MetroSpokane

How to alienate a pedestrian

There's a place on every street where private land bumps up against the public right of way.  In cities this is usually the point where the sidewalk edge ends and the private parcel begins.  A truly urban environment will have the building front next to the sidewalk for a seamless transition with absolutely no setbacks.  This is a critical ingredient for the vibrant streetlife we all want to see downtown and in our neighborhood business districts.  It doesn't end there however.

Charley's on Monroe rolls out the red carpet...

Well the 2008 NCAA Women's Regional Basketball Tournament just wrapped up last week in Spokane.  This was a huge deal not only for the exposure, but also for the revenue generated (Idle facilities are not a good thing).  It was a good event and week overall...and then a bothered reader forwarded a photo taken from his cell phone.  It looks like Charley's on Monore and Broadway [GMAP] was playing welcome wagon with the nice sign above to greet fans.

Sorry Charley's, but you are dead to us.

3rd and Maple-Barbed-wire fences make great neighbors!!!

Forget the giant inflatable gorillas and turkeys; those are mere props.  Selling high-end luxury cars these days means you have to be classy, and nothing is classier than a seven-foot barbed-wire fence.  Especially when it's on a main arterial downtown. 

Heading eastbound towards 3rd and Maple [GMAP] recently our eyes were drawn to the former Safeway; the one with the big bright yellow sign announcing the site as the "Future home of Downtown Lexus - opening in Fall 2008".  Well until that time the site looks to be the storage area for some excess Toyotas along with 100+ feet of  barbed-wire-topped cyclone fence fronting 3rd Avenue.  We're not sure if it's the longest barbed-wire fence downtown, but we think it sure is the prettiest.  Test drive it today.

Walgreens Update: Grand Avenue a little less grand...

Ahhh...Grand Avenue, one of Spokane's finest streets.  Driving up past St. John's Cathedral, slipping under the tree-covered canopy along Manito Park, the fine old homes, quaint small businesses nestled into the fabric of the neighborhood...and then you hit 29th and Grand.  WTF?  Friends, it looks like Walgreens has brought their "D" plans to the South Hill.  Not that 29th and Grand was any great bastion of pedestrian friendliness, but this was a prime opportunity to change that and it went uncontested.  A well-sited building can be a wonderful thing.

Louis Davenport has square feet!

Architizing-Advertecture...Call it what you will, but the four story sign on the Davenport Tower has been updated and is now hocking office space a the top-o'-the tower.  12,000 square feet of office space, in fact, with views that easily rival the Paulsen building.  Please enjoy this latest installment in the downtown advertecture scene.

The Real Estate Book: Now available on every streetcorner

Once relegated to that awkward transition area between the parking lot and the inside of the Rosauer's in Brownes' Addition, The local version of The Real Estate Book and Apartment Finder have found greener pastures in which to peddle.  As of a couple of weeks back, these two fine periodicals have hit the meanstreets of downtown, and are classing up street corners all over.  Seriously, in one three-block stretch along Main Avenue, we passed five of these turd-brown boxes.

Feel free to give the parent company feedback here.

It's not a sign - It's a trailer

Good signage is a critical aspect of running almost any comercial establishment, and the more unique the better in our opinion.  Lately though, we've spotted a number of these cute 'portable trailer signs' popping up at various intesections throughout the city.  We figure it's an attempt at getting around some local zoning law that doesn't allow on site advertising of particular kinds.  We're certain the local convenience store chain using this method has to get the word out that they have Bud by the 18-pack for only $11.89 (anyone seen Spuds McKenzie?).  No, the real issue is the hypocrisy of some of our liquor control laws.  Take the Perry District for example.

Safeway out...Urban Decay in...

Well that didn't take long.  A little over two months since it shuttered its doors and the abandoned Safeway building on 3rd and Maple is on the fast track to blight.  Some might say it's already arrived.  The store was never the pride and joy of the organization, and as far back as we can remember it had always been a little rough around the edges.

Skywalks to Sidewalks...

Is the sun setting on the skywalk era?  An issue raised recently by David Blaine in our MetroSpokane photo pool he observes:

"One thing that has happened since Expo 74 is the movement of business from the street up to the skywalk level and back down to the street. The skywalks are not going anywhere, but the question is what role will they play in the new downtown?"

Street Art? Vandalism?

Grafitti.  Tagging.  Street art.  Call it what you will, but it exists in Spokane in a variety of ways.  From the chaotic script left by a Sharpie, to the more time consuming stencil boldly sprayed on the sidewalk in front of Sterling Savings, we've seen a lot of it.  Some of it in plain sight, but blending in just enough as not to be noticed.

