City considers keeping Albi
The drive to sell Joe Albi Stadium for private development may have been derailed with the recall of Mayor Jim West.
New impetus to save the landmark emerged from City Hall on Thursday, just two months after voters overwhelmingly ousted West for personal misconduct.
Incoming Mayor Dennis Hession said he wants to take a serious look at keeping Albi and its adjoining grounds for high school sports and other events. Hession is getting encouragement from a citizens’ report released Thursday.
The report cites an engineering feasibility study showing that Albi, which opened in 1950, could continue to serve the community for 30 years or more with modest upgrades and basic repairs.
“The facility is in fair physical condition and could continue to operate indefinitely with the implementation of a proper maintenance program and the recommendations made in the feasibility study,” the committee said.
West last year pushed for the sale of Albi and its acreage as a way to shed the ongoing subsidy for its operation, but that would have left seven high school football teams without a lighted field for evening games. Those schools are planning to use Albi for football this fall. West proposed demolishing the stadium and turning its 89.6 acres into sites for as many as 700 homes. The appraised value after demolition was estimated at $2.3 million.
In August, the City Council voted 6-1 against the West plan.
Hession, who was council president then, said on Thursday, “I always said we were precipitous” in the discussion to sell.
The report by the Joe Albi Stadium Citizens’ Committee says that the city would need to find new revenue sources for the stadium over the course of the next year and eliminate an annual subsidy of about $200,000. Without additional revenue, the city should consider turning the facility over to another entity to operate it.
The committee also called for construction of a voter-approved softball sports complex on the stadium’s surrounding property.
At the same time, the Spokane Park Board is considering a new strategic plan that, in part, calls for taking control of the city-owned stadium and then completing the sports complex on the stadium grounds.
Voters in 1999 gave an 81 percent approval to spend $3.5 million for the complex, but the Park Board in 2004 declined to spend the money because the project had escalated in cost and the parks department would likely have been required to make costly traffic improvements at Wellesley Avenue and Assembly Street.
Jim Albi, a citizens’ committee member and co-founder of Friends of Joe Albi, a citizens’ group working on a business plan to make the stadium financially viable, said he was pleased with the committee findings.
“I think that the recommendations were a lot more positive than I thought they would be, and a lot of that has to do with the engineering report that said that the facility is good for 30 years. I think it just needs some promotion and some use and it will be fine,” said Albi, a cousin of the stadium’s namesake.
Parks Director Mike Stone said the Friends of Albi group could be instrumental in helping solve financial issues.
Judith Gilmore, another citizens’ committee member, said, “As many different opinions as there were on many of the topics that we discussed, one thing that was never veered away from was that the site should remain open space to the public, in other words, not be sold to a developer.”
She said the feasibility study by Coffman Engineering allowed the task force committee to come up with recommendations made on fact, rather than emotion.
“There are some heavy emotions involved (with Albi), not just from the north side of town, but from all over the city. People grew up playing ball or holding hands at Albi Stadium. Albi has been treated like a neglected child, but it really has held up well. It was built like a bunker,” said Gilmore.
Councilman Al French said, “Let’s take a look and see if there’s a way to save it.”