T N O R F R E RIV AGINED M I E R IVE ISSUE
ORAT COMMEM
OW H T A K O S LO E N E C S E -TH RK A P C I N O A BEHIND C ITS I D E V A S E SPOKAN
N’T AS LES W T RD LY EC OJ UT HUTERFIES R UT RS EP O TH WITHOR B OVE — NTR CO
SEPTEMBER 5, 2019 INLANDER 27
No place tells the story of Spokane like
Riverfront Park.
LEAVE YOUR MARK IN THE PARK Gift recognition opportunities Adopt a Looff Carrousel Animal 56 animals available $5,000/ten year adoption
THE CAMPAIGN FOR
riverfront spokane
Riverfront Park Bench 27 benches $5,000/life of the bench
Riverfront Park Promenade Paver $1,000
Riverfront Park Fence Charm $100
© james richman
F O R M O R E D E TA I L S & O P P O RT U N I T I E S C O N TAC T T H E S P O K A N E PA R K S F O U N DAT I O N spokaneparksfoundation.org • (509) 326-5233 • office@spokaneparksfoundation.org 28 INLANDER SEPTEMBER 5, 2019
INSIDE AN INSIDER’S PERSPECTIVE
HOW WE GOT HERE
NOTHING BUT NET
FAIR TRADE
ROUND AND ROUND
OPEN FOR BUSINESS
A behind-the-scenes look at the six-year saga of saving Riverfront Park PAGE 31
How cities like Spokane reuse the leftovers of a World’s Fair PAGE 35
The project wasn’t without its hurdles — or controversies PAGE 41
Exploring the Looff Carrousel’s new home, opened in May of 2018 PAGE 38
Digging into the Pavilion’s $22.6-million makeover PAGE 32
The Pavilion reopens with a bang this weekend PAGE 38
‘THE JOURNEY MATTERS’ How the Howard Street Promenade connects north and south PAGE 34
PHOTOGRAPHER: Young Kwak ART DIRECTOR: Derek Harrison EDITOR: Jacob H. Fries
SEPTEMBER 5, 2019 INLANDER 29
New sunshine-yellow signs greet you at either end of the Howard Street Promenade. You could even say the Harold Balazs Rotary Fountain transcends your entrance into Riverfront Spokane.
30 INLANDER SEPTEMBER 5, 2019
The Numerica SkyRide also got a technical update as part of the bond project.
THIS
NEW
PARK
As the reimagined World’s Fair Pavilion opens this week, here’s a look back on the six-year saga of saving Riverfront Park BY TED S. McGREGOR JR.
A
bout 11 years ago exactly, another Pig Out in the Park had me thinking about Riverfront Park. Ever since Bill Youngs published The Fair and the Falls in 1996, I had this nagging feeling that Spokane wasn’t quite doing right by the legacy of Expo ’74. So of course I wrote a column about it, riffing on the PBS show where Norm and Tommy save old American homes from ruin. “This Old Park” appeared in the Inlander on Aug. 28, 2008. “With a bursting belly, you’ll need to walk off the calories,” I advised all those about to Pig Out, “so this year, take a tour of the park, the hidden corners and forgotten nooks. It’s a spectacular place, and Spokane is lucky to have it. But too often, Riverfront Park is taken for granted. “Fixing up this old park could be the R’S E ID S most important thing we could do to keep IN AN IVE Spokane on the upswing,” I concluded, PERSPECT “yet we simply don’t.” Fast-forward to February of 2013. Mayor David Condon dropped by Inlander HQ to tell me he was ready to mobilize the City of Spokane to fix up our old park. He asked me to chair the Citizens Advisory Committee that would create a plan Spokane could vote on and that the city and its parks department could put into action. Finally it was time to stop complaining and start doing something about Riverfront Park.
