Designs On Downtown Wanted ‘Vision’ Meeting Thursday To Seek Residents’ Blueprint For The Future

With a mix of door prizes, free parking and shuttle service, downtown Spokane advocates are hoping to attract hundreds of residents to a meeting aimed at drafting a blueprint for the city’s core.

On Thursday, the Downtown Spokane Partnership and the city are hosting a “vision” meeting designed to find out what people want downtown.

Should there be more housing? More shops? Fewer cars or one-way streets?

It’s up to residents to decide, said Karen Valvano of the Downtown Partnership. Valvano, along with City Planning Director Charlie Dotson and Deputy City Manager Pete Fortin, is coordinating efforts to rewrite the city’s downtown plan.

“This is an opportunity to engage downtown business and the public at large in getting their views on what they’d like to see downtown,” Valvano said. “What are our assets? What visions and goals do we have?”

“You have to buy into the theory that downtown is the core of the city’s existence,” said Councilwoman Roberta Greene, who sits on the 26-member committee charged with rewriting the nearly 40-year-old plan. “We need to make an extraordinary effort” to get people to participate.

The community workshop is the first of four on the downtown development plan.

With the aid of consultants, the steering committee plans to spend the next seven months studying downtown’s traffic patterns, financial health and physical attributes.

The project involves four phases: developing the vision, identifying alternatives, selecting alternatives and preparing the draft plan. At each step, committee members plan to have a community workshop to get feedback on their progress.

By September, committee members hope to have a draft document that lays out a physical blueprint for the city’s core, designating how the streets should look and where housing or retail should be. It also will forecast what downtown needs, such as more parking or a specific type of store.

A series of public hearings will take place before the Plan Commission and City Council before the draft plan can be adopted.

The plan eventually will be part of the overall comprehensive plan currently being written by Spokane Horizons, a group of 200 residents. While that plan lays out a general overview of how the city should look, the downtown plan will be more specific.

The new plan is slated to cost about $250,000, with most of that money going to consultants. Those dollars will be paid with money collected from city parking lots across from the convention center.

Getting residents involved in planning for downtown is vital, Dotson said.

“Downtown plays a part in the whole metropolitan region,” he said. “The old adage that an apple rots from the inside out is really true when you’re talking about downtowns. … “Once you get into that spiral, it takes a whole generation to pull out of that.”

Free parking will be available in the Diamond lot across the street. A free trolley will leave the STA plaza at 6:50 p.m. for the convention center and return to the plaza at 9:55 p.m. The Northeast, East Central, West Central and Peaceful Valley community centers are offering free transportation to residents. For more information about the rides, call the closest community center. Three more community workshops will be held April 2, May 13 and June 17.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Graphic with map: Proposed Downtown Plan area

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: MEETING TIME The meeting runs from 7 to 10 p.m. at the Spokane Convention Center, 334 W. Spokane Falls Blvd.