[Midtown - Coeur d'Alene, Idaho ]
COEUR D'ALENE - Next time you're in Coeur d'Alene swing on up to Midtown on 4th Avenue and have a look around. It's not nearly as glamorous and spiffy as downtown, the sidewalks aren't embellished with bricks and fancy street lights, but it's a great little business district that has it's own vibe.
Examples of well designed infill development are few and far between as we've illustrated here and here. Especially in the Perry nabe where they've suffered more than their fair share of off-the-shelf, Anywhere, WA designs over the past couple years. Well suffer no more; The Perry District is getting what appears to be some well deserved quality infill up on 15th and Ivory. Welcome, The Abbey.
On a basalt and pine strewn 26,000 sqf lot the six roomy homes will share a common garden-grounds area, and each will have their own private garden patios. Oh, did we mention it'll all be done with a green bent to it? Green buzzwords include passive solar gain, SIPs construction, and lots of recycled and renewable materials. Perhaps the most shocking aspect is that they actually look to fit into the surrounding neighborhood in terms of scale, site plan, and design [gasp]. The location is pretty sweet, providing easy access to transit, bike lanes, and a stone's throw to a neighborhood center. See? Density doesn't have to be a dirty word.
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.
Continue reading "Walgreens Update: Grand Avenue a little less grand..." »
SOUTH PERRY DISTRICT - It took awhile, but the former Junebugs building in has a new tenant...almost. The Cat's Meow a new veterinary clinic has hung up a temporary sign indicating their opening is imminent. As the name suggests this is a felines-only shop, so all you dog people will have to find love somewhere else. Although, given the large number of dogs we see getting toted along to The Shop on a Saturday morn, it makes us think they've effectively cut their market in half. Still, we think it's a perfect fit for a neighborhood business district.
Via the Sightline Institute we learned of a great new Google Maps mashup that analyzes (albeit loosely) how walkable your neighborhood is. Using walkscore.com, punch in an address and it calculates a score based on the services available to and within proximity of your address.
If you're an artist, there's a chance you've heard of Paducah, Kentucky. If not, you should. The city of Paducah implemented a fantastic incentive program back in 2000 called the Artist Relocation Program, and placed the arts at the center of their economic development strategy. The impact arts have on the local economy cannot be understated. In fact EWU just completed an analysis of the fiscal impact the arts have on Spokane's economy. But Paducah's approach is really quite unique and one we should bring to town.
Continue reading "An idea to copy: Artist Relocation Program" »
Today a cry for help, dear readers. Cruising over on the SkyscraperPage Forum, we read the following message from a soon to be transplant from Tempe, AZ. The writer, known to us only as SunDevil, looks to be attending Gonzaga in the fall and has a few questions about our fair city:
"Moving up to Spokane in August! Was wondering what some of your thoughts are on where to live. I would like to live downtown since it's close to school, Gonzaga. However, I have been told NOT to live downtown. Is it really that bad? Moving up from Tempe, AZ I was wondering what to expect as far as rent in the area, here it's about $780 for a 2 br 1 bath 660 sq. ft. in a not too nice part of town."
So have at it all you readers and lurkers. Now is you're chance to share that surplus of useful Spokane knowledge you've built up over the years. In the comments section give our new friend the lowdown on places to check out for living. Be sure and talk neighborhoods, rent, number of rooms, etc.
In and around South Perry a good amount of infill development has been ocurring on previously vacant lots. Most of the infill so far has been two-family in flavor. Bringing more people to the neighborhood and buildings on the tax roles is excellent news in our opinion. South Perry has loads of potential and continues to get better all the time.
We pulled some data from Trulia over the weekend to look at home prices by neighborhood in Spokane. Their heat map has a slew of ways to look at the data which can provide some insight into home sales in the city of Spokane beyond the usual snoozer - average sales price.
