Council Will Decide Fate Of Proposed Youth Center In/Around: West Central

Bob Lipe sees his Teen Town dream as a way to keep kids out of trouble.

His neighbors and the city’s hearing examiner see it as a magnet for problems.

The Spokane City Council gets to decide who’s right.

Hearing examiner Greg Smith in March dashed Lipe’s plans to build a teen center at 2101 W. Boone, saying Teen Town “could inadvertently become a nightmare for neighboring residents.”

Lipe appealed Smith’s decision to the council, which held a hearing on the center earlier this week and should vote on the plan Monday.

Building the center was a lifelong dream of Lipe and his late wife, advertising executive Donna Lipe, who died last year of cancer. Lipe plans to use $50,000 of his wife’s insurance money for the project.

The center would be open six hours a day and offer arcade games, a pool table, a boxing ring, a snack bar and a one-on-one basketball court, Lipe told the council.

He plans to staff the center with trained volunteers. Teens who misbehave would be “suspended” for a specified time length, depending on the incident.

Lipe thinks the center will cost about $15,000 a year to operate and bring in about $37,000 in revenues. He plans to use the profits to build more centers around the city, he said.

“I believe the kids will love this center, because it will be basically theirs instead of ours,” Lipe said.

Councilman Joel Crosby questioned Lipe’s plan to use trained volunteers, saying that teen centers “rise and fall on the maturity and ability of staff to work with (teens) in a positive way.”

Several people told the council that Lipe’s plan is ill-conceived and irresponsible.

Rex Hollowell, president of the West Central Community Center Board, said the board is skeptical of Lipe’s plan.

Hollowell criticized Lipe’s plans for being “devoid of specifics,” such as what kind of programs would be offered, how it would be financed and who would provide security.

“Community projects work best with both the heart and head involved,” Hollowell said.

Marc Miller, who lives across the street from the proposed site, said his chief concern was having a teen center right next to Lipe’s convenience store, which sells cigarettes and alcohol.

“Why put at-risk teens at-risk?” Miller said.

Lipe countered that his stores frequently win awards for carefully screening the ages of customers buying alcohol and tobacco.