A YEAR OF PLANNING
The land around the Spokane River Falls is the soul of our city — in fact, it’s the soul of this place going back to well before American settlers ever came here. Riverfront Park, since the time it was the Expo ’74 fairgrounds, has also become our living room — the place where we hang out with each other, have fun and live as brothers and sisters of Spokane. Everybody has a stake in what it should be, and the advisory committee needed to reflect a wide swath of public opinion. With input from Spokane Parks, the Office of the Mayor and the City Council, we recruited 22 men and women representing different sectors of the city to come up with a batch of improvements to push Riverfront Park into the 21st century. Starting in May 2013, we met for nearly a year, and we presented our final report to the Spokane Park Board in April of 2014. ...continued on page 34
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
When Inlander Publisher Ted S. McGregor Jr. was 9, his parents took him to opening day of Expo ’74 on May 4, 1974. He asked if they brought in the river just for the World’s Fair. Starting in 2013, he served as chairman of the citizens advisory committee that created the Riverfront Park redevelopment plan funded by voters in 2014. Today he is a volunteer member of the Spokane Park Board.
Here’s what the Pavilion looked like when it was brand new, with three Spokane kids posing on Expo ’74’s opening day. Left to right: Ted, Piper and Jer McGregor.
SEPTEMBER 5, 2019 INLANDER 31
PAVILION GROUNDS
By emptying out the Pavilion, a huge open space has been created. Many tons of fill were brought in to create a natural amphitheater with lawns and walkways along the eastern half. This circa 2014 Google Earth image shows what it used to look like, with the IMAX, the Ice Palace roof, the old Spokane Story structure and a concession stand. At the western edge, geometric panels have been installed to create shade during the summer sun. With a 22,000-square-foot floor and a 37,000-square-foot amphitheater, the Pavilion is equipped to host all kinds of events.
THE ELEVATED EXPERIENCE Also new to the Pavilion is the “elevated experience,� a pathway that takes you 40 feet up into the Pavilion. The entire experience is accessible to ADA standards. Look to the south and you see downtown and the Clock Tower. Look to the north and you see the Spokane River, the Arena and beyond. In fact, from the overlook, you get a near-360-degree view of the city.
32 INLANDER SEPTEMBER 5, 2019
VisitSpokane.com #VisitSpokane SEPTEMBER 5, 2019 INLANDER 33
BERGER PARTNERSHIP/KELLY BECK PHOTO
HOWARD STREET PROMENADE
Did you ever feel lost in Riverfront Park? A central goal of the renovation was to connect the north and south sides of the city better via the Howard Street Promenade, which opened in June. Now you can see the Looff Carrousel from the middle of the park. If it feels like you’re walking through pick-up sticks, you’re not far off. “The word ‘promenade’ has more meaning that just a connection,” says Guy Michaelson, principal at the Berger Partnership, the urban designers behind the promenade. “This is a place filled with people. It’s not about taking a direct line; the journey matters.” New lighting aims to keep the park safer through the night.
“THIS NEW PARK,” CONTINUED... Our stated goal? “To create an innovative, refreshing, transformed park that can take its place among the best in the world.” We also agreed on nine values that drove the details of our plan: Help Riverfront Park function as a gathering place; make it a place to showcase the excellence of our community; make it an economic generator; improve accessibility; optimize safety; create a balance of uses; preserve and promote affordability; protect and highlight natural resources; and, finally, add more “Wow!” The Park Board endorsed our report, along with our recommendations on where to spend the money. The $64 million bond request was put before voters in November of 2014, and it passed with nearly two-thirds of the vote. Spokane was officially not taking Riverfront Park for granted any more.
KEY PROJECTS
Going from plan to reality, as anyone who has done a home improvement project can tell you, is no straight line. To help defend the vision the team developed and the citizens endorsed, I joined the Park Board in May of 2015.
