Tower plan includes add-on

There’s more than a controversial 17-story condo in an agreement the City Council will consider Monday night.

If the Spokane City Council agrees to allow Mick and Shelley McDowell to build the Riverview on Riverside tower and adjacent townhouses, it also must agree to lease them land on the other side of downtown where they hope to build an office building with more square feet than the Wells Fargo Building.

The council is considering the agreement in light of a $7 million claim the McDowells filed after the city’s hearing examiner last summer rejected their bid to build the condo tower.

Mick McDowell, who built the AmericanWest Bank building downtown, says city taxpayers will be winners if the deal is successful because he’ll pay taxes on whatever is built on the property that’s now used as a parking lot and will give the city about $93,000 a year for the lease once the building is up.

“If I’m actually able to pull the trigger and get that done, what a huge win for the city,” he said.

Many Peaceful Valley residents, however, say benefits are eclipsed by the tall shadow the tower would cast over their homes – not to mention the increased traffic and loss of character to their close to downtown, yet isolated, enclave.

“It seems to me highly regretful that one person’s intemperate legal machinations would overturn what the hearing examiner has decided was best for Peaceful Valley and the city as a whole,” said Peaceful Valley homeowner Joanie Eppinga.

The other land that’s been placed into the agreement is used as a parking lot for Fire Station No. 1. The county assessor’s office valued the two parcels in 2006 at $213,000 and $142,000.

Spokane’s Chief Operating Officer John Pilcher said a lease arrangement is better than selling the land to the McDowells because it will provide annual lease income to the city, adding, “It puts a potential significant project on the tax rolls.”

McDowell, a former firefighter, has agreed to provide parking for the fire station in the building, which will have a garage on the lower floors. He said the $60 million, 300,000-square-foot building would be an office condo. The McDowells would pay property taxes on the building. The city’s portion of the land would be property tax free. McDowell said he will need to line up sale agreements before he can say it’s a sure thing.

Peaceful Valley residents say they’ll be out in force at Monday’s council meeting.

Matthew Phillipy, a West Valley City School science teacher, is fixing a Peaceful Valley house he bought last year. He’s reconsidering plans to put solar panels on the roof because of the tower’s shadow.

“It looks like a middle finger to the whole neighborhood,” Phillipy said. “It cuts off views. It cuts off sunshine.”

Phillipy and others are concerned that the foundations of their homes – many built as working-class housing more than a century ago – could be damaged as the foundation for the nearby tower is constructed.

Some downtown residents and business owners note that the building is in the urban core and say it will help slow suburban sprawl and help revitalize the area.

“Mr. McDowell’s Riverview project is a fine-looking building and will be an asset to Spokane’s skyline,” wrote Chuck Little, who owns Watt’s Automotive and Driveline Service, in a letter to the hearing examiner last year.

The hearing examiner based his decision on language restricting building height that was placed into growth rules in 2002. The McDowells say they weren’t notified that the changes were under consideration and should have been since their land was so obviously affected.

“It would have been more prudent on our side if we had done individual notices,” said Leroy Eadie, the city’s acting planning director.

The new height rules restrict residential buildings to 35 feet on much of the land where McDowell hopes to construct the tower. McDowell argues that the regulations don’t make sense, because rules would allow him to build the same tower if he filled it with offices.

The condo tower would be accessible from Peaceful Valley by Cedar Street, while townhouses would front Riverside Avenue across from the old Carnegie Library.

If the council declines the agreement, McDowell said, a judge could not only give him the right to build the Riverview condos but force the city to pay him for damages that include his legal costs and lost opportunities since other condo projects have been built while he’s fought the new height rules.

“I do not want to engage the city in a court battle,” McDowell said.

George Orr, a Peaceful Valley resident and former state legislator, said City Council shouldn’t be so quick to give in to a McDowell court challenge.

“What’s to stop all the people whose lives are disrupted from filing a class-action lawsuit?” Orr said.