Access Parks Panel Considers Driveway Proposal For New Senior Center In/Around: Lincoln Heights

Thu., July 1, 1999

By Mike Prager mikeprager15@gmail.com (509) 459-5454

Seniors driving to a new Southside Senior Activity Center should be able to get there safely once it is built.

The Land Committee of the Spokane Park Board is meeting today to consider a proposal to grant driveway access across park land.

The meeting is at 3:30 p.m. on the seventh floor at City Hall.

Senior center leaders are in the middle of a $2 million fund drive to build a new center on Water Department land next to Thornton Murphy Park.

Initial plans called for using Ray Street as the access to the site, but city traffic officials said that would be too dangerous because it would force seniors to make left turns on the busy arterial.

Leaders of the senior center building drive asked the Park Board to consider an easement across the east end of the park property so that drivers would be able to get to the center from 27th Avenue.

That would eliminate the need for seniors to make risky left turns on Ray. The center is proposed for property south of the city reservoirs at about 26th Avenue.

The driveway would go just east of the basketball courts under the proposal being considered by the land committee today.

The Lincoln Heights Neighborhood Council was consulted about the request. Gary Schumacher said there was no objection to granting an easement.

The neighborhood council has supported the senior center project.

Myrna Johnson-Ross, executive director of the center, said seniors have been concerned about traffic safety at the proposed center ever since the site was acquired through city leases.

“They have asked questions about the traffic from the beginning,” she said.

Johnson-Ross pointed out the new center will be open for community activities as well as the seniors’ programs.

“It’s about everybody’s safety,” she said.

The fund-raising drive for the new center moves into high gear this summer. So far, about $600,000 has been committed to the project.

Campaign leaders hope to finish the drive by November.

Membership at the center continues to increase. In less than two years, the rolls have gone from about 1,000 members to 1,720 this week.

At a garage sale last week, the center raised about $5,200 for its ongoing programs, not for the building drive.

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