Entire Community Would Profit From Downtown Plans
At a recent session of the Spokane City Council, activist attorney Steve Eugster lashed out against the proposed new Lincoln Street Bridge.
He denounced a proposed $80-million redevelopment of the existing River Park Square shopping complex.
He raged against a request to close one block on Post Street, enabling the reconfigured shopping complex to incorporate a street-level pedestrian plaza.
And in a blistering verbal attack augmented by a lengthy prepared statement, Eugster ripped innumerable other downtown developments - public and private over the past many years.
Tens of millions of public dollars have been spent, he complained, on myriad projects that benefit downtown. He singled out 27 infractions, in his view, ranging from repaving the streets to constructing the North Division-Ruby couplet, and from creating Riverfront Park to restoring the U.S. Post Office, etc., etc.
All such expenditures, Eugster charged, are unfair to the rest of the community.
But none of the things which seemed so to rouse the ire of the controversial champion of populist causes was actually at issue before the City Council.
The real issue, which the bombastic barrister was supposed to be addressing but gave short shrift, is a proposal to form a special tax district downtown.
It would enable downtown business and property owners to organize, to tax themselves, and to manage, maintain and market the city center in the manner of a shopping mall.
The special tax district is a management and planning mechanism more than anything else. It’s not geared to funding capital construction projects.
As a longtime downtown advocate, I am completely convinced formation of the district is imperative. Downtown must get its act together in order to prosper in an era of escalating retail sprawl.
And owners of the central business district have every right to organize, plan, and manage downtown efficiently in order to compete effectively with outlying centers.
Furthermore, the structure and function of the district as designed appears to be everything those of us who have longed for a downtown solution could have hoped it might be.
It beats me how anyone can seriously argue that this response would take anything away from old downtown Spokane.
Redeveloping River Park Square will not inflict on downtown a suburban mall - a monolithic concrete blob bedecked with a few plastic baubles in a sea of asphalt and cars.
The two downtown blocks slated for redevelopment are already devoted to retail and other commercial use. The structures involved are of no architectural or historic significance whatsoever. Zilch.
So, where’s the problem?
Quite the contrary, adding the taxing district as a management tool and creating a two-block shopping extravaganza are powerful catalysts for revival in the whole downtown district. The old architecture and historic places that so many prize and wish to preserve will increase in value and use with a more active downtown district.
This, in effect, is historic preservation.
It is the synergy that makes preservation of the old economically viable.
It preserves what’s left of the old.
Some have raised a ruckus over downtown getting more than its due of the city tax dollar.
What they may not realize - or wish to acknowledge - is the adverse economic impact on the entire community that would result from continued downtown decline.
To the extend that property values in the city’s very dense and compact central business district deteriorate, the community’s overall tax base crumbles. And taxpayers and users of public services in neighborhoods throughout the city pay a penalty.
That’s the system.
Or to put it another way, a thriving downtown and expanding tax base mean more money in the city’s coffers, with which to do more good things throughout the community.
Crucial governmental decisions affecting taxes and the economy must be in keeping with the way the system works, not people’s pet peeves.
xxxx
The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Frank Bartel The Spokesman-Review