For a long stretch, a Saturday in North Indian Trail meant errands here and evenings somewhere else. You bought groceries at the Safeway in Sundance Plaza, took the kids to the Pacific Park splash pad, then pointed the car toward Kendall Yards or downtown when the sun dropped. Summer 2026 is the first season in a while where that pattern has an alternative.
The change is not a single opening. It is a short stretch of Indian Trail Road, roughly the 9000 block, that has quietly become the place the neighborhood plans around. A new bar keeps drawing crowds well before dinner. A pad in the same plaza is slated for a milkshake shop. And a mile away, a piece of open ponderosa land is finally becoming Spokane's first new park in more than two decades.
The 9000 Block, Reconsidered
Sundance Plaza is a roughly 128,553-square-foot shopping center along Indian Trail Road, and until recently most residents thought of it as a functional stop rather than a destination. The tenant list explains why the perception is shifting. Alongside Safeway, Starbucks, ACE Hardware, McDonald's, STCU, and Snap Fitness, the plaza now anchors a cluster of sit-down options: Cantarito Mexican Restaurant, JJ's Tap & Smokehouse, Adelo's Pizza, and Alibi.
That is more evening infrastructure in one parking lot than the neighborhood has had in memory. The Homes.com neighborhood write-up still describes Sundance Plaza as a "busy commercial strip" at Indian Trail and Barnes, which understates what has happened inside it over the past year.
A Bar That Fills Up At 4 P.M.
The most-discussed arrival is Alibi, at 9025 N. Indian Trail Road, opened in August 2025 by Deb and Bill Weisgerber in the 1,400-square-foot space that used to be Happy Trails to Brews. When Alibi's owners learned they'd won Best New Nightspot in the Inlander's 2026 readers' poll, it came as a surprise. They didn't ask customers for votes or run any kind of social media campaign. The couple, who call themselves "nighttime people" and have owned bars before, saw a for-lease sign last spring in a space that used to be a beer bar, and years before that a location of Bennidito's Pizza. Living on the nearby Five Mile Prairie, the Weisgerbers felt the neighborhood needed a great local spot.
What is worth pausing on is not the award, it is the traffic pattern. In the short time Alibi had been open, Weisgerber said the restaurant was packed by 4 p.m. She had expected late-night cocktails, and instead every seat was taken and everyone had ordered food by 4 o'clock. That is the tell. A bar in a suburban plaza filling up at happy hour on a weeknight is a neighborhood signaling that it wanted somewhere to go and did not have one before.
The programming is aimed squarely at people who live within a few miles. Sunday industry night, Monday trivia, Tuesday bingo, Wednesday wine specials, Thursday open mic, Friday and Saturday karaoke is a full weekly calendar rather than a special-events approach. A summer patio, added over the last year, extends the seating outdoors during the long July evenings.
The First New Park In 23 Years
The second piece of the summer story is not open yet, but the groundwork starts this season. Meadowglen Park will offer multiple recreational opportunities for families and individuals. Once complete, visitors will be able to enjoy a new picnic area, a volleyball court, and trail access. For those who feel like taking a walk through the ponderosa pines, 16 acres of the property will remain preserved as natural land.
The scale of this matters more than the amenity list. The park is being paid for by the Together Spokane Initiative that was approved by voters last November, and the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office has awarded another $2.5 million toward the project. Construction is scheduled to begin this summer, and the park is expected to be completed in a year. The city is building its first new park in 23 years, and it is doing it here.
For residents, the practical read is this: the dog-walking easement people already use informally is about to become a picnic table, a volleyball court, and an actual trailhead. If you have lived in North Indian Trail long enough to remember when the streets past Barnes were still forming out of ponderosa forest, watching a piece of that land become a permanent park is a meaningful moment.
Where The Neighborhood Actually Spends A Summer Saturday
The point of the 9000-block story is that it now connects to the outdoor infrastructure the neighborhood was already using. A rough shape of a summer day, using named places rather than categories:
| Time | Where | Why it works in summer |
|---|---|---|
| Morning | Centennial Trail, entered through Riverside State Park | A roughly 40-mile paved path for a bike ride or run before the heat |
| Late morning | Pacific Park | Playground, baseball diamonds, and a splash pad for the kids |
| Afternoon | Indian Trail branch, Spokane Public Library | Cool interior, kids' programming, a break from the sun |
| Evening | Alibi patio in Sundance Plaza | Craft cocktails and a food menu without leaving the neighborhood |
Pacific Park is a classic community park with a playground, baseball diamonds and a splash pad. Riverside State Park is a recreation hub for hiking in the woods and kayaking on the Spokane River. The Centennial Trail is a roughly 40-mile hiking and biking path that runs through Riverside State Park. The Spokane Public Library Indian Trail branch hosts exercise classes for different ages.
Two years ago, the last row on that table would have read "drive downtown." That is the change.
What Is Still Coming
Two other developments are worth watching before the season ends. Scoop N' Score is planned for the 9000 block of Indian Trail Road in Spokane, a milkshake concept slotted into Sundance Plaza. It will land in the same complex as Alibi, which means the plaza is starting to build a daytime-to-evening flow rather than a set of unrelated stops.
And then there is the empty box at the north end of the plaza. The former Rite Aid space, at 9007 N. Indian Trail, is a 17,272-square-foot suite listed for lease. What lands there will shape the next chapter more than any single restaurant. A large-format tenant in that footprint is the difference between Sundance Plaza as a stronger amenity and Sundance Plaza as a genuine neighborhood center.
Reading The Season
If you have owned a home off Indian Trail Road for a decade, the summer of 2026 is the first one where the neighborhood's evening offering keeps pace with its daytime one. The pattern used to be: leave for dinner, come back to sleep. This season, a resident can walk the dog on the future Meadowglen easement in the morning, cool off at Pacific Park's splash pad at noon, and finish the day on Alibi's patio without ever crossing Francis Avenue.
The tenor of the plaza tells the story. When a bar in a suburban shopping center is packed at 4 p.m. on a Tuesday, and the city is breaking ground on the first new park in 23 years a short drive away, those two facts belong to the same trend. A neighborhood that was built as a commuter suburb is finally growing the third places it did not have.
For a resident, that is not a real estate story. It is a Saturday-planning story. But for anyone with a longer horizon, it is worth noticing that the shape of North Indian Trail's summer is changing under people's feet, and that the plaza most residents drove past for years is quietly becoming the part of the neighborhood the neighborhood talks about.
If you are curious how these changes are shaping property decisions, or you would like to talk through what the last year has meant for North Indian Trail specifically, Alejandro Ventura is happy to walk through it with you. Let's connect.
