they get all of them in the same place.”

The organization engages in targeted digital marketing and attends industry trade shows and conferences to meet potential tenants. S3R3's website has also been updated to provide tools that help site selectors make decisions about considering the West Plains for their next move, he says.

To make the best of the community's features, S3R3 has also undertaken infrastructure work to improve and increase the area's readiness to take on large tenants, he says. Over the last two years, the organization has helped improve mapping, data, permitting readiness, and project response time. S3R3’s utility partners, Avista Corp., Inland Power & Light Co., and the city of Spokane have been great collaborators, he says.

“We are now positioned to provide fast, credible answers to very large customers evaluating Spokane, and that is critical for major site selection decisions,” he says.

Pengra also foresees the Inland Northwest benefiting from changes in international trade over the next two years. With national reshoring of manufacturing, the reshoring near West Coast trade corridors, and an increase in supply chain diversification, Spokane is in a strong position, he says.

Looking ahead, Pengra says he’s confident that S3R3 will become one of the most important drivers of job creation in the region.

“I think that the value proposition we’ve kind of honed over the last two years for each of our target industries is just continuing to get stronger every day,” Pengra says. “There’s so much to offer in Spokane. And for that reason, there’s plenty of reason to expect that the growth is going to continue in the West Plains.”