Community gathering place taking shape

Spokane Valley residents sometimes complain that they don’t have a community living room, a public place where they might read a book, take in a pretty view and gather families and friends for events.

Well, in a matter of months Spokane Valley will get a living room – plus a kitchen, a dance hall, a theater, a greenhouse and a slew of other amenities.

Construction of CenterPlace, a community center near Mirabeau Point, is on schedule and under budget. The 54,000-square-foot building is expected to be open Sept. 24 for weddings, conferences, classes, Spokane Valley Senior Association activities and other events.

“It’s a wonderful idea,” said Jane Anderson, president of the Spokane Valley Quilters Guild. The 140-person organization has outgrown the church where it meets and hopes to hold some of its large meetings in CenterPlace once it’s completed, she said.

Plans for the $10 million building were initiated nine years ago by community volunteers. In 1996, a group of trustees led by Greg Bever and the late Denny Ashlock formed Mirabeau Point Inc. to push the project forward. Along with CenterPlace, they advocated for 54-acre Mirabeau Point Park and other development in the area.

About $3 million in donations were raised for CenterPlace, and voters approved raising $7 million for the project through a bond sale. About a year ago, Mirabeau Point Inc. handed the community center over to Spokane Valley, giving the city its first major capital project.

Also a year ago, the three-pronged, two-story building was only an outline in the dirt marked by orange tape.

Now, the exterior walls are up, some landscaping is in, and workers Thursday were mudding and taping sheetrock in the south entrance.

“That’s the first time I’ve seen the color,” Mike Jackson, the city’s parks and recreation director, said Thursday while admiring a layer of fresh taupe paint in the building’s west wing.

The west wing will house the parks and recreation department offices, as well as a theater with stadium seating and several classrooms, five of which will be used by Spokane Community College.

The senior association will occupy most of the south wing, although those rooms will be available for the general public to use during specific times. That group raised between $7,500 to $8,000 to put a wooden dance floor in one of the large rooms. Across the hall, a gas fireplace will warm visitors taking a break from boogieing.

And then there’s the north wing, which is comprised entirely of a great room and a kitchen. The impressively large hall will hold 400 people, and Jackson on Thursday started envisioning weddings and other big events in the space. He pointed to a future stage area where a bride could throw a bouquet and said the city will order round tables, not rectangular ones, for a more formal look.

Behind the aesthetic details, CenterPlace is being installed with the latest technology. In the 100-person-capacity theater, for example, the audio-visual system will be controlled by a touch-screen monitor.

“Touch it and the lights dim, and the screen comes down,” Jackson said.

While there’s still plenty of work ahead, the city receives calls every day from citizens interested in using the building, administrative assistant Carol Carter said.

“I have had a little bit of everything,” she said. “Weddings, churches checking into it for services there. … I can foresee a lot of people getting married at the (Mirabeau Springs) falls (in the park) and then walking over and having their reception.”

Gay James, the city’s receptionist, already is eyeing CenterPlace for her family’s annual Christmas party.

“The only place that’s big enough, that can hold enough people is a grange somewhere,” James said, adding that about 75 people usually attend. “…To have something more centrally located, especially in the winter, I’m really, really excited about.”

But making reservations is still a bit premature. The City Council hasn’t set the rental prices, and Jackson said he doesn’t want to make promises with several months more of construction ahead.

“We’re glad to accept the calls that come, but we’re not ready to take reservations,” he said.