34 INLANDER SEPTEMBER 5, 2019
A big early decision was to break the projects into pieces, rather than hiring one builder and one architect to do all the work across the park. This made it more complex, but it also allowed us to bring in the right people for the various jobs. For example, we would never have thought of an ice skating ribbon if the firm we selected, Stantec, hadn’t recommended it. We just wanted to move skating to the southwest corner of the park; instead we have something unique on the entire West Coast. Another big project was a new home for the Looff Carrousel, which since 1978 had lived in a tiny old waffle house left over from the World’s Fair. With its illuminated interior dome and enough space to showcase the hand-carved 1909 Charles Looff Carrousel, it’s finally a proper home for so precious a treasure. The grounds throughout the park received an overhaul, including the new Howard Street Promenade that connects north and south, from the Expo Butterfly to the Rotary Fountain, along a clear, well-lit path. And now there are power outlets peppered across the park to serve the events we enjoy throughout the year. ...continued on page 38
CAMPAIGN FOR RIVERFRONT SPOKANE If you’d like to help fund the remaining, privately funded projects inside Riverfront Spokane, or just support programming and maintenance, check out the Spokane Parks Foundation’s Campaign for Riverfront Spokane. Your gift can be memorialized around the park, from etched pavers to even adopting a Looff Carrousel animal. To learn more, visit spokaneparksfoundation.org/ riverfront-spokane-campaign.
PHOTO CREDIT: JAMES RICHMAN
WORLD’S FAIR LEFTOVERS BETWEEN 1962-84, THE UNITED STATES HOSTED SIX WORLD’S FAIRS, including Spokane’s in 1974. Each one left behind buildings that future generations had to weave into the fabric of their cities. In 1962, Seattle was the first American city since New York in 1939 to host a World’s Fair. And they set the pace, architecture-wise, with the Space Needle, which has become one of America’s most recognizable structures. Surrounded by the Seattle Center grounds, in 2018 the Space Needle reopened after a $100 million renovation.
The Unisphere remains a New York landmark — plus it was in Men in Black. In 1964, the New York World’s Fair left behind the New York Pavilion (similar to Spokane’s United States Pavilion for its cable-net structure) and the Unisphere, which have since been folded into the grounds of the Queens Museum at Flushing Meadows Park. While the structures have remained puzzles as far as best uses, the Unisphere especially has thrived as a backdrop for movies like Men in Black, Iron Man 2 and Tomorrowland. The Tower of the Americas was built for the 1968 Hemisfair in San Antonio and continues to be used as a restaurant, observation deck and really big FM radio antennae. In Spokane, the United States Pavilion, with no street access, has always been a tricky prospect, having housed a restaurant, a Disney-like interactive experience called “The Spokane Story,” ice skating, amusement rides and even an IMAX theater, all to uneven results. Designed by Bill Bain Jr. of the renowned Seattle architecture firm NBBJ and evocative of a Native American dwelling, our Pavilion remains among the largest cable net structures in the world. (Bain just passed away in June.) Reopening this week after a $22.6 million renovation, the Pavilion has been reimagined as an events space, with one-of-a-kind LED lighting to create a lantern effect, along with a new raised platform to offer expansive views. In 1974, the federal government was a partner and paid for Spokane’s Pavilion; subsequent World’s Fairs struggled to gain similar federal support.
In 1982, Knoxville, Tennessee, aimed to duplicate Spokane’s World’s Fair success. They still have the Sunsphere as a reminder. While the 1982 Knoxville World’s Fair had strong attendance, the City of Knoxville was left with a $46 million tab after its run. The Tennessee city still enjoys the Sunsphere as a local icon and observation tower. In 1984, New Orleans hosted what would be the last World’s Fair on American soil. With EPCOT opening in Florida and the Olympics in Los Angeles that same year, it declared bankruptcy mid-run, leaving behind the Morial Convention Center but no signature architectural legacy. — TED S. McGREGOR JR.
SPOKANE’S BIGGEST JACKPOT THIS SIDE OF OUR CASINO. The Kalispel Tribe and Northern Quest are proud to congratulate Spokane on the grand reopening of the Riverfront Park Pavilion. Restoring this community treasure brings even more exciting energy to our vibrant downtown scene and is truly a big win for everyone in this great city.
NORTHERNQUEST.COM 877.871.6772 | SPOKANE, WA
SEPTEMBER 5, 2019 INLANDER 35
In the heart honoring the past, illuminating the future,
3: NAC Arcitecture | Riverfront Park Pavilion: ROP: 40 Dble: AA
We are proud and humbled to have reimagined your park!
