A new Midwest Motor Express Inc. truck dock facility is being planned in Spokane's Hillyard neighborhood, according to a State Environmental Policy Act application filed earlier this month.

The trucking company's estimated 26,000-square-foot loading dock will be attached to a 4,600-square-foot office building, the SEPA checklist shows. The project also proposes 142 van and tractor parking spaces and 72 employee parking spaces, as well as a 40,500-square-foot stormwater pond.

The truck dock facility will be constructed on about 9 acres at 3951 E. Garland, according to the application. The facility will be located directly east of the North Spokane Corridor and west of Esmeralda Golf Course, at the south end of Hillyard.

Raleigh, North Carolina-based engineering firm Kimley-Horn & Associates Inc. submitted the SEPA application and is designing the on-site development, including a parking lot, a paved area for maneuvering vehicles, utilities, and stormwater management systems for the project, says Chris Collins, civil project manager at Kimley-Horn.

“There was consideration of access and drive aisle widths, (as well as) durability of the pavement design for the large truck maneuverability and making sure it’s adequate for that,” Collins says. “There was also some strategy behind minimizing excavation while still getting sheet flow of stormwater to adequately sized facilities for drainage and infiltration.”

Andrew Donnelly, Architect — the Washington state trade name of Nashville, Tennessee-based Mollenkopf Design Group — is the architectural firm designing the building, he says. A general contractor has not been hired for the project yet, Collins adds. The project also does not have an estimated cost.

Bismarck, North Dakota-based Midwest Motor Express is the Upper Midwest and Pacific Northwest operating region of Dothan, Alabama-based AAA Cooper Transportation Inc., according to information from Midwest Motor Express’s website. AAA Cooper Transportation is an independent subsidiary of Phoenix-based Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings.

The Midwest Motor Express brand will transition to the AAA Cooper Transportation brand on Jan. 1, according to Midwest Motor Express’s website. The Midwest Motors name will be retired following the transition.

AAA Cooper Transportation purchased the Hillyard property from Esmeralda Commerce Park LLC for $3.3 million in June, according to tax information on file with the Washington state Department of Revenue. Spokane-based L.B. Stone Properties Group owns the 28-acre commerce park.

A representative from AAA Cooper Transportation could not be reached for comment on the project.

The property is the first lot sold in the commerce park, according to L.B. Stone’s website. The site is currently vacant, and construction is not yet underway.

The proposed site improvements and construction are anticipated to be completed in one phase starting spring 2026 and finishing by fall 2027, according to the SEPA checklist. Public comment on the project ended Dec. 2. Collins expects permit applications to be submitted to the city of Spokane by the end of the year.

Esmeralda Commerce Park will be built partially with financial incentives provided by the Northeast Public Development Authority, a public corporation created by the city of Spokane and Spokane County, says Jesse Bank, the public development authority’s executive director.

Tax proceeds raised by property tax revenues from new developments in the area, along with a financing tool called tax increment financing, are used to both fund the public development authority and provide incentives for developers to build in Hillyard, Bank says.

“We are then able to not only underpin our operations by those proceeds, but we can offer those up as an incentive to developers, and it's something we're starting to explore a little bit more,” he says. “We can say, ‘If you're interested in developing, we encourage you to get into the ground and in return, we agree on some amount of money that's reimbursed to you from those tax increment proceeds over a period of time as money flows in from your development.’”

As part of the agreement, Esmeralda Commerce Park is building about $2.8 million in horizontal infrastructure improvements including roads, sewer systems, stormwater management, and sidewalks, Bank says. Northeast Public Development Authority will reimburse Esmeralda Commerce Park $1.25 million between two payments — $625,000 as a lump sum from the city once a portion of the development is complete, and an additional $625,000 from sales tax proceeds made from the project over time until the entire payment is reimbursed.

“On our side, we need to calculate the tax proceeds that are flowing from that project and come up with an accounting of the dollars that flow into our coffers as a result of development,” Bank says. “We can say, ‘This year, we received $125,000 in additional new tax proceeds based out of that project. We’ll take that and we turn it back around and send the developer a check for $125,000 and then the next year, maybe (we pay) a little more,’ until we've paid them that second tranche of $625,000, at which point the agreement automatically terminates.”

AAA Cooper Transportation is not part of the reimbursement deal, Bank notes.

The truck dock facility will be one of the first new construction projects in the industrial zone located east of the North Spokane Corridor. Bank says he hopes the project will spur more development.

"This is really the first tangible thing that we can point to that says, 'Okay, now we're starting (development),'" he says.