SpokanePlanner

Recommendation: Love The Snake Pit! It’s the most unique man-made destination in north Idaho. Just let that north Idaho culture wash over you in all of its splendor.

The best restaurants in Spokane ranked on overall food quality and flavor.

Recommendation: Is Flatstick Pub a joint where upstanding bureaucrats, politicians, attorneys and local businesspeople choose to hang out? No. We prefer our beer and pizza playing real golf.

In a world full of secret sauces, Spokane is the cultural hearth.

Recommendation: Clover’s bust is on the Mount Rushmore of Spokane’s best restaurants. Exceptional food at an affordable price.

Recommendation: If you were to bring Julia Child to one restaurant in Spokane, it would be Churchill’s.

Recommendation: Zola is the preferred party joint for much of Spokane — from hipsters all the way through to our dorky middle class that doesn’t get out too much.

Recommendation: Mirabeau won’t lend itself well toward a date night or business dinner, but during the breakfast hours it is one of the best joints in the metro.

Recommendation: Welcome to real Spokane. If you’re looking to enjoy some down-home Spokane fare, Jack & Dan’s is the place to do it from multiple perspectives.

Recommendation: The Safari Room caters to the business community. Its kitschy theme and above average menu provide for appropriate ambiance as you ply business with your colleagues.

Recommendation: Downriver Grill is likely the best affordable fine dining experience in Spokane. Much of their food is locally sourced and their menu is creative.

Recommendation: Host a business dinner or bring a date to the Park Lodge Restaurant. The food rests on the staples yet is creatively prepared.

Recommendation: Go to Anthony’s for a drink. Don’t waste your money on food.

Recommendation: Spencer’s is one of Spokane’s best restaurants. Perfect cuts of meat cooked over a high heat paired with a robust list of fine wines and libations. You will not be disappointed.

Recommendation: The Wandering Table’s menu is the most creative in the metro. Affordable, delicious, and a great wine selection. Among the upper-tier restaurants in Spokane, The Wandering Table competes handily despite the low prices.

Recommendation: Put El Guacho on your bucket list. Get the filet Pittsburgh Style and have your server pair it with something nice.

Recommendation: Wisconsinburger is among the hippest joints in Spokane’s market. Affordable, delicious, house-made, and a great beer selection. Go eat at Wisconsinburger.

Recommendation: Crafted is a marquee Coeur d’Alene restaurant destination. Cheap yet excellent food. Crafted is one of the handful of metro Spokane restaurants that defines our food scene.

Recommendation: Steelhead provides a rewarding Spokane dining experience. It’s vast bourbon selection and affordable, creative menu are a winning combination.

Recommendation: Twigs knows what it’s trying to be — a modern mid-market restaurant that is capable of pleasing many demographics. Whether it’s a business lunch, family dinner, or cocktails after work, Twigs can abide.

Recommendation: When you’re in DC, eat at Charlie Palmer’s Steak. Perfect food and wine. Make sure and finish the meal with a tawny that’s older than you are.

Recommendation: Quiet and classy, Mizuna is a perfect place to bring a date.

Recommendation: The Grande Terrace Bar is the place to be seen on a summer’s evening in Spokane but don’t go there hungry.

Recommendation: The Flying Goat is the best artisan pizza joint in town. Affordable prices, great service, and comfy neighborhood atmosphere is a winning recipe.

Considering a move to Spokane? Here’s why Spokane is your next start-up city. We ain’t what we used to be. Here’s 12 reasons why you should relocate to Spokane.

Any contract that starts with proclamations of GSI’s excellence was written by an attorney so much as this blog post was written by a bikini model.

In a county with few legitimate economic development tools and in a state that’s poor at providing them, we might be onto something with this 0.09 thing.

Tired of fighting for a parking space downtown? Here’s how to fix it.