36 INLANDER SEPTEMBER 5, 2019
of the City, Riverfront Park shines again!
Photo credit: Sky Definition Photography
SEPTEMBER 5, 2019 INLANDER 37
LOOFF CARROUSEL
The second project to reopen as part of the 2014 Riverfront Park Bond Project, the new Looff Carrousel looks out on the Spokane River and park. Designed by NAC Architecture and built by Walker Construction. The new Looff veranda has one of the best views in the park. As generations before have, Spokane kids are enjoying the Carrousel animals as carved by Charles Looff back in 1909. The Carrousel opened in its new $7-million home in May of 2018.
“THIS NEW PARK,” CONTINUED...
PUZZLING CENTERPIECE
And of course there’s the Pavilion, fully renovated and opening to the public this week. Figuring out what to do with that immense structure has been a riddle ever since the World’s Fair closed. The general consensus among planners was to make it a place that could be flexible enough to enjoy as an event space filled with people, or to spend a quiet afternoon with your family near the Spokane River. Inspired by the Bay Bridge lights in San Francisco, the committee hoped illuminating the cable-net structure would provide that “wow” factor we all wanted. The first thing you’ll notice about the new Pavilion is how huge it is in there — 60,000 square feet, with an event floor and a natural, mostly grass amphitheater. With no IMAX, no looming roof from the old skating rink, it’s become a wide-open space in the middle of the city, all under the mesmerizing geometry of that cable-net structure. Engineers advised against hanging a heavy fabric roof on the structure, but shade was added via distinctive panels that will protect the floor during the hottest parts of the summer. The entire facility is a fully functioning event space as well, with seating for 4,000 and all the power your favorite band will need to plug into. Again, the design team carried us to the finish line, as NAC Architecture and Garco Construction brought the “wow” by envisioning an elevated walkway within the pavilion to create new views of the river and beyond. Along with Spokane’s Power City Electric and GVA Lighting of Ontario, they also conjured a spectacular LED “light-blade” system that is the first of its kind anywhere. Made up of 479 individual blades that can each be controlled separately, the system creates one-of-a-kind light shows — or just glows softly like a civic lantern to connect us all.
38 INLANDER SEPTEMBER 5, 2019
Still to come as the bond project wraps up next year will be the North Bank projects — an Ice Age Floods-inspired playground, a wheels park for skateboarders and scooters, new Hoopfest courts and parking, all set to open a year from now. Finally there will be improvements to the West Havermale area, including a playground funded not by the bond, but by Providence Health Care and designed to be inclusive of all kids — especially kids with challenges for whom the usual playgrounds often don’t work. The inclusive playground, to be designed with the help of the nonprofit Shane’s Inspiration, experts in the field, is set to open in the spring of 2021.
NO MORE COASTING
Amid all the excitement, let’s not forget that we did neglect Riverfront Park for decades. Spokane’s vitality and devotion pulled Riverfront Park back from the brink of ruin over these past six years, and we should celebrate that moment under the Pavilion together. But what if our moment of truth for saving the park had come when Spokane could not afford to act? That happens a lot, as cities struggle to maintain their public spaces — even Central Park in New York City had to be rescued. While we were holding a World’s Fair, New York City was nearly broke and had effectively abandoned Central Park. Citizens rallied to answer that challenge, ultimately taking over management of one of the greatest parks in the world. As a volunteer on the Park Board, I have seen up close that Spokane Parks does a
JOIN THE CELEBRATION!
The Riverfront Spokane Pavilion reopens to the public this weekend. Friday features the official ribbon cutting (5 pm), with a blessing by the Spokane Tribe. There will be food vendors, a kids zone and a beer garden (4 to 9 pm), with live music by the Cronkites (6:30 pm). Saturday’s festivities run all day, starting at 9 am, with a fun run, performances and events all day long. Food vendors will be on hand starting at 1 pm, with the beer garden opening at 4. The Spokane Symphony performs at 4 pm, with their new music director James Lowe making his debut, followed by Seattle’s the Dip, fresh off their Bumbershoot show, at 7. Both days conclude with a light show of the newly installed illumination blades on the Pavilion’s cable-net roof. Check out the elevated experience, and bring a blanket and stake out a spot on the lawn to take it all in. For details, visit my.spokanecity.org/ riverfrontspokane. Spokane Symphony Music
Director James Lowe
The last Night Market of the season is 9/25!