RANT: The Knickerbocker...

It's been awhile since we last posted to the good ol' blemish category.  Given that the hour is getting late we'll make this one short.  The owners of the circa 1912 Knickerbocker Apartments at Fifth and Howard need to pick up the slack.

One-Way Couplets-Sucking the Life out of the CBD

A quick visual survey of our CBD via Google Maps yields an unsettling fact:  No less than thirteen streets (over 70%) are designed as one-way couplets. Aside from confusing the hell out of casual toursits, a traffic pattern like this is at odds with most people's vision of a vibrant downtown. 

No doubt the couplet is a wonderful tool for keeping traffic flowing at a relative constant speed.  But we question the need for such a tool in the CBD.  From what we can dig up, most of these couplets were implemented downtown in the 1960s, and to say that the economics of office, retail and residential properties downtown today demand a traffic pattern nearly forty years old sounds a bit off to us.  In vibrant urban places, congestion is the norm...and is accepted.  As it now stands, Spokane Falls Boulevard at times resembles more of an Indy 500 track than a grand boulevard.  We can't count the number of times we've been nearly leveled in the middle of that crosswalk near Nordstrom.

But couplets are even more damaging to the small ground-level commercial operation.  Take a look at the toll East Sprague businesses suffered in the wake of converting Sprague and Appleyway to one-ways. Decreased congestion at the cost of economic opportunity seems woefully short-sighted.

Our top five streets downtown to be converted back to two-way:

• Spokane Falls Blvd
• Main Street
• 1st Avenue
• Sprague Avenue
• 2nd Avenue/3rd Avenue

Can you imagine 3rd Avenue crawling with two-way traffic?  A bike lane?  (Gasp!)  If we're looking for ways to improve the economics and commercial viabilty (aside from fast-food) of areas south of the tracks, this might be one trick we could use.

Fill 'er Up!

Isn't two plus years long enough?  Apparently not.  In 2002, what was an eclectic barber shop/home in Browne's Addition was rumored to become a bike shop.  Soon after the property changed hands, the demolition began and the house that contained the barbershop was lifted, and a new foundation poured.  Then...nothing.  Somewhere along the line the plans didn't quite work out, and well, the sawsalls took care of the rest.  Now nearly three years on nothing but a hole draped with a temporary cyclone fence remains.

While a very nice drawing of what the proposed redevelopment will look like has been floating around for many-a-month on the MLS, the hole still remains.  For a cool $1.6 Million it could be yours.   The plans sound absolutely dreamy:

Fabulous Browne's Addition location next to the Elk Restaurant, Cabin Coffee & across the street from the Old Cannon Street Grill! Brand new building to be built and customized for you! The main floor will be a 2-car tandem garage, the 2nd & 3rd floors will have 2,200 sq. ft. each, the basement will have 1,200 sq. ft. & there will be a 2,000 roof-top garden! Finished as a shell with elevator and all mechanical! One of a kind opportunity!

It's likely the foundation is shot having been exposed for this long and probably wouldn't work with the proposed design anyways.  Still, it's a mystery to us as to how the businesses, property owners, and renters in the neighborhood can find this acceptable.  It looks like Browne's Addition could take some hints on activism from the Moran Prairie neighborhood as they take on the world's largest corporation.  Until then, we'd settle for the owners simply filling it.

The Death Of An Intersection...

A warehouse?  An industrial supply company in the heart of a neighborhood business district?  A music store?  While not the flashiest intersection in town, Monroe St. and Maxwell Ave. do have some potential save for this building on the southeast corner.  The reality is that this building probably once contributed to some semblance of streetlife at this intersection.  Maybe it served as a retail space or even an office at one time. 

Now, however, it's role is to suck the marrow out of any activity that ocurrs nearby.  Taking design cues from some of the big-box stores along north Division, it presents the pedestrian and the hapless transit rider with mind-numbing blankness.  Could you imagine waiting for the bus in front of this? 

Really it is unfortunate as the structure has some potential:  It is built to the sidewalk and some of the parking is in the back of the structure.  What kills this building, and inevitably the intersection, is the complete lack of connection between the activity inside the building and that on the outside.  Here's a simple concept...windows.  The store is so severed from the street that they're forced to use to the neon 'OPEN' sign to ensure customers can figure it out.  Another case of why the suburban model fails miserably in an urban environment.

WWJB?

