Consultant urges redo of Sprague/Appleway

What’s nine lanes wide and headed for destruction? Spokane Valley’s Sprague/Appleway couplet, if city officials act on advice by design experts given Thursday.

Engineers and urban planners hired to come up with a way to resuscitate the miles-long retail strip littered with retail carcasses said scrapping much of the high-speed, one-way street system would be a first step.

Seven years ago, when Spokane Valley was a county-run suburb, one-way signs were put up on Sprague Avenue between University Road and Interstate 90 as a way to alleviate westbound traffic congestion. At the same time, four-lane Appleway Boulevard was constructed to handle a crush of traffic heading east.

The move got traffic going again, but businesses along the street complained that the cars no longer stopped after the change. Though some of the businesses along the strip have survived, many have floundered. Retail rental prices have fallen to as little as $2 a square foot.

“We want people to see what we have to offer,” said City Councilman Richard Munson, “not just what’s in front of them on their way to Spokane.”

The couplet changes, presented by traffic consultant Troy Russ, were just a chapter in a much larger plan to revitalize more than six miles of the city’s traditional retail corridor. The recommended changes don’t stop at the curb. The Spokane Valley City Council last year decided to spend more than $400,000 for an urban design and transportation plan. That land-use plan would pave the way for a city center, mixed-use development and regulations to foster more sustainable business growth along Sprague and Appleway.

Urban designers are recommending the council essentially plan for a downtown at the intersection of University Road and Sprague, currently home of a half-empty shopping center. Several neighborhood retail shopping areas would also be created at the busiest intersections along Sprague. Slowly, the spaces in between those intersections would shy away from shopping-cart retail, filling in with offices, service-based businesses and even housing.

Many of the recommended changes would require zoning and design standards that would be put on the books and not acted upon until new construction took place. Landscaping in relation to Sprague was also a big factor. These were changes that a majority of the public said they wanted while meeting with consultants over the past several months. Sprague-area businesses as well as developers also endorsed the changes, designer Michael Freedman told the council.

But the traffic-altering changes to the Sprague/Appleway couplet were recommended as a first stage. Experts proposed restoring two-way traffic along Sprague for 14 blocks between University and Argonne roads, and ending one-way travel on Appleway Boulevard at Dishman-Mica Road.

Simply put, the need for one-way traffic just isn’t there in the areas proposed for changes, Russ said. The majority of the Appleway traffic turns off at Dishman-Mica, leaving the next 14 blocks of four-lane traffic on the street underused. The corresponding Sprague Avenue section recommended for change occurs before a steady pulse of traffic pours onto the street from Argonne.

The idea is to slow traffic down, make the streets more amenable for retail and housing, and bring the public back to the street that was once the social-economic heart of Spokane Valley. The next step, consultants advised, would be continuing Appleway as a two-way street to Evergreen Road and eventually farther to Sullivan.

City officials seemed generally agreeable with what consultants had to say. Should the council take the advice, it would next hold a series of public hearings on the proposal before going forward.