WEIRD? maybe
COOL? definitely
1335 W. Summit Parkway • kendallnightmarket.org
great job. But it has its limits, operating on a fixed budget with 86 other parks to manage. Over the long haul, will Spokane Parks all by itself be enough? The stakes are too high to coast through another 30 or 40 years. While our $64 million expenditure is a huge public investment, and a pivotal vote of confidence on where we are as a city today, don’t think of it as extravagant. Consider that in 2014, the same year Spokane passed its bond, Tacoma passed its own park bond — at $198 million. In Tulsa that same year, the George Kaiser Foundation gave $200 million to the Gathering Place; that gift was more than matched by other donors, and the $465 million Oklahoma park opened last year. Finally consider Millennium Park in Chicago, which opened in 2004 at a cost of $490 million. Boondoggle? Quite the opposite, as a 2011 Texas A&M study found it triggered $2.45 billion in construction nearby, grew the neighborhood population by 66 percent, cut crime by 27 percent and created $11.1 billion in new annual tourism spending. Millennium Park is now, according to the City of Chicago, the No. 1 tourist attraction in the entire Midwest with 25 million annual visitors. Numbers like that prove we can’t afford to neglect our Spokane version of Central Park. When I walked the park in the summer of 2008 and wondered why somebody wasn’t doing something, I was thinking about it all wrong. “Who’s going to fix this?” misses the point. The challenge coming next is to find creative, broad-based ways to make Riverfront Spokane — our park’s distinctive new name — even better. So for citizens, local institutions and certainly every member of the next generation, the correct question is, “What can I do?” n
Making the Pavilion New. Again!
Sky Definition Photography
3327 E. Olive Avenue, Spokane 509-535-8500 • powercityelectric.com
45 years ago, Power City Electric was a proud part of the team that worked on the Pavilion for Expo ‘74. Today, we’re just as proud of this town and this project! SEPTEMBER 5, 2019 INLANDER 39
JAMES RICHMAN PHOTO
THE PAVILION
The big “Wow!” at the Pavilion is the LED-illuminated blade structure covering its cables. “It kind of feels like a sophisticated Disneyland now,” says Keith Comes, a principal at NAC Architecture, and the architect who led the Pavilion project. “It’s a fun place, but with a strong architectural presence.” A detail of the illumination blades. The 479 blades add up
to 2,262 linear feet of light and can be controlled individually to create light shows that will connect the city as a kind of central lantern. Like the Space Needle in Seattle, which just got a $100-million renovation, the Pavilion in Spokane remains an icon of the city, fresh off its own $22.6-million makeover from NAC Architecture, the Berger Partnership and Garco Construction.
