Drive the corner of North Indian Trail Road and West Bedford Court and you will see orange construction fencing where there used to be nothing but grass, ponderosa pines, and a well-worn dirt path. Neighbors have been cutting through that path for years, walking dogs along what's technically an Avista easement because there was nowhere else nearby to go. One longtime resident who has lived next to the lot for three decades put it simply: he figured everybody would use a real park there once one finally showed up.
On July 22, 2026, Spokane broke ground on that lot. Meadowglen Park is the city's first new neighborhood park in 23 years, and the reason that gap exists tells you something about North Indian Trail that most people who live here have never had spelled out in a single sentence.
The reputation doesn't match the record
Ask someone to describe North Indian Trail and you'll hear about the Centennial Trail nearby, the quiet cul-de-sacs, the sense that this is an outdoorsy, walkable corner of Spokane. All of that is true. What's also true, according to the city's own 2022 Parks and Natural Lands Master Plan, is that North Indian Trail had the worst park-walkability score of any neighborhood in Spokane. More than 2,800 households here sat outside a 10-minute walk of any developed park at all.
That is not a small technicality. It means a neighborhood known for outdoor living was, by the city's own measurement, the single hardest place in Spokane to reach a park on foot. The regional trail system covers the big picture. It never solved the small one: a swing set, a bench, a place to let a kid run around without loading everyone into the car first.
Meadowglen Park sits on 30 acres the city has owned for decades at 10890 N. Indian Trail Road, land that was always slated for park use but never developed. The 2022 master plan flagged it as one of three parks citywide due for major work, and city planners have said it has been a top neighborhood request for more than 20 years. It took a parks levy, two state grants, and a design process that ran through most of 2025 to actually move dirt.
What broke ground, and who's paying for it
Spokane voters approved the Together Spokane parks levy in November 2025, and Meadowglen is the first major construction project it's funding. The Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office kicked in a separate $2.5 million grant on top of that, covering roughly half the estimated $7.5 to $8 million project cost even before the levy dollars were counted.
Spokane Park Board president Bob Anderson stood at the groundbreaking and made a promise as much as an observation, saying the city won't let 23 years pass again before the next neighborhood park gets built. Whether that holds depends on how the rest of the levy money gets spent over the coming years, but it's a useful marker for how much political weight this one project is carrying. It's not just a playground. It's the test case for whether the levy delivers on the rest of its promises.
What's actually being built
The design process ran through most of 2025, with landscape architecture firm PLACE leading a public input process that shaped the final amenity list. By mid-2025 the design was about 60 percent complete, and it settled on a mix that's noticeably more varied than a standard neighborhood park:
- A playground and restroom facilities
- Four pickleball courts and two sand volleyball courts
- A bocce ball area
- A covered picnic pavilion
- Roughly 4,000 to 5,000 linear feet of walking and biking trails
- A 64-stall parking lot
- A nearby STA bus stop
Every one of those amenities came out of community feedback sessions, not a standard city template. That's worth noting if you've sat through other Spokane park meetings that produced the same playground-and-basketball-hoop combination everywhere. Pickleball made the cut here because residents asked for it. Bocce ball did too.
What stays exactly as it is
Of the 30 total acres, only 14 are being developed. The other 16 will stay natural land, preserving the stand of ponderosa pines that already draws the dog walkers and casual hikers who've been using the site informally for years. That's a deliberate split, not a leftover. The city's plan for the site explicitly limits how much turfgrass gets planted and keeps large sections as meadow landscape rather than manicured lawn.
For residents who've been walking that Avista easement for years, this means the informal path you already know isn't disappearing under a parking lot. It's being formalized as part of the park's trail network, sitting alongside the new development rather than being replaced by it.
The actual timeline
Here's what's already happened and what's still ahead, based on the city's own project updates:
- June 2022 — The Parks and Natural Lands Master Plan identifies North Indian Trail as the neighborhood with the worst park access in the city and flags Meadowglen for major development.
- Mid-2025 — Design work reaches roughly 60 percent complete, with PLACE Landscape Architecture leading public outreach sessions that shape the final amenity mix.
- November 2025 — Spokane voters approve the Together Spokane parks levy, securing the remaining construction funding.
- July 22, 2026 — Groundbreaking ceremony at North Indian Trail Road and Bedford Court officially starts construction.
- Summer 2027 — Target opening date, per the city's own project announcements.
That puts a real park, not a rendering, roughly a year out from today. If you're planning next summer around a new backyard-adjacent amenity, that's the window to watch.
Why this matters beyond one park
Meadowglen isn't an isolated fix. It's the opening move for how the entire Together Spokane levy gets spent, and North Indian Trail residents are watching a process that other underserved neighborhoods across the city will be measured against. If the amenity mix here, the trail preservation, and the timeline all land close to what was promised, that's a template. If it slips, that's a data point too, one worth knowing before the next round of levy-funded projects gets announced.
For a neighborhood that's spent two decades near the bottom of the city's own park-access rankings despite its reputation for outdoor living, that's the real headline. The lot at the corner of Indian Trail Road and Bedford Court was never really about landscaping. It was about whether a neighborhood that looks walkable on paper actually delivers on foot, five minutes from your own front door.
If you're weighing what a project like this means for your own street, your daily walk, or the long-term value of a home near the new park boundary, that's exactly the kind of hyperlocal read Kristin Vanos specializes in. Reach out for a conversation grounded in what's actually happening in North Indian Trail, not a generic market summary.
