Spokane Reaches Crossroad In Effort To Save Downtown

In downtown Spokane, the powers that be have put together a highly promising response to ever-escalating competition from outlying shopping centers that saps the vitality of the city center.

But before the promise can be fulfilled, two key parts of the program must get the city’s stamp of approval.

Above all else, success hinges on redeveloping the River Park Square shopping complex, in the process creating a new home for Nordstrom downtown.

Fashionable new quarters for one of America’s most desirable merchandisers are the centerpiece of a twoblock shopping extravaganza planned by real estate affiliates of this newspaper.

They have asked the city to vacate one block on Post Street, between Main and Spokane Falls Boulevard, so the street can be incorporated into an exciting new pedestrian mall.

Secondly, city officials have been asked to approve a special taxing district strictly for downtown business and property owners.

It will empower hundreds of small businesses to band together, tax themselves for funds, make needed improvements, and run downtown much like singleownership shopping centers are managed.

Among other things, this will enable downtown businesses to offer free parking, enhance the streetscape, ensure safety, clean up the streets and sidewalks and market the whole shebang.

To these attractions, add:

The long-cherished existing downtown Bon.

The new Crescent Court.

The Wall Street Trolley/Pedestrian Mall still in the works.

The evolving - oh, so slowly - Davenport Arts & Entertainment District.

Riverfront Park, the Spokane River falls, block upon block of skybridges and shopping concourses, etc, etc…

The result is a dynamite mix. A shopping, tourism and recreational center of rare originality that no new plastic mall can rival.

All within a few blocks of the I-90 freeway through downtown Spokane.

Perfect.

But the above proposals are not without critics. And their opposition is not without precedent.

Two decades ago, enemies of Expo ‘74 were incensed by the thought that downtown leaders might by some miracle pull off - and make a financial success of - an international exposition in the smallest city ever to host a world fair.

Fortunately, these cranks did not prevail.

If they had, downtown today would be a dusty ghost town. And much of this community’s identity and proud spirit would be gone along the way.

Thirty years ago, Spokane was a wonderfully comfortable overgrown agricultural community.

It was still possible on occasion to witness farmers in pickup trucks stop dead in the middle of a downtown street upon coming across a friend or acquaintance traveling the opposite direction. There they’d sit, side by side, leaning out the windows of their vehicles, indulging in polite palaver.

Unfortunately, while farmers passed the time of day in downtown Spokane, a fast-changing world bypassed this community. The local economy was drying up, stagnating.

The outsized farm town had a choice to make. Compete. Or blow away.

Change came with Expo ‘74, the first world’s fair themed to the environment.

Expo spawned Riverfront Park. It catalyzed construction of several of the city’s loftiest skyscrapers. It compressed 20 years of progress into five years of explosive achievement.

If not for the 1974 Spokane World’s Fair, it’s unlikely there would be much of a downtown to worry about now. Or much of a town either, for that matter.

Certainly there would be no growth concerns. And this would be far poorer place.

But what residents heard 20 years ago from a virulent minority was doom and gloom and bitching that downtown’s owners stood to make money off the fair. And so they did.

So what? Would it be better to let the town die?

When things move ahead, when work gets done, those who organize the effort do try to make money. Sometimes they succeed. Sometimes not. That’s the capitalist system. That’s America. It’s the way this system works.

Now the community is at another crossroad. Saving downtown is not something that can be done once and forgotten for 50 years.

It’s high time to get after it.

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