Be proud, Spokane

Shawn Vestal’s praise of Riverfront Park’s transformation is spot on. But it took 40 years of living in it to get it right— to realize its potentials and to fix and avoid missteps along the way.

The renovation polishes existing features and reveals hidden potentials spectacularly well. The “new” park is so much more open, inviting and featuring of the river, while the “old” park was a maze of inward focused pavilion sites — compartments enclosed by earth berms leftover from Expo ’74.

The central promenade now displays the park’s expanse and draws you in — versus the old, unclear zig-zag path on Howard Street that blocked views to the north and visually bisected the park. Now there’s the wonderful spaciousness of the former YMCA site without the hulking mass of the old YMCA building, or worse yet, a high-rise condo on that site.

The park now features the grand northwest entrance to the Pavilion and wonderful westerly views toward the falls from within — without the IMAX Theater blocking all of that. The Pavilion itself is a spectacular centerpiece — and fabulously successful as an open-air venue, a view perch and a nighttime beacon (notably without the fabric roof which would have smothered all those potentials).

The once comatose north bank is now a regional destination playground, brought to life from its ugly utilitarian uses as gravel parking and maintenance yard.

Wow. What a difference an affordable $64.3M investment makes in our collective quality of life. Everyone should be proud.

Steve McNutt

Spokane