The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper The Spokesman-Review
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
Current Temperature
44°F
Current Conditions
Broken clouds
View complete weather report
Subscribe now

Then and Now: Alberta Apartments

1947 - The Alberta Apartments, built in 1910 at the height of Spokane
1947 - The Alberta Apartments, built in 1910 at the height of Spokane's early boom years, was a non-descript residence hotel at 2nd and Madison in downtown Spokane, The area around the hotel deteriorated until it was as the rest of the block around it, which known for drug dealing, prostitution and gang activity. Since 1990, the building has been used for housing the homeless, drug treatment and other services. It's been owned since 2000 by the City Gate Church. (The Archi / Cowles Publishing)

The Alberta Apartments were built on railroad right-of-way property in 1910 just a stone’s throw away from the tracks through downtown Spokane. Like most downtown housing, they were built during Spokane’s boom years, which lasted until around 1915.

The building at Second Avenue and Madison Street had 30 single and double rooms at modest rates and retail space facing Second.

During Spokane’s boom period of 1895 to 1915, tens of thousands of workers had flooded into the city to find jobs and the city had responded by building more than 150 single-room-occupancy hotels for the new residents. Spokane rapidly grew from 36,848 in 1900 to to 104,400 in 1910.

The Alberta was only blocks away from the city center, but the area deteriorated quickly as people moved away to the suburbs outside the downtown core. In the post-World War II era, suburban flight left the elderly and hard-luck cases in the hotels designed for the city’s transient populations.

As the area became more seedy in the 1970s through 1990s, crime in the neighborhood increased. In the ’90s, drug dealing, prostitution, gang-related crime and graffiti on West First Avenue was common around the Otis Hotel and the Coach House restaurant near the Alberta. The police and locals just called the area “the Block.” Starting around 1996, cops cracked down on these crimes that discouraged visitors from walking the downtown streets. Nonprofits like the Alberta Homeless Project tried to use the old Alberta building to provide services to the homeless in 1990. Their idea was to house people for 90 days or so, then encourage them to find permanent housing. The group also helped renovate the old Merlin Hotel, which is now Spokane Dream Center’s Men’s Discipleship/Life Recovery program.

Another downtown church, City Gate, purchased the Alberta Apartments in 2000. It’s now used for both a church headquarters and housing the homeless, a food bank, a meal service and a clothing bank for the hungry and destitute. Tuesday through Friday, the church is a daytime drop-in center with coffee and snacks for those who need a place to go.