What Makes the Best Neighborhoods? Like all cities, Spokane has a variety of neighborhoods with varying degrees of magnetism. Spokane’s Best Neighborhoods, like all the Best Neighborhoods, share the same critical elements. This article will identify and define them (in no particular order). An Identifiable Center Individual neighborhoods are like small towns within your city. Like all traditional small towns, there is a center. A common occurrence within larger cities is a classic “Main Street” environment that anchor older neighborhoods. In most cases these little Main Streets developed as separate towns until their mother city grew and enveloped them. In […]

Greater Spokane, Inc (GSI) intends to press our state legislature in the upcoming session to adopt legislation that will create an alternative port district for Spokane County. For those unaware of what port districts do within Washington State, they are (more or less) the premier economic development entities on a county by county basis. Spokane County does not have a port district, which is a significant disadvantage for us from an economic development perspective. If there’s going to be a push from GSI to forego voter approval of a Spokane County port district, as the law presently mandates, any legislation […]

Economic development was once all about primary job attraction. Enticing large scale manufacturers or corporate offices is still a worthwhile exercise but those who profess primary job attraction as their number one economic development priority are those that have chosen to forego acknowledgment of larger economic forces at play. Consult any oracle, and they’ll tell you that 21st century economic development hinges on two simple ingredients, data and energy. Both intimately related, both easily broken down into industry sub-sectors, and both, happily, Spokane is flirting with from several different levels. Data and energy are the ingredients that will create the […]

Visit Spokane’s Leadership Transition — If you were to mold the image of Spokane to the outside world, what would it look like? If you’re the one responsible for enticing tourists to the metro, different messages will attract different tourists and different tourists contribute differently to our local economy. What, exactly, is Spokane and what kind of money do we think we can attract to it? A fun question to explore. And so it passes that Visit Spokane, those that profess to define what Spokane is to outsiders, is transitioning leadership. Their CEO, Cheryl Kilday, is moving along after about […]

For those with shorter attention spans, I’ll start with the fun stuff first. For those with longer attention spans, I’ll tell you how I did it later.   Top 10 metros in the nation moving to Spokane: Seattle-Tacoma, WA Portland, OR San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, CA Los Angeles, CA Denver, CO San Diego, CA Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto, CA Phoenix, AZ Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX Yakima-Pasco-Richland-Kennewick, WA It appears the going local hypothesis about tech refugees relocating from west coast cities is proving itself correct. Manageable traffic, affordable homes, and plenty of urban amenities is a product that sure sounds nice when migrating from the […]

This post has been updated several times since originally being published on July 7, 2018. What was once a Spokane Public Schools bond question then morphed to a city bond question and now Spokane City Council will place it on the ballot as an advisory vote because, one way or another, Spokane Public Schools has $31 million embedded into their bond request to either upgrade the current stadium on the fringe of town or build a new one downtown. Phew! What an exhausting ride. No matter how it’s paid for or who owns the ballot question, if the goal is to […]

From time to time projects arise that shine a spotlight on Spokane’s dysfunctional economic development environment. The last time the spotlight shone brightly was during Amazon’s HQ2 process. Now it’s shining again because there’s this new cool thing called Opportunity Zones and our leaders in economic development don’t know what they are, much less how to maximize their potential. It strikes me that if local tax dollars are going into an economic development organization then the least they can do is stay on the cutting edge of economic development tools as the feds or the state or local governments might […]

First Boeing, now Amazon? It’s time for the state legislature and the governor to update the Revised Code of Washington into something that enables cities, counties, and even the state to better compete in a 21st century international marketplace. As it stands, Washington State is like the best-looking person at the ball, the one everybody wants to dance with. Whoever it is that wins our attention will tolerate us for awhile until, that is, the sullen day when they come to realize our good looks just ain’t worth the cost. State code stipulates too much when it comes to economic […]

Don’t look now, but there are entities and jurisdictions within our fine metro working some economic development magic by leveraging real tools that attract real investment. It’s amazing how much can get done with market-driven revenue streams and public-driven economic development tools. What follows are metro Spokane’s most significant drivers of economic development.   1) Spokane City Council Whether you like it or not, Spokane City Council sets the tone for the metro. Urban policies start and end with our central city. Our suburbs will do what they will but, make no mistake, Spokane City Council is obligated to its […]

I was born in West Central, on Broadway – the heart and soul of Felony Flats – in half a shanty with three older brothers and not much more than a black and white TV to entertain us. About my only memories of the neighborhood are walking with my Dad – a true-blue Sicilian – so he could buy smokes at the nearest corner store. When I was five, we moved to 9th and Sherman, right across the street from the old Martin Luther King Center. By this time, my Italian Stallion father now had five kids but only two […]

