Council Vacates Street For Gu Apartment Complex In/Around: Gonzaga, Logan
Despite widespread criticism from its neighbors, Gonzaga University won a heated battle to close a campus street.
The Spokane City Council earlier this week agreed to vacate Van Gorp Place from Sharp to Boone avenues so the university could build an apartment complex.
Gonzaga plans to build 30 student housing units on property bounded by Pearl and Lidgerwood streets, and Sharp and Boone avenues.
Van Gorp Place runs through the middle of the property.
Neighbors complained the street vacation would aggravate already congested streets, further stress a limited parking supply and depress nearby property values.
Jeanette Harris alerted the council to the wording of the proposed vacation ordinance, which states “that the public use, benefit and welfare will best be served by the vacation of said public way.”
Van Gorp is a street frequently used by neighborhood residents and outsiders, Harris said.
“I don’t see the vacation as being the best for the public,” Harris said.
Several Logan residents complained about Gonzaga’s “blind expansion” - its constant encroachment into the neighborhood that surrounds it.
Like many of her neighbors, Joan Moran has mixed feelings about Gonzaga.
Years ago a priest from the university taught a high-school-age Moran how to play bridge. Now that beloved college is “fingering out into the neighborhood,” Moran said.
“I have a love-hate relationship going on with GU. It’s been such a big part of my family all my life.”
Chuck Murphy, Gonzaga’s vice president of finance, told the council the school desperately needed more housing to keep up with enrollment.
Repeated delays have put the university behind schedule, Murphy said. The project must start this spring to be complete by the fall semester.
“This project dragged on longer than we expected,” he said.
“We have acted in good faith with the neighborhood. We’ve tried to be responsive to them.”
Mayor Jack Geraghty, who grew up in the Logan neighborhood, joined several council members who said they were uncomfortable choosing between the neighbors but in the end sided with the university.
“The fact is this is a very difficult situation,” Geraghty said. “I presently see neighbor pulled against neighbor, and that’s really unfortunate.”
Geraghty pinned his vote to close the street on the fact the dispute centered on traffic issues, and the city Traffic Department OK’d the vacation.
Councilman Chris Anderson cast the lone dissenting vote, saying he wasn’t about to favor the interests of one powerful neighbor over that of several smaller, less weighty ones.