Greenacres Park funding approved

Greenacres Park is moving forward after the Spokane Valley City Council approved funding for it on Tuesday. The city will make use of a $500,000 state grant and another $200,000 from the Civic Facilities fund.

Parks and recreation director Mike Stone said the city hired a landscape architect and met with community members this spring to discuss what features to include in the park. The first phase is expected to cost $1.5 million and the city will nearly empty its Parks Capital Fund to build it.

“It’s a great project,” Councilman Bill Gothmann said just before the council voted unanimously to go ahead with construction. During a later break in the meeting Stone said he hopes to be able to break ground next spring if everything goes well. The project may be ready to go out to bid at the end of this year or the beginning of next year.

Public works director Neil Kersten presented several projects he would like to submit for grant funding. There is only $4.3 million available for the Northeast Region in Urban Arterial Program projects through the Transportation Improvement Board. Each project submitted will be scored in various categories. “They’re primarily safety oriented,” he said. “That’s where the points are.”

Kersten said he would like to improve Bowdish from Sprague to 16th, Mission from Flora to Barker, and Park from Broadway to Indiana. Those areas have little or no sidewalks and two are near schools. All would be upgraded to a three-lane configuration that includes sidewalks and bike lanes, he said. There are also three projects that may qualify for the Urban Sidewalk Program through TIB – 24th Avenue from Adams to Sullivan, Eighth Avenue from Calvin to Adams, and Fourth Avenue from University to Pierce.

“Do you think we have much prospect of getting any of these?” Councilwoman Rose Dempsey asked.

“It’ll be tough,” Kersten said. “There’s not a lot of funding. We’ve got to turn them in or we won’t get them for sure.”

The council seemed receptive to the grant applications and Kersten said he would prepare a motion authorizing the applications for their approval.

Traffic engineer Inga Note discussed the projects she would like to include in the regional Smart Routes plan that would be eligible for federal stimulus money through the Spokane Regional Transportation Council. The plan only includes bike and pedestrian improvements. Several things listed in the old plan are still there, such as a Spokane Valley/Millwood trail that would use old Great Northern Railway right of way near the Union Pacific line, and a North Greenacres Trail also using old Great Northern Railway right of way.

New this year is a proposed shared use pathway on the west side of Dishman-Mica from Appleway to the south city limits and a study on how to connect north-south routes to the Centennial Trail and the other proposed trails. The Smart Routes plan is only a planning document but projects are more likely to receive federal funding if they are included, Note said.

In other business, the council heard a quick presentation on the Neighborhood Centers zone in the Sprague/Appleway Revitalization Plan as it continues its review of the entire plan. After several such presentations on various SARP zones it has quickly become clear that each zone includes the same issues to some extent, including sign restrictions, architecture requirements and how far buildings are set back from the street.

The Neighborhood Center zones at the major intersections along Sprague include wider sidewalks and buildings set close to the street to encourage pedestrian use, said planner Mike Basinger. A good example of this is Dave’s Bar and Grill on Sprague near Pines, though the current zoning would call for landscaping between the sidewalk and the street.

Nonconforming uses may not be as big a problem in this zone as there are currently only four nonconforming businesses. After public comment is collected at a community meeting to discuss possible changes to the Neighborhood Center zone, the council will consider whether it wants to make any changes.