Sprague redevelopment study nears
Spokane Valley planners are poised to choose a team of architects and engineers that will give the city a blueprint for redeveloping Sprague Avenue.
At Tuesday’s meeting, the City Council elected to begin negotiating a contract with a team led by Freedman Tung and Bottomley, the firm that issued a smaller study on Sprague in 2004.
“We feel that this is one of the more important investments the city is going to make,” said senior planner Scott Kuhta.
The city budgeted $250,000 for the study. Four bids came in ranging from $200,000 to $400,000.
Freedman Tung and Bottomley was at the high end, but Kuhta said he hopes negotiations could bring down the cost, possibly by narrowing the study’s scope.
Councilman Mike DeVleming had reservations about going over the study’s budget and said it might be better to focus on a smaller segment of Sprague rather than the whole thing.
In earlier discussions on Sprague redevelopment the council considered the idea of creating a special district for the car dealerships on the west side of town and continue redevelopment efforts east based on the success of that endeavor.
Others on the council, though, were comfortable including the whole road.
On the issue of cost, Councilman Rich Munson said, “A budget is a budget. It is not a hard and fast rule.”
The motion to negotiate the contract for the study passed unanimously. But before the vote, some on the council also expressed angst over comments that one of the team’s engineers made at a Department of Transportation workshop two weeks ago.
While discussing ways to make cities more amenable to pedestrians, Ian Lockwood suggested that turning the Valley couplet into two-way streets would improve the walking environment. He works for Glatting Jackson, the firm that would handle transportation planning for the study.
Changing the couplet has pitted commuters against some business owners since the county extended Appleway in 2000. During the last election, council members repeatedly gave their assurances that the city didn’t have immediate plans to change the streets’ direction.
Councilmen Steve Taylor, Munson and DeVleming asked Kuhta to make sure that the study’s designers wouldn’t approach their analysis of Sprague with a preconceived idea about the couplet’s future.