Letters

Condo tower plan misses the mark

Developer Mick McDowell hopes to build a 200-foot condo tower in the Peaceful Valley National Historic District, bordering the Riverside National Historic District.

He states he is trying to do something architecturally creative and will provide more landscaping and greenery than required.

I have seen the plans. The landscaping in Peaceful Valley is a 5-foot wide strip of grass next to the parking garage at the base of his 17-story tower.

When he built the American West bank building at Riverside and Browne, an area with no official historic designation, he was quoted in The Spokesman-Review as saying, “We wanted to help cement the continuity of that historic neighborhood … so it wasn’t an option to do something like the SeaFirst (Bank of America) Tower. A tilted-up mobile home just doesn’t cut it for me.”

Perhaps he could come up with a new plan for this location that is truly creative, in compliance with codes, and will honestly cement the continuity of our two downtown national historic districts. A tilted-up mobile home doesn’t cut it for me, either.

Jim Patten

Spokane