Downtown Partnership to change up Spokane Falls Boulevard raised beds

Six flower beds next to Riverfront Park will soon get a makeover.

The Downtown Spokane Partnership replants the flower beds every year, but this year will add new varieties and designs after it was awarded an $8,000 grant from BNSF Railway Corp. and the Arbor Day Foundation.

A group of volunteers and downtown Spokane Partnership employees will plant flowers and other plants Thursday, and landscaping students from Spokane Community College will design the beds. Karen Fritz, the Downtown Spokane Partnership’s clean team supervisor, said the grant will pay for species that are far more unique than the petunias and marigolds the partnership usually plants.

“We’re trying to get away from the the Home Depot or Lowe’s looking planters,” she said.

Fritz, a Spokane Community College grad herself, said this is the first time the Downtown Partnership will be working with SCC landscaping students or has received a grant to pay for the project.

The flower beds were built in the Expo ’74 era, and Fritz said the new upgrade will coincide with improvements in Riverfront Park.

She said she doesn’t have a specific list of plant species yet, but volunteers may plant ferns, hostas and coral bells. Fritz said she hopes the final product will be comparable to the flower beds in the city’s park system.

“We’re trying to compete with Duncan Gardens,” she said, “just here in downtown Spokane.”