Waiting To Exhale Downtown Retailers Face Tough Decisions
Downtown Spokane is in a state of flux, and its small businesses are responding in kind.
Some are staying. Some are leaving. Others are expanding and remodeling. Still more are biting their fingernails, trying to hold on.
“As many answers as you want, those answers are out there,” said Karen Valvano, president of the Downtown Spokane Partnership, which manages the business improvement district. “Retail is difficult. For the most part, they’re in survival mode.”
Surviving means something different to almost every small business owner downtown.
The future of the area is uncertain. Customer visits downtown have declined in recent years. Several large development projects are in the works, but could be years from completion.
That leaves retailers with a difficult decision. They either stick around, doing what they can to contribute to revitalization efforts, or call it quits and leave.
“I just want to be ready because I think it’s going to happen,” said Jacque Sanchez, owner of the Great Harvest Bread Co. on West Sprague. Sanchez recently put $75,000 into remodeling her cafe and bakery.
She bought new tables, chairs, light fixtures and rebuilt the counter. Though she sometimes goes home at night thinking, “Did I do the right thing?” she points to projects happening around her as evidence that downtown is on its way back.
Next door to Great Harvest, Spokane businessman Joe Dinnison is remodeling an old building into an upscale hotel to be called The Lusso, which means luxury in Italian.
A few blocks away, investors are converting downtown’s historic steam plant into a complex of shops and restaurants, with a living history museum.
The Davenport Hotel’s owners are restoring the historic landmark and target reopening in the fall of 1998, after more than a decade of dark rooms.
And in the core of downtown, River Park Square plans a $100 million redevelopment with a new Nordstrom store, a 24-screen cinema and new upscale shops and restaurants.
But those projects haven’t happened fast enough to keep some businesses afloat. The target opening date for the revitalized River Park Square is in 1999.
It’s hard to ignore the numerous vacant storefronts in the downtown area.
“It’s very simple. Downtown’s not cutting it,” said Rae Huslid, when she closed the doors for the last time at Whiz Kids, an educational toy store on West Riverside.
Huslid said she doesn’t know whether she’ll have a store downtown again, but she said she hopes downtown will be an exciting vibrant place again.
“Downtown has great potential, but the direction has to be right. I like downtown so much, but they ignored the warning signs,” she said. Those signs, she added, included new neighborhood malls and increased retail development in the suburbs.
“Downtown could be very special,” she said, “if it had specialty shops and restaurants.”
The development projects also didn’t happen fast enough to save Coyote Cafe, a Tex-Mex restaurant on West Third that closed in January.
Owner Cyrus Vaughn said he called it quits because of the depressed retail environment downtown.
Vaughn also owns the popular Cyrus O’Leary’s restaurant at 516 W. Main. He predicted that many downtown businesses would close if the River Park Square project, which has been threatened by lawsuits, doesn’t happen.
“Within the last four to five years, our customer counts have fallen,” Vaughn said. “Everybody’s concerned that unless something happens, then downtown’s in for a long decline.”
According to the Kiemle and Hagood real estate company, vacancy rates for downtown office space rose from 12.3 in April 1991 to 15.6 in December of 1995. During the same time period, retail vacancy rates rose from 6.2 percent to 18 percent. And those retail numbers do not include stand-alone buildings such as the vacant former Lamont’s or Newberry’s in downtown Spokane.
A Spokesman-Review poll done in mid-December showed that 52 percent of Spokane County residents shop downtown less frequently than they have in the past.
Half of River Park Square has been vacant for more than a year. The planned $100 million redevelopment is designed to bring more retailers downtown.
“If that project doesn’t go, 24 months after, I don’t think you’d have anybody left,” Vaughn said.
Though some businesses are leaving, new small businesses are opening, moving into the same area others label depressed.
Three weeks ago, Nicholas and Monika Giles opened an authentic German Restaurant at 218 N. Howard. Restaurant Edelweiss previously was located in Kellogg, Idaho, and most of the customers were from Spokane and Coeur d’Alene, Nicholas Giles said.
“We basically lived off people outside the (Silver) Valley,” he said. “We felt the market over here was more lucrative.”
Their real estate agent told them that the market was difficult, but convinced them that their restaurant would be successful because it would be unique, Giles said.
“We feel it’s an ideal location,” Giles said. “We’re half a block from the park and we’re right near the main shopping stores like The Bon and Burlington.”
Though downtown is going through a transition, the Gileses opened their restaurant in one area that seems to be booming - a block of North Howard across from Riverfront Park.
Boo Radley’s novelty and gift shop moved from North Post to the corner of Howard and Spokane Falls Boulevard. The shop re-opened Monday.
Edelweiss is between Mizuna, a popular vegetarian restaurant that opened last April, and Salon Nouveau, a funky hair salon that just opened.
Andy Dinnison, owner of Boo Radley’s, said he decided to move because he needed more space. But he said the move also reflects his uncertainty about downtown.
With major retail developments years away, Dinnison said he chose to be across from downtown’s one constant attraction, Riverfront Park.
“There are a lot of pluses for downtown right now, but a lot of those pluses are three to four years away,” Dinnison said in November. “I’ve got to think about right now.”
Dodson’s Jewelers, at 516 W. Riverside, also is betting on downtown Spokane’s future success.
In September, Dodson’s spent thousands remodeling the store to include Tiffany’s jewelry. Dodson’s is the only Spokane jeweler that carries the exclusive line. Dodson’s made the move with an eye on attracting the same upscale clientele the redeveloped River Park Square is targeting.
“If we were not convinced this project was going to happen, we would not have done this remodel,” said Penn Fix, vice president of Dodson’s. “We could just sit here or make our own contribution to make it better.”
During the holiday shopping season, Dodson’s emphasized its commitment to downtown. Their ads announced that they’d been in Spokane for 110 years and weren’t going anywhere.
That loyalty to downtown paid off in sales, Fix said.
“We did great. It was a banner Christmas for us with the Tiffany line,” he said. “Tiffany did tremendous.”
That doesn’t surprise Valvano.
During a time of transition, she said, the retailers who succeed are the ones who take the opportunity to update inventory, remodel stores or improve their service.
“When a market’s in transition,” she said, “the ones that survive are the ones that grasp the transition.”
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 4 Photos (3 Color)