SPOKANE VALLEY, Wash. — Two college cross country events in Spokane Valley may move to other venues because the city’s new cross country course isn’t ready.
Construction is still underway on the course, but it might not be done in time for its first two scheduled events this fall.
“The city has really determined that it is unlikely that the two events scheduled in 2025 will be held at The Course,” said Lesli Brassfield, tourism and marketing manager for the City of Spokane Valley.
The city still needs to put in 17 acres of grass to make it ready for races. The $7 million facility was paid for by local taxpayers. Construction started last fall.
The events were booked around a year ago.
“The schedule should have been attuned to the events that we were putting up. Or we should have said we’re not going to do the events because they’re not going to work with the grass,” said Councilman Al Merkel.
“How come they didn’t tell the council? Why did they bury it in the middle of this TPA meeting? How come there’s no big public announcement, despite all of the public announcements and fanfare for this thing?” Merkel said. “To me, it seems like they should have done a public announcement that they’re going to have to cancel.”
These events aren’t canceled and will stay in Spokane County. These 2025 events were meant to fine-tune this course and get it ready to open in 2026.
One event is the Northwest Athletic Conference Cross Country Championships in November. The conference was aware that the course might not be ready in time.
“We’ve been aware and we’re not surprised at all. We’ll adapt,” said Marco Azurdia, executive director of the Northwest Athletic Conference.
“Would we like to be the first athletes to run on the course? Absolutely. If that doesn’t work out, we will be very excited to be there next year and the following year,” Azurdia said.
Azurdia says the conference will decide on whether it’s moving the event in the next 6 to 8 weeks. It identified Plante’s Ferry Park as a backup.
The course is still set to host the NCAA Western Regional Championships in 2027.
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