Downtown Seen Through Creative Lens

Downtown’s future came into clearer focus Wednesday as participants offered specific ideas for creating a livelier city center.

The project, Envision Spokane, is coordinated by the city and the Downtown Spokane Partnership. The goal is to create a vibrant city center for working, living, playing and visiting.

“It’s going to be a lot more work this time,” warned Daniel Iacofano of Moore, Iacofano, Goltsman Inc., the Berkeley, Calif., consulting team hired to help develop the plan.

After three hours of filling in forms describing traffic patterns, locations for arts and culture, landmarks and building sizes, most of the 125 participants agreed it was work.

Still no decisions have been made; ideas are advisory, Iacofano said.

Wednesday night’s workshop was the third of four.

The last meeting is scheduled for June 17.

A draft plan is expected to be completed by fall for public comment. The City Council could vote by the end of the year on the proposal, which would become part of the city’s comprehensive plan.

A range of ideas emerged from the groups during the session. Some suggestions were quickly agreed upon, such as the need for more comfortable places to sit downtown.

A city center plaza was a popular idea, but some worried it might detract from activity at Riverfront Park. Others suggested a plaza be surrounded by stores, with apartments above. A popular suggestion for the location was Riverside Avenue, between Wall and Howard.

Based on earlier meetings, the preservation of Spokane’s historic buildings was considered a priority. The Davenport Hotel, The Met, Paulsen Center and the Review Tower were all mentioned.

Many saw the north bank of the Spokane River as the best place for sports entertainment and recreation to take advantage of people already going there for events at the Arena.

There were also plenty of ideas to make downtown more attractive and welcoming such as landscape themes and gateway entrances.

One group suggested that traffic circles near downtown entrances might help slow traffic.

Others liked the idea of running a trolley system from Browne’s Addition to the Riverpoint campus to reduce traffic and improve parking downtown.

Perhaps, someone suggested, there could be a “free ride” zone, where passengers could ride short distances without paying.

However, on many issues such as the proposed Lincoln Street bridge project, one-way streets, and skywalks, there was no agreement.

“There aren’t going to be a lot of answers at this point, mostly just a lot more questions,” Iacofano said.