CITY OF SPOKANE PHOTO
40 INLANDER SEPTEMBER 5, 2019
THE
PINNACLE
Beloved icon, neglected eyesore and main battleground over the park’s rehab project: The U.S. Pavilion reopens as a new symbol of innovation BY DANIEL WALTERS
D
avid Condon says he wanted to be a mayor who changed the skyline of Spokane. After all, he was born in 1974, the same year that the World’s Fair transformed an ugly railroad depot into the city’s iconic Riverfront Park. “I jokingly said I wanted to bring back Expo ’74,” Condon says. “I looked it up, and they’re booked out until 2025. So I figured that wasn’t going to work.” Just as the 1962 World’s Fair gave the Seattle skyline its Space Needle, Expo ’74 gave us the U.S. Pavilion, a giant exhibition tent that — once its heavy, white vinyl covering came off — left the spiderwebbed lattice of cabling that has become one of the region’s most recognizable structures. Look at almost any image of Spokane — on a mug, a calendar or a “Spokane Doesn’t Suck” T-shirt — and if it’s not Riverfront Park’s clock tower, it’s the silhouette of the Pavilion. Or both. And so as the transformed Pavilion officially opens up this week, Condon, in his last year in office, can truly say he’s altered Spokane’s skyline. “Now that they’ve done the Pavilion with the lights, it’s not only going to change the skyline for the city, it will be a gathering place for the community,” he says. For as much as the Pavilion has been a star of Spokane iconography, for decades the actual inside of it had become, frankly, a bit of an eyesore. “It was a hole in the middle of the park,” says former City Councilman Mike Allen, who’d served as council liaison to the Park Board for four years. Garrett Jones, interim director of the Parks Department, describes the old Pavilion as a “concrete jungle, dark and cold.” It was cluttered with creaky amusement park rides during the summer and an ice rink during the winter, surrounded by industrial gray walls. “The rides had decayed,” Allen says. “It was a big open space, so sound reverberated around. You had this false roof inside of a roof.” The $64.3 million Riverfront Park bond, passed by voters in 2014, changed all that. In a way, it’s done for the Pavilion what Expo ’74 did for Riverfront Park — took an ugly mess of concrete and asphalt and replaced it with a sweeping greenspace. A cascade of green terraces — a tad bit like
Machu Picchu — rises up the eastern wall. Visitors can climb up a ramp to give them a view of the park they’ve never seen before. “I think the park looks fantastic,” Allen says. The Pavilion upgrade, however, stands as a testament not only to the success of the Riverfront Park revitalization, but all the challenges it had to overcome.
THE UNCOVERING
After all, for all its beauty, the completed Pavilion represents a broken promise. Before voters approved the bond, Condon and City Council President Ben Stuckart cowrote an op-ed in the Spokesman-Review telling voters the project would create “a new cover for the Pavilion and strategic use of lighting or projected imagery.” Renderings and advertisements during the bond campaign featured a vision of a covered Pavilion. But today, the Pavilion remains uncovered. A covering, the Park Board determined, was too expensive and too infeasible. The old metal structure of the Pavilion couldn’t support the weight. In a Facebook post in 2017, former Park Board Chair Randy Cameron called the change “OUTRAGEOUS,” arguing that it “was often said that it would rival the Sydney Opera House and now the board and parks director have amnesia?” Skeptics like Allen worried that without a covering, the community would miss out on the opportunity to project images or videos on the side of the Pavilion, while Stuckart complained that without shading, events held in the Pavilion would bake in the summer heat. “I sat through a dozen meetings talking about that,” Stuckart says. But there were downsides to covering the structure that would have gone beyond cost, Condon argued. You would lose the view of the rest of the park when you stepped into the Pavilion. “It would feel like you’re inside a big tent,” Condon says, “You wouldn’t be able to have the grass in there and the terraces.” And so the design team got creative, trying to figure out an innovative way to satisfy seemingly ...continued on next page
ONLY “IT’S NOT HANGE C O T G IN GO E FOR IN L Y K S E TH WILL BE IT , Y IT C E TH LACE.” P G IN R E A GATH
FUN for Everyone, in Every Season Have an adventure at Riverfront Spokane. Whirl around on the historic Looff Carrousel. Meet friends at the Expo ‘74 Butterfly and stroll along the Howard Street Promenade. Explore miles of trails and grab a bite to eat at the Sky Ribbon Cafe. These and other adventures await at the roaring heart of Spokane.
Pavilion Grand Opening September 6 & 7! The Pavilion will serve as a gathering place, hosting community events and concerts, arts and cultural activities, fitness classes, and more. Visit RiverfrontSpokane.org for a full list of free grand opening events.
RiverfrontSpokane.org Call 509.625.6600
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ROUND UP WHEN YOU RENT YOUR BIKE OR SCOOTER!
ABOVE: The new wooden boardwalk outside the Looff makes for a pleasant walk, but it also keeps the geese away. The massive boulders are designed to be walked on and were sourced from Mica Peak.
WHEN YOU ROUND UP A SLICE OF YOUR RIDE FARE GOES TO THE FRIENDS OF CENTENNIAL TRAIL >>> WWW.SPOKANECENTENNIALTRAIL.ORG
LEFT: As a bonus, the new shade panels cast a distinctive geometric pattern on the Pavilion floor.
CONGRATS, OLD FRIEND DEFINING THE DOWNTOWN SKYLINE SINCE 1974.
downtownspokane.org
42 INLANDER SEPTEMBER 5, 2019
“THE PINNACLE,” CONTINUED... controversial goals. For shade, the design team stuck white, kite-shaped panels on the lower western section of the Pavilion cabling. During the hottest part of the summer day, the panels will cast shadows to cool the crowds. But during the cooler hours, the crowds will still be bathed in sunlight. “It turned out really well,” Stuckart says now. The Park Board had demanded a “wow factor.” And while it didn’t get a covering that the community can project images onto, it got something even more unusual. “I never in my wildest dreams would have thought of this technology that we’re using for the lights,” Condon says. Rob Kuffel, a member of the NAC architectural team assigned to the project, got some auto-
motive LEDs out of his garage and slapped them on the side of a Plexiglas panel. It was the earliest crude prototype. A secondary prototype wasn’t quite as jury-rigged, but it remained clunky and unwieldy. “The thing weighs 60 pounds, [the NAC team was] lugging it to meetings, and plugging it in,” recalls Jones, the interim parks director. Today, when you stand underneath the Pavilion and look up, the light blades spiral around the structure, almost giving an illusion of motion. In the daytime, it turns the steel structure from a utilitarian skeleton missing a tent covering into something closer to abstract art. And at night? The blades won’t just light up. They’ll dance. Every light can be controlled individually by
WHAT’S IN A NAME? You may have noticed that Spokane Parks and Recreation has taken to calling it “Riverfront Spokane” — it’s right there on the park’s new logo. That subtle name change is by design — and by vote of the Park Board. The reason being that there are many “Riverfront Parks” across America, but there’s only one Riverfront Spokane. Don’t worry, there’s no right or wrong way to say it, and “Riverfront Park” still works just fine.
computer — technicians can program a specific light with a specific motion and a specific color at a specific moment. And so when the Cronkites play the grand opening of the Pavilion this Friday, the last song they’ll play will be accompanied by the Pavilion structure lighting up in sync to the music. Think of it as Spokane’s own version of a Pink Floyd laser light show. “The first time when we were out there doing the testing, you see the entire promenade lined up with people with tripods and cameras,” Jones says. “And you ask, ‘Is this cool?’ And they’re like, ‘Yeah. This is better than the Fourth of July.’”
THE TROUBLES
The fight over the Pavilion was hardly the only flare-up the Riverfront Park project has had to weather, of course. Originally, the entire rehab was supposed to be completed by the spring of 2018. But as challenges mounted, the anticipated completion date slid to 2019 to sometime in 2020. “I underestimated how much expertise and what was needed to get going,” says former Park Board Chair Chris Wright. “We didn’t do anything for a year, and that was obvious to the public.” There was plenty to criticize: Former Park Board members like Cameron and Andy Dunau complained at times that the Parks Department did a lousy job of communicating with the public about the project’s problems. The decision to inspect the park’s bridges — first recommended by the city’s engineering department in May of 2013 — was delayed until five months after the bond passed. And the price tag that came back showed that repairing the bridges was much more expensive than anticipated. As the years unfolded, the project got some surprise wins — it turned out the park wouldn’t have to replace the big blue bridge after all — but also some surprise setbacks. Start with the cursed Rotary Fountain. Scarcely a dozen years after opening, the Rotary Fountain had to be shut down and repaired at the cost of nearly $1 million.