Below are links to 27 different full-length proposals for Amazon’s HQ2 project. The hard-working reporter Adanya Lustig at MuckRockDaily submitted public information requests to as many HQ2 respondents as they were able to identify. Responses are still coming in, so there will be more to share. The proposals are fascinating, to say the least. SpokanePlanner sifted through all available proposals and discovered the following: The strongest monetary incentives can be found in Boston’s proposal. Moreover, the Common Wealth of Massachusetts is also providing strong incentives should Amazon choose a location within the state. Taken together, there’s a lot of money […]

Depending upon who you talk to, Spokane is either very close to or very far from connecting with the main stream tech economy. No matter your position on the topic, there are several tech-related economic development projects either in the works or simple enough to start that we can actively advance, as follows:   Become the Smartest City Around Here’s where the nay-sayers are wrong, because this ain’t no pipe-dream. Avista, Itron, and Urbanova are all very real innovators within the nascent smart-city sector. Itron just dropped $830 million to purchase a San Jose based smart-city competitor. When Spokane corporations […]

There are 287 start-up accelerators in Silicon Valley. I just spent two days at one of the first of them, Plug and Play, whereby the likes of Google and PayPal were launched. If you’re curious about the leading edge of any given market sector, spend a couple days at Plug and Play watching three-minute start-up presentations. Silicon Valley deploys a unique language to describe innovative market opportunities. Words like insurgents, incumbents, platforms, space, ecosystem, acceleration, disruption – this is the lingo used by innovators and those who venture-fund them. Through the lens of Spokane’s economic development system, the words above […]

In recent weeks our friends at Greater Spokane, Inc. (GSI), have submitted a two-inch-thick proposal to Amazon in an effort to entice 50,000 jobs to the metro. In comparison, the Spokane Tribe of Indians also submitted a local proposal, which is 30 pages long. The state of Washington’s proposal is 16 pages long. Since GSI’s proposal was submitted, Spokane’s leadership circles have been pressing GSI to release copies of it to them. A fair and reasonable request considering it’s Spokane’s leadership circles – like the city, the county, and the airport district – that will approve the incentives should Amazon […]

As you probably already know, Amazon is soliciting proposals for placement of an eight-billion-dollar investment that will create about 50,000 new jobs with an average wage of $100k per year, otherwise known as HQ2. It’s the talk of the nation’s economic development community, including Spokane’s. Those who get paid to conduct economic development within metro Spokane (and even those that don’t) intend to submit at least one proposal to Amazon in an effort to entice them here. Before you say it can’t be done, before you say “we don’t have at least one million people” like the request for proposals […]

When trying to identify the more lucent and rational arguments against the beautification of north Monroe, one that stands out is businesses losing customers during construction – a legitimate concern, for certain, and one Spokane City Council, the Mayor’s office, and bureaucrats at City Hall have opportunities to address. Here are several ideas to provide relief to businesses along north Monroe and any business corridor, for that matter, when street construction occurs. If City Hall makes it a goal that not one business will close as a direct result of construction, it can be done.   Write a Quality Traffic […]

Metro Spokane is going through a rebranding exercise led by Visit Spokane, our local tourism promotion organization. Because change is a tough business that stimulates questions and speculation, below are the facts behind why Creative by Nature is perfect for Spokane.   Affordable by Nature Your tax dollars didn’t pay for the rebranding exercise. Tourists and donations did. The total bill for the two-year process is expected to be around $250,000, which (mostly) comes from a bucket of money specifically designated to stimulate metro tourism; a lesser amount of money was donated by our local business community. The same bucket […]

Spokane is on the cusp of tapping into deep pools of investment driven primarily by the tech sector and all its tributaries. Based primarily on our proximity to the coast’s big metro tech hubs (Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco), our affordable real estate, and our quality of life, the feeling is Spokane is poised to accept a wave of tech investments as well as all those tech refugees that come with them. Trouble is no one from Spokane’s public sector is actively engaged and working to attract all that money and talent restlessly sitting over on the coast. It’s time […]

