Old Hotel Gets New Mission Project Joins Revival On Downtown’s East Side
Another fading historic building on the east side of downtown Spokane has been given new life.
The 87-year-old Globe Hotel, at the corner of Main and Division, was purchased by Owen and Julie Clarke, who plan to fill it with a bookstore, grocery and deli.
“We just thought it was central,” said Julie Clarke of the building. “We saw the promise of this neighborhood.”
Clarke and her partner Nancy Kleweno own Clarke and Stone, a technical book store formerly at 202 E. Trent. The store moved to the Globe building in late March. Owen Clarke is the senior assistant attorney general for Eastern Washington.
The Clarkes’ first tenant will be Bountiful Fresh Foods, an organic grocery store and deli that plans to open in mid-May. They will lease to one more retail tenant on the ground floor of the three-story building. The second and third floors will be used for offices, the basement for storage.
Julie Clarke said she’d love to see a quality quick-print shop occupy the remaining retail space. With the other two businesses, a print shop would help the building draw students and professors from the Joint Center for Higher Education and the Spokane Intercollegiate Research and Technology Institute (SIRTI) located nearby at Riverpoint.
Workers already have begun restoring the Globe building, which still sports a faded sign on its brick facade advertising rooms at the hotel for 75 cents and up.
The sign will stay, Clarke said, as will the canopy on the building’s Division Street side. A neon sign will advertise it as The Globe Building.
The Globe was not a “grand hotel,” Clarke said. Rather it was where seasonal workers such as stockmen stayed when they passed through town.
The 40,000-square-foot building most recently was home to Harmon Glass Co., which now is located just to the east.
For nearby merchants, the Clarkes’ plans are a welcome addition to a list of projects aimed at rejuvenating the east side of downtown.
“It’s a booming area of town right now,” said Brian Finnerty, co-owner of Finnerty’s Red Lion Sports Bar and Barbecue. “Obviously it’s the neck of the woods you want to be in.”
Finnerty pointed to such recent additions as The Birkebeiner Brewing Co., at 35 W. Main; the Spokane Area Visitors’ Bureau, which will open in May at Main and Browne, and the Shade Brewery public market on East Trent.
Like many of the city’s old buildings, the Globe Hotel recently was listed on Spokane’s registry of historic buildings. Owners of registered buildings pay lower taxes in exchange for preserving them.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo