Downtown Plaza Important To City

Why invest $80 million in downtown Spokane?

Betsy Cowles says she can spearhead a private/public partnership to save the core now, or she can spend the rest of her career trying to revive it.

Cowles heads the companies that own downtown’s Riverpark Square. Her family has published this newspaper for generations. Now it is stepping forward to commit tens of millions - the amount is not final - to help keep the city center alive.

Nordstrom, hotly courted by cities many times Spokane’s size, does business here because this was one of the Seattle-based chain’s first sites when it began to expand. Its store here is profitable, but smaller than those it prefers now. Its lease expires soon.

If Nordstrom leaves Spokane, The Bon would leave downtown as well. Smaller retailers would join the exodus from the core. There’d be no shoppers. Several blocks would be vacant.

This is not speculation. When retail left downtown Tacoma, the city center died. The nearby Hilltop neighborhood erupted with crime as decay spread. Where would Spokane’s Hilltop be? Riverfront Park? West Central? Browne’s Addition? The lower South Hill? What would happen to recent investments in the arena, the higher education park, the Opera House/Trade Center, the hotels, the library … all of them, potentially, ingredients in a vibrant core?

A plan is being negotiated to keep Nordstrom in Spokane: Tear down Riverpark Square’s west mall retail space. Expand its parking garage and construct a new, much larger store for Nordstrom. Connect all of this to a glassed-in plaza on what’s now Post Street, to retail space in the block Nordstrom now occupies, and to The Bon, which also could remodel.

The financing would combine private capital, a federal urban renewal loan to be repaid by downtown business, and city revenue bonds for the parking garage expansion.

An economic analysis shows what’s at stake. It contrasts a vacant retail core with the proposed renovation. The difference: 2,830 jobs, $49.9 million in downtown wages, $95 million in property value, and $2.5 million per year in tax and fee revenue to the Spokane city treasury.

Would business benefit, recovering its investment? Certainly. As would the public sector. The community would gain quality of life and an attractive climate for conventions and new employers.

This is a difficult, high-stakes undertaking. It needs support from Spokane’s silent majority - the people who care about downtown, who appreciate a healthy business sector. The alternatives, we believe, make the effort worthwhile.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Webster/For the editorial board