Rerouting Of Trent Proposed Council To Vote On Spending For Environmental Studies

The Spokane City Council tonight will consider helping to pay for an environmental assessment of the proposed Trent Avenue realignment.

If council members approve the plan, city taxpayers would pitch in $80,000 toward the $300,000 study.

Washington Water Power Co., the state Department of Transportation and the Joint Center for Higher Education would pay the balance.

The state needs to replace a deteriorating Trent Avenue bridge that crosses the Spokane River west of Hamilton, said Brad Blegen, the city’s construction services director.

Early plans call for building a new leg of Trent beneath the James Keefe Bridge on the south river bank, tying it into the existing Trent Avenue via a three-way intersection near the Union Gospel Mission.

Rerouting Trent to the south would eliminate the need for the bridge and make way for possible expansion of the Riverpoint Higher Education Park.

Also tonight, the council may consider abandoning plans to condemn Steve and Leslie Ronald’s riverfront land north of the downtown library.

The City Council in 1995 voted to condemn the property to preserve the view of the Spokane Falls from the downtown library. Lawyers for the city and the Ronalds tried unsuccessfully for two years to negotiate a selling price, leaving a jury to decide the land’s value.

A Superior Court jury decided two weeks ago the property was worth $2.184 million. City officials say they can’t afford the land.

The council won’t take testimony until next month on a proposed ordinance to halt the condemnation.

A briefing for the council begins at 3:30 p.m. in the lower-level conference room of City Hall, 808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. The regular meeting begins at 6 p.m.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: MEETING The City Council meets today at 6 p.m. in City Hall.