RPS development

The approval of a settlement in the federal River Park Square lawsuit clears up most, but not all, of the litigation over the downtown mall and its garage. Here's what is left:

The Spokane City Council approved a truce Wednesday to end the long-running legal war over the River Park Square garage by accepting a $4.25 million settlement from its former bond counsel.

RICHLAND – The downtown garage that was sold for $26.5 million in 1999 to help pay for the River Park Square renovation might be worth as little as $3.4 million on the open market today, an appraiser hired by the City of Spokane told a federal jury Monday. Bruce Allen, a consultant hired by the city as it prepared for the trial, said many things have changed since other appraisers first tried to put a value on the garage proposal some 10 years ago. The market value has declined steadily, dropping from about $21 million in 1996 to between $7.5 million and $3.4 million last year, he estimates.

RICHLAND – Responsibility for paying off the multimillion-dollar legal mess spawned by the River Park Square garage may hinge on which theory a federal jury believes of what went wrong. There's the city of Spokane's view: Its former bond counsel Roy Koegen and his firm had a duty to stop city officials from the mistakes they made, from setting an inflated price on the parking facility to providing misleading statements and outright falsehoods to investors who bought garage bonds.

RICHLAND – A jury of five men and four women from central Washington was sworn in Thursday to decide whether the city of Spokane got bad legal advice in the River Park Square garage deal. If they agree with the city that it did, they can determine how much of the city's losses on the deal should be covered by its former bond counsel, Roy Koegen, and his former firm, Perkins Coie.

Almost four years to the day after investors sued the city of Spokane and nearly everyone else connected with River Park Square redevelopment, a trial is set to start over the mall's financially troubled garage. But the jury being selected this morning in Richland will be asked to decide a much different case than the original claims of fraud and conspiracy in the lawsuit filed on April 23, 2001.

The city of Spokane received a victory Friday in the long-running legal battle over the River Park Square garage. A federal judge ruled the city can ask a jury to consider some $40 million in damages for any judgment it might get in an upcoming trial. But first the city will have to win its malpractice claim against Perkins Coie, the law firm of its former bond counsel.

The River Park Square mall has been losing between $3. 7 million and $4. 2 million a year since 2000, and bankruptcy by the companies that owned it was "the most likely course of action" if a lawsuit over its garage wasn't settled, city officials were told late last year.