Drive south on Regal Street past 53rd Avenue and you will pass a stretch of graded, fenced land that has sat mostly empty since before some South Hill kids started high school. This is the site everyone means when they say a grocery store is "supposedly coming" to the neighborhood. It has meant that for the better part of a decade.
So it is a little strange that when a grocery finally starts moving from paperwork to permits, it is not showing up there at all. Two separate projects, in two different parts of South Hill, are now working through the actual construction process at the same time. Neither one is the project people have been waiting on.
The Grocery Regal Street Has Promised Since 2017
The 17-acre parcel known as the old KXLY site, on the west side of south Regal between 53rd and 55th Avenue, first showed up in city planning documents in December 2016. By January 2017, the property owner had submitted site plans for a 48,000-square-foot grocery store fronting Regal, part of a larger 45-acre mixed-use agreement that also included retail buildings, a soccer field swap with the city, and a $300,000 contribution toward Southgate neighborhood trails.
Nearly seven years later, in October 2023, the Spokane Journal of Business reported the same site was still in development, now rebranded Radio Tower Village, with the grocery component scaled down to 27,000 square feet as the second phase of a project called Commons on Regal. That is the most recent public update available on that parcel. The original 48,000-square-foot store never materialized, and the smaller version has not opened either, at least not as of the last reporting on it.
None of this is a criticism of the developer. Big mixed-use projects take years, and phased retail often waits on anchor tenants who are slow to commit. But it means South Hill residents have genuinely earned their skepticism about grocery announcements on this corridor. Which makes it worth separating the long-running promise from what is actually happening right now, on two different pieces of land.
Two Projects, Two Very Different Bets
Both of the active grocery projects surfaced in city permit filings within weeks of each other in early 2026, and both are still working through the process, but they look almost nothing alike once you compare the numbers.
| 17th Avenue & Ray Street | 42nd Avenue & Regal Street | |
|---|---|---|
| Project | South Hill Grocery and Liquor, expected to become a Harvest Foods | Unnamed grocery store |
| Size | Roughly 14,600 square feet | Roughly 16,000 square feet |
| Estimated cost | About $250,000 | About $4.5 million |
| What's happening | Construction permit filed; conversion of an existing building targeted to finish this summer | Predevelopment application filed; still in early city review |
| The site's history | Former home of Owens Auction House, on a roughly 2-acre lot purchased for $2.2 million in September 2024 | Vacant land held by the estate of the late Spokane developer Harlan Douglass, with one parcel bought in 2005 for $450,000 |
The 17th and Ray project is a conversion, not new construction. It is taking an existing building and turning it into a store, which explains why the estimated cost sits at a quarter million dollars against a 14,600-square-foot footprint. According to reporting from the Spokane Journal of Business, the finished project is expected to operate as a Harvest Foods, and the engineering firm managing the build told the paper back in February it was targeting a summer finish. Mid-August puts us near the tail end of that window, so if the timeline held, the doors could already be open or very close to it.
The 42nd and Regal project is the opposite kind of bet. It is ground-up construction on vacant land, sitting just north of the Home Depot that opened on South Hill in 2023, now three summers ago, and immediately next to the existing Maverik station and Mister Car Wash. The estimated project cost of $4.5 million, for a store only slightly larger than the Harvest Foods conversion, reflects the difference between renovating a building that already exists and building one from scratch, including the 74 parking spaces and shared access drive laid out in the site plans filed with the city. As of the most recent reporting, the store's name still has not been disclosed publicly.
Why the Math Looks So Different
Read side by side, these two projects say something about where South Hill's retail investment is actually concentrated right now. The cheaper, faster conversion is happening in an older, more established stretch of the neighborhood, on a lot that changed hands for $2.2 million as recently as September 2024. The far more expensive ground-up build is happening next to brand-new retail infrastructure, on land that a Spokane County property owner sat on for two decades before it attracted serious grocery interest.
That is not a coincidence. It is two different developers reading two different parts of South Hill and deciding the corridor near a three-year-old Home Depot is worth a multimillion-dollar bet, while the corridor near 17th and Ray is better served by getting a store open quickly and cheaply. Neither approach tells you which part of the neighborhood is "better." It tells you that South Hill is not one grocery market. It is at least two, and the projects moving through permitting right now are treating them that way.
What Else Opened While the Big Projects Were Still Paperwork
Grocery stores take years. Smaller storefronts do not, and a handful of them have quietly opened or announced plans on South Hill while the bigger projects were still sitting in predevelopment review.
- The Breakfast Club, a quick-service breakfast restaurant with existing locations in Missoula and Helena, Montana, is opening its third location at 4919 S. Regal, in the same shopping center as Target and Petsmart, in the space that formerly housed an Ezell's Chicken restaurant. The concept leans toward takeout with some indoor seating.
- Ca Phe Nguyen Coffee & Tea opened in space shared with D'Lux Beauty Bar at 2718 E. 57th Ave, Suite 108, serving Vietnamese coffee, milk teas, boba, and an iced matcha latte out of a small storefront with no indoor dining.
- Collected Goods, a home decor and gift boutique, opened its second location at 3007 E. 57th Ave, in a space that used to be a Subway. The original shop is in Liberty Lake, and the South Hill store is open Monday through Saturday from 10 to 6 and Sunday from 10 to 4.
None of these are large projects, but together they suggest the same pattern as the grocery story. Small operators are betting on the 57th Avenue and Regal corridors specifically, filling storefronts that sat empty or turned over from national chains, rather than waiting for a single anchor project to define the area.
What to Actually Expect This Year
If you are trying to figure out when any of this affects your errand run, here is where things stand. The Harvest Foods conversion at 17th and Ray is the closest to done. Its February filing targeted a summer finish, and with mid-August already here, that window is nearly closed, so this is one to watch for an opening announcement any week now rather than something still months out. The 42nd and Regal project is still working through city review as of its most recent filing in January, with no confirmed timeline or store name yet, so it is reasonable to expect that one to take considerably longer. The long-promised grocery component of Commons on Regal, near 53rd and 55th, has no public update more recent than late 2023, which means it is worth treating as a separate and much slower story from the two projects actually moving right now.
South Hill has a track record of grocery announcements that outlast their own headlines. This year is the first time in a while that the movement is happening on two fronts simultaneously, on sites nobody was watching as closely as the big one on Regal.
If you are curious about how these kinds of shifts play into the broader South Hill picture, or you just want a second set of eyes on what a particular block or listing is really like day to day, Alejandro Ventura is always glad to talk it through. Let's Connect.