There was a time in Spokane's history when the places of worship were among the most grand and well-crafted structures in all of the city.  St. John's Cathedral (pdf) on the South HIll, the Westminister Church on the lower South Hill, or Grace Baptist in West Central.   The congregations raised and spent monies to create a building that in itself was an altar.  Take some time to explore the beauty of the stained glass in St. John's Cathedral on a sunny summer afternoon and you'll see what we mean.  The heavy, dense building materials, symbolic of the rock in their lives that was their faith, have allowed these structures to endure well over a century in this city.

With this in mind we present the latest blemish in Spokane - Life Center Foursquare Church. The overall piece of land was around 130 acres and is nestled between Government Way and the Spokane River.  The views of downtown Spokane are some of the best you can find, but unfortunately, Metrospokane finds little to praise about the structure itself.  Basically it is big, bland, and will hold lots of people.  The church itself is 'intimately' sited on 30 acres of land and it stands in place of a former Central Pre-mix gravel and concrete operation.  Although heavy industrial, the Pre-mix plant might have given this mega-church a run for its money in the aesthetic's department.

Approaching the church from Government Way, it is difficult to discern exactly what the structure is.  Perhaps that was intentional; to confuse drivers-by of what it is that occupies their entire field of view.  It appears as if the design concept was to borrow elements from those present in most turn of the century barns.  We're not certain why this is, but it may be that there was some concern over people  confusing it with the Veteran's Arena.  As it is, this appears to be the biggest structure within sight of downtown. And what a sight it is.  One thing is for certain - It is white and it is huge.  Unfortunately it really doesn't possess any elements to anchor itself to the site or to frame the road that runs along its eastern property line (think of the new convention center).  Instead, it sits adrift in a boiling sea of asphalt on a 30 acre plot of land almost in defiance of all the other Spokane Churches that have come before it.  Whatever happened to churches being "embedded in their neighborhoods"?  Are those the bells of St. Aloysius?

Chalk this up to another missed opportunity. 

Land Owner ≠ Developer

There is an old adage that states that just because you have money doesn't mean you have good taste.  In the case of the newest development in Peaceful Valley MetroSpokane feels the adage should be changed to: "Owning land in a hot neighborhood does not mean you should be a developer"

Before we do a walk-around of this new development, let's reflect on Peaceful Valley and what makes it so special:

• Small block sizes
• Narrow lots
• Historical context
• Pedestrian focused development

The most significant of these attributes is that the neighborhood was platted prior to the auto age, with the result being that Peaceful Valley is a very walkable neighborhood.  Also substantial is the fact that the neighborhood maintains a huge intact inventory of lots sized 25'x100'.  The scale and intimacy of the residential built environment in the neighborhood is a very unique and special asset when contrasted with our friends in the exclusive "Welshly Arms-Quail Covey-Fox Run Estates" subdivision.

Back to the new development.  As Peaceful Valley has become a hot commodity, developers are busy snapping up vacant lots and tearing down older structures.  This doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing.  Some new, limited, well done larger development could add some nice contrast to the neighborhood.  Until something good arrives, Peaceful Valley continues to get bland, thoughtless suburban-style development [with 60' frontages] in a neighborhood where it is least fitting.  It is important to note that some developers have respected the scale and size of the existing homes, and have sought to create infill that fits.

This month's BLEMISH, as pictured below, is six units of snout-house spread between two separate buildings.  A few things Metrospokane found horribly wrong include:

Improper scale-Even the worst designed homes try to offer the homeowner a view of something other than the garage.  Not here.  All one sees of this development is it's garage.  It easily consumes 2/3s of the front elevation.  The building's scale is far too big for the existing pattern in the neighborhood.  Other homes in the area, new and old, are defined by a simple geometry and a predictable pattern that is often repeated, but this house virtually screams at you. Can you say "big sale on white metal roofing"?

Isolated design-Aside from not fitting the context of the neighborhood, this structure doesn't even begin to make the best use of the space provided on the six lots it occupies.  The dominance of the garage, the starkness of the materials, and the ample supply of dead-space around the building means little interaction between residents and the rest of the neighborhood.

Cheap Materials and Zero Craftsmanship-Peaceful Valley is a very hot market.  The past five years have seen much new development of some rather expensive homes.  One would think that a developer building down there might consider materials and craftsmanship as key attributes to which buyers would pay some attention.  Here though, we see vinyl siding torn to allow access for utility connections and $0.89 tin letters identifying which garage goes with which unit. It's hard to believe that for $150,000, this is some of the quality one gets.   What potential homeowner would settle for this?  Spokane, that sound you now hear is Kirtland Cutter spinning in his grave.