STA plaza keeping downtown location

Spokane Transit’s downtown bus plaza will stay put.

But that doesn’t mean everything will remain the same.

The Spokane Transit Authority has begun researching ways to crack down on the illicit and annoying behavior of some of the bus hub’s more unsavory patrons. The first step in that process is a new committee of board members, riders, non-riding citizens and neighboring business representatives.

A recent appraisal of the plaza by Auble, Jolicoeur and Gentry found its wide-open design – perfect for transit – isn’t conducive to other uses, and thus the $20 million structure would likely sell to a private party for only about $3 million.

That’s not enough to build a new hub somewhere else. Even a scaled-down plaza without the current structure’s fountain or statues would cost more than $17 million. And that doesn’t even include the price of land to build it on.

“What Auble did, we had it slammed in our face what dollars we have to deal with,” said STA board member and Spokane Valley City Councilman Dick Denenny.

And price aside, moving the plaza out of the downtown core would make riding the bus much more inconvenient for downtown workers, said Denenny.

The appraisal was spurred by complaints from surrounding businesses, who have grumbled for years, saying loitering bus patrons’ smoking and foul language chase off customers.

What’s it worth to those businesses to do something about it, asked STA board member and Millwood City Councilwoman Cheryl Gotzian.

Getting those plaza detractors involved in the solution is the best course of action, said board member and Spokane City Councilman Al French.

Downtown businesses wanted more people to come to the city’s core, French said. “Unfortunately it’s the wrong group.”

It’s difficult to determine if the plaza is the source of downtown troublemakers, said the Downtown Spokane Partnership’s Mary Ann Ulik.

They are found throughout the area, Ulik said, adding that policing is a key issue.

One idea to reduce the number of people coming through the plaza is to build a smaller transfer center somewhere nearby, to handle bus riders who aren’t headed downtown, but just through it. Such a scaled-down center would be more like the Valley transfer station than the plaza.

STA already does that with many Eastern Washington University students, who park or ride to the Jefferson lot under the freeway before heading west to Cheney.

But STA isn’t sure how many people using the plaza have downtown Spokane as their final or beginning destination and how many use it as a transfer point. So it’s unknown how many people would be impacted by a new transfer station. The last survey on that subject was taken before the plaza was built.

STA plans another such survey late this year, after it implements its Oct. 16 service upgrades.