Continue reading "Spokane Neighborhoods: $$$...by the square foot" »
Look beyond the spelling of Parc two20 for a moment, and you'll see that highrise living doesn't have to mean downtown. The northside's newest (and only?) highrise condo hit the market this weekend website and all. Although we didn't make it to the opening of the sales office, we found that the Parc two20 website offers lurkers plenty of eyecandy. Once in, it'll become pretty clear, pretty fast that they're not targeting the creative-class with this project.
Ray Oldenburg coined the term "The Third Place." The first place is one's home; the second place is one's office; Third places are those other public locations where informal gatherings and meetings occur. Years ago relaxing and leisure took place in such public locations, and Spokane, like most cities, has a long history of well known ones.
Continue reading "The importance of 3rd places in Spokane" »
Spokane's alleys are a key benefit of our city's extensive grid-pattern of roads and blocks. When you think of the miles of roads in the city, consider that there is an equal number of miles of alleys. Not only do they provide an area for trash pickup and utility infrastructure, but in some neighborhoods they work as informal pathways and shortcuts. Knowing the person across the street is common, but so is knowing the person on the other side of the alley. Most often regarded as a relic of old development patterns, alleys are something new developments around here do without. Opting instead to use the land they consume for additional buildable lots.
Continue reading "Alleyhoods: An affordable housing option for Spokane" »
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.
Nobody but the Inlander doubts that redevelopment in downtown Spokane is well on its way. Our post on Wednesday and the subsequent comments raised the question of whether people would be interested in living in some other business district other than downtown. Specifically we called out the North Monroe corridor as an example, but Spokane has numerous other options where dense mixed-use is encouraged.
On the heals of our post last week on the authenticity of recent developments, let's lead off with a question: Is Spokane distinct enough to compete with other cities in the Pacific Northwest or Rocky Mountain states? We ask this because more and more research is pointing to "distinctness of place" as key to attracting the young talent that is critical to a city's economic success.
For the second straight year Girls' Day Out will be in full force this Saturday. Literally across the city, shops of all kinds (70 overall) in our neighborhood business centers will be opening their doors for the ladies. Monroe, Hillyard, Perry, East Sprague and Garland are the places to be.
It's initiative time in WA State once again. On the docket this year is I-933, coined as the 'property rights initiative." With a name like that it seems innocuous enough. However, opponents are alarmingly concerned about the impacts I-933, backed heavily by out of state interests, will have on our cities, towns, environment, and resource land. It's one of a number of similar initiatives hitting the ballots across many western states next week, and we encourage you as taxpayers to study up.
Photo thanks to specialp via flickr and the MetroSpokane pool
We know you're thrilled. We also know there have been time when you've looked at one of our pics and thought, ugh, I could've done way better than that. We'll now is your chance. We've created a photo pool specifically for MetroSpokane readers. If you feel like contributing, please do. Upload your own to the MetroSpokane pool or tag them metrospokane. During the week we'll look over the submitted photos and include a few in some of our posts (with proper acknowledgement of course).
Feel free to submit anything that has to do with architecture, new development, urbanicity, construction, your neighborhood, etc. Really, anything that has to do with the built environment is fair game. Show us what you got.
On a drive through West Central today, we spotted this interesting neighborhood marker indicating the entrance to the historic Nettleton's Addition. Sited on a corner of Dutch Jake's Park, this thing must have popped-up over the weekend as we were just over here the other day and certainly couldn't have missed it.
It's our opinion that suburban developers could learn a few new tricks from the Garland District. Narrow streets, slow-moving traffic, and stores crammed in every nook and corner. Best of all it's pretty active place that sports two old-school taverns, a movie house, a few restaurants, and a theater. It also has two of Spokane's biggest icons - The Garland Theater & The Milk Bottle.
Tomorrow night signals the beginning of one of our favorite summer series: The South Perry Summer Theater. In it's fifth big year this event has become a true hallmark of summer in Spokane. The location is The Shop in the South Perry District, and the kickoff this year looks to be the best yet.
Continue reading "Summer Theater in The South Perry District" »
