Construction is expected to begin in June on Bethany Village, a 22-unit affordable workforce housing development, says Sharon Rodkey Smith, a church leader at Bethany Presbyterian Church, on Spokane's South Hill.

“We can hardly wait,” Smith says of the $12.4 million development planned at 2607 S. Ray, in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood.

Bethany Village will rise on the former grounds of the Bethany Presbyterian Church, a 35,000-square-foot building that was destroyed in a fire in January 2022. In its place, church leaders have envisioned a community-centered redevelopment comprised of three buildings including a 7,500-square-foot community hub dubbed The Commons, and two residential apartment buildings, she says.

Kilgore Construction Inc., of Colbert, is the project’s contractor, and Spokane-based ZBA Architecture PS designed it, Smith says.

The Commons will feature a commercial kitchen, a worship space, classrooms for courses such as language lessons and banking workshops, gathering spaces, and a leasing office, Smith says.

One apartment building will have 10 residential dwellings and house graduates of nonprofit programs such as Family Promise of Spokane and Thrive International, the Journal previously reported. The second apartment building will have 12 units. The apartment structures will consist of three one-bedroom units, 14 two-bedroom units, and five three-bedroom units.

The 1.5-acre church property was purchased by Bethany Presbyterian Church in 2011 for $700,000, Spokane County Assessor's Office records show.

The building in which Bethany Presbyterian Church congregants previously worshipped before it was damaged in a fire was not a traditional church, but a community facility that had been hobbled together into a worship space, Smith says. It featured a small kitchen and a few rooms with treadmills on the first floor. Half a level below ground was a basketball court where members gathered for church services, she says.

The fire-damaged community center has been demolished, she says.

The Bethany Presbyterian Church is spearheading the development through a partnership with Spokane-based nonprofit housing provider Proclaim Liberty and Coeur d’Alene-based Widmyer Corp. Spokane-based Kiemle Hagood had previously been involved with the project, Smith says, but sold its multifamily division to Widmyer, a real estate acquisition, development, and property management company specializing in multifamily, affordable, and subsidized housing.

The project has received a $3 million grant from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines, sponsored by Banner Bank, the Journal previously reported. It has also been awarded a separate grant of $2.1 million by the city of Spokane’s Home Investment Partnership Program, through the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Smith says the church is waiting on response from two grant applications which will be announced in early June.

—Karina Elias