Bike share programs are a new phenomenon for urban America. There’s different models for different cities but the concept is rapidly growing from metro to metro. Heck, Fargo even has one. About 80 U.S. cities have them, big and small, from New York City to Pullman (yep, Pullman). Perhaps it’s time Spokane gets in the game? After all, “To be a world class city, you need to have a bike share program,” said Bill Dossett, executive director of the Twin Cities’ bike share program. I agree with Dossett’s assertion and, I might add, bike share programs are now one of […]

We Elected a City Council Person that Grows Pot Everyone around Spokane knows City Councilwoman Karen Stratton grows pot but when Seattle’s hipster indie newspaper published “The Weed Queen of Spokane,” it finally dawned on this totally dense blogger how cool it is to have an elected official in the industry. We’re likely the only city in the nation with a city councilperson that grows marijuana. Seems to me all the hippy coastal cities have a little catching up to do. I think it’s safe to say Spokane is on the cutting edge of the marijuana industry, and we did […]

Competition to attract growth between American cities is fierce. Economists have written that the game of industry recruitment that cities, counties, and states play is, ultimately, a zero sum game. I’d argue that if you’re on the winning or losing end of attracting investment, arithmetic matters, despite what scholars say. Spokane competes with other cities, as we know, and most of those cities are within our tier. Without getting too wonky, cities are easily categorized by the size and scope of their market reach. For instance, metro Spokane’s 2017 media market rank is 73rd in the nation. For some quick […]

The guy who owns Skippers must be very persuasive because Mayor Condon and City Administrator Theresa Sanders are buckling to his irrational will, and it’s going to cost us about $500k. I wonder, how many potholes can we fill for $500k? How many new cops can we hire for $500k? How many property crimes can we investigate for $500k? How many, how many? Condon and Sanders ought to put the guy who owns Skippers on the City’s payroll, because he’s the expert, right? The most troubling part is the guy who owns Skippers is as qualified to make knowledgeable decisions […]

There are a lot of long and solemn hallways in Washington, DC. How best to navigate them is a learning experience for everyone, particularly elected officials. Annually, our local non-profits and governmental jurisdictions journey to the hallways of DC to lobby for their respective projects or policies. And so it comes to pass a bill that was recently introduced in the Senate’s Finance Committee called the Promise Zone Job Creation Act of 2017. Don’t look now, but Congress is considering creation of a new economic development tool that will give Spokane leverage over the competition. There are only 22 Promise […]

The owner of Skippers on north Monroe is leading a rebellion. The city intends to expend about $7 million in streetscape beautification improvements on the street in front of his business and Gary Jarvis doesn’t want the investment, thank you very much. As The Spokesman Review reported, Jarvis fervently made his case to the public by arguing, “’It’s ill conceived,’ Jarvis said of the ‘road diet’ plan. ‘It’s not going to bring business to the area … It’s just a yuppie thing.’” Thus, we have ourselves three declarative statements against investing $7 million to beautify north Monroe. It’s ill conceived; […]

…in a city without seats, a beach chair can be king. Janette Sadik Khan, from her book Streetfight (2016)   In spring of 2016, the Audubon-Downriver Neighborhood Council invited Spokane’s traffic engineer, Bob Turner, to discuss pedestrian safety on Northwest Boulevard in front of Audubon Park. Members of the neighborhood council requested the city consider traffic calming measures to increase safety for pedestrians who criss-cross Northwest Boulevard getting to and from the park and, not to mention, to Finch Elementary School. Mr. Turner, with years of experience navigating the unique nuances of politely saying no to crowds of people, sure […]

Mark Richard’s Bold Vision —   They’ll always say “It can’t be done.” When government officials, business people, and even some of your own neighbors say it won’t work, what they really mean is “We’ve never done it like this before.” It’s a sign you’re on the right track. Jay Walljasper, The Great Neighborhood Book   A few weeks ago, I published a post called Streets, Good ‘ol Boys, and Bureaucrats, in which I critiqued Spokane’s political elite for their lack of urban vision (among other things). Mark Richard, President of the Downtown Spokane Partnership, felt compelled to respond via […]