And before the park’s promenade opened this spring, the park announced that one of its pedestrian bridges — where visitors could feel the spray of the falls rise up and splash against their faces — would have to be closed for repairs. It was an expense that the bond wouldn’t cover. Meanwhile, community members successfully championed the resurrection of one of the “butterflies” sculptures featured at Expo ’74. But other beloved pieces of the park were sacrificed. A few people fought to save the aging amusement park rides, like the creaking Ferris wheel, and the old IMAX theater, but ultimately, balance-sheet calculations beat nostalgia. The Ferris wheel was junked and the IMAX was demolished. Other plans were altered. The project’s plan originally called for an ice rink. But the Park Board ultimately went in a more ambitious direction, building a more expensive looping “ice ribbon,” complete with a slightly downhill portion. “It was the toughest project. It was the first one,” says Wright. “I thought it turned out really well, and the winter usage is fantastic.” Sometimes the revitalization has meant casting an old local artifact in a new light. The Looff Carrousel, more than a century old, got a new rotunda and a boardwalk. The famous garbage-eating goat statue remained untouched, but Spokane Arts painted a nearby utility box with former Inlander art director Chris Bovey’s “Spokane’s Garbage Goat” design. The project also has had to contend with nature itself, like the federally protected ospreys that built a nest on top of the Pavilion. And there are even more destructive critters. “To what degree have beavers created challenges for the project?” the Inlander asks Condon. Mayor Condon laughs at the absurdity of such a silly question. “That’s the curveball of the day,” Condon says. But then Jones, the interim parks director, jumps in to say that, well... “On the north promenade, we had a beaver come and chop down one of the trees,” Jones ...continued on next page
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SEPTEMBER 5, 2019 INLANDER 43
“THE PINNACLE,” CONTINUED... says. “We did have one incident on the North Bank where a beaver decided to take it and drag it. Didn’t make it all the way to the river.”
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE
The Pavilion opens this week, but the Riverfront Park project isn’t done. There’s still the North Bank, across the Spokane River. Today, it’s a parking lot next to a fenced-in storage space filled with old park equipment. A year from now, it’s scheduled to be turned into one of the biggest playgrounds in the region. The playground will be almost a full acre — almost the size of 16 tennis courts — complete with a climbing structures, sandboxes and 30-foot tower with three slides. And the playground will all be themed around the Ice Age floods. “We’re looking at having a water feature that does spill over, that mimics the Missoula floods breaking free,” Riverfront Park Director Jon Moog says. Will there be wooly mammoth tusks? Of course, there will be wooly mammoth tusks.
44 INLANDER SEPTEMBER 5, 2019
The aging Howard Street South Bridge had to be replaced. The new “orange bridge” is wider, with built-in power and water for events and vendors. The “Get Down” design element by Berger Partnership allows you to get closer to the water. The North Bank will also fulfill a long delayed promise: a skatepark. When the city tore down downtown’s troubled Under the Freeway skatepark in 2015, it promised to replace it. But years passed by, frustrating the local skater community. For now, the new skatepark will be only modestly sized, but if enough funds are raised, two bowls will be added, with a wall in the park’s maintenance and operations building turned into a slanted wall ride. Even with over $64 million in spending, there’s a lot of dream projects for Riverfront Park that weren’t built. The park rehab had to fit the budget, and not the other way around. That’s even true for some of Condon’s ideas. Nearly eight years ago, Condon was sworn in at the base of the clock tower, the other recognizable symbol of Riverfront Park. “I thought we should reopen the clock tower,” Condon says. “They’ve done all the engineering for it, but we didn’t have the money for it.” That upgrade of a Riverfront Park icon, however, may have to wait until the next mayor. n
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Daniel Walters has been writing for the Inlander since 2008. In that time, he’s covered real estate scams, the Central City Line, the effort to fund the Sportsplex and the McEuen Park battle in Coeur d’Alene. He can be reached at 325-0634 ext. 263 or via email at danielw@inlander.com. His favorite Carrousel horse is the giraffe.
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SEPTEMBER 5, 2019 INLANDER 45
Come See the New U.S. Pavilion Building Excellence at Riverfront Park
Since 1978, Garco Construction has been building a better community by working on some of Spokane’s most iconic buildings. It has been a privilege
to work on the new U.S. Pavilion. CEO Tim Welsh actually worked on the original Pavilion project, so for us this project has been a true family affair.