During an unsuccessful campaign to incorporate Spokane Valley as a city, a skeptical guest columnist in The Spokesman-Review recalled what author Gertrude Stein said about Oakland:

“The trouble with Oakland is that when you get there, there isn’t any there there.”

Eventually, Valley incorporation advocates prevailed, and Spokane Valley is now Washington’s seventh most populous city. But it still lacks a “there.”

Small wonder, then, that the Spokane Valley City Council is so interested in creating a city center – a there – that would become a visual and cultural core of the young municipality.

Spokane Valley didn’t come into being as an agrarian community that coalesced naturally into one urban center. It was a Balkanization of mini-governments called townships (which are gone on paper but still hold many residents’ loyalty) sprinkled along a major transportation corridor. It wasn’t a Valleyhood identity that unified voters behind incorporation as much as a shared anxiety over annexation by the city of Spokane and a broad resentment that Spokane County was collecting taxes in the Valley and distributing them elsewhere.

So now there’s a city but still no city center.

At present, Spokane Valley council members anticipate a City Hall with more than twice the square footage they now rent along East Sprague. To accommodate it, they are interested in acquiring about 20 acres, probably at or near the former University City shopping center. That location has the size and history to lend itself to a successful city center. But while the property owners are eager to develop the land, they want to retain ownership, and that should give city leaders pause.

Spokane Valley officials envision a complex that would also include retail, office and residential spaces. The Spokane County Library District wants to build a new library as part of the project, assuming voters approve a likely bond issue next spring. Consultants have told the city this mixed-use approach is gaining popularity in other communities and Spokane Valley could be blazing a trendy trail here.

The desired outcome would be a pedestrian-friendly answer to the mad rush of cars and trucks along the Sprague-Appleway corridor. And city government would be firmly situated in the heart of it.

But unless the city also owns the facility, it would be a tenant in its own home. That won’t do.

Done right, Spokane Valley’s city center could fill a long-unmet civic need. Done wrong, it could be a headache waiting to throb as soon as the long-term lease expires and the landowners have the city over a barrel.