Ask your friends what economic development is and you’ll get a variety of different answers. Ask a county commissioner, ask a city council person, ask Vinny down at Dick’s, and you’re going to get different answers to a person. The answer isn’t complicated, however. Economic development is the art of filling gaps in the market. Sometimes there’s a 100% gap and we’re creating a whole new thing, like a couple of medical schools in Spokane’s U-District. Most of the time, the gap is much less, like subsidizing losses at the Spokane Convention Center to create multipliers triggered by a robust […]

Urban Tactics — The suggestions that follow don’t require years of planning and consensus building; they don’t require marshaling millions of tax dollars, fundraising, or special assessments; and they don’t require tax increases, public hearings, and recommendations for approval from civic stakeholders. These are everyday improvements that simply require a few rank and file municipal professionals, a small pot of money, and the will to get it done. Details matter. Unto themselves, none of these suggestions are catalytic. Taken together, however, Spokane changes for the better.   Beautify the Ugly Traffic Islands You’ve seen them before. They’re all over town. Dozens […]

Spokane Economic Development — Spokane’s economic development environment is elusive to articulate. Who, in fact, is in charge of it? If a tech firm wants to build their headquarters downtown, who should they talk to first? How about primary jobs, who signs the check providing incentives for those projects? Quality of life, urban infill, beautification, the arts (yeah, that’s economic development, too), what mechanisms fund those initiatives? Saturated with many actors, from the State of Washington all the way down to local non-profits, ask the folks who play in this arena and even they will have a hard time providing […]

The Downtown Spokane Partnership (DSP) is a private, non-profit agency that manages a roughly $1.5 million annual budget. The bulk of their annual budget is generated from a special Parking and Business Improvement Area tax (otherwise known as a “business improvement district”).[i] Trouble is our City’s Parking and Business Improvement Area isn’t even in the parking business, but it ought to be. Annual revenue from the City of Spokane’s public parking meters is about $4 million per year (and growing). By transitioning DSP into the public parking business, the City and downtown will have a real, market driven tool to […]

Spokane’s Economic Development Business — Why does Spokane City Council pay the Downtown Spokane Partnership about $100,000 per year to manage another (roughly) $1,000,000 per year in downtown business assessments? No, seriously, this is a poignant question: Why does the City pay an independent, private, third party entity to manage about $1,000,000 per year in public assessment revenue and, to boot, pay them another $100,000 for the pleasure of doing it? DSP may have fooled us once, but Greater Spokane, Inc. (GSI) has fooled us twice. Why do we pay GSI about $130,000 per year to “speak for the city” […]

I could use your help motivating President Obama to visit Spokane. In June, 2016, the Spokane Tribe was designated a Promise Zone by the White House. There are 22 Promise Zones in the nation. New Promise Zones have a tradition of hosting a launch event soon after designation. The Spokane Tribe’s launch event is scheduled for December 1st. I asked our Promise Zone officials in Washington, DC, to invite President Obama to the Tribe’s event. In response, they requested that I provide some compelling reasons why he should attend. Below is the email I sent to our DC colleagues that […]

1) Be the Big City — I suspect we all agree, Spokane has opportunities for improvement. Understanding what we are as a product and acknowledging what we can do to improve it is a big step toward doing just that. We’re the big dog, the central city. Others in the metro can be the best suburban products they can be. The City of Spokane, however, has an obligation to be the best urban product it can be. Where some might argue: “We like Spokane just as it is. There’s no reason to grow into Seattle or Portland.” I would argue […]

How to Finance Incentives to Stimulate Quality Redevelopment — The City of Spokane has $1,795,000 to partner with a developer to improve the derelict Macy’s block into a premier mixed-use project. The mayor’s office just doesn’t know it yet. Otherwise known as incentive money, it can be used to finance eligible public improvements that may happen in or around the Macy’s block as a result of redevelopment. At the end of this post is a link to the raw spreadsheet used to develop the above estimation. I invite you to download it, perhaps make it better. A developer is responsible […]

The City of Spokane is about to lose its second Costco. The first one closed in the year 2000. Not in the history of downtown development is it a good thing to lose an anchor like Macy’s — alas, downtown’s last true department store. Costco needs more space (as did the first one that abandoned the city in 2000), and Macy’s is downsizing its portfolio. It hardly needs to be said but both closures are significant hits to Spokane’s retail environment, each for its own reasons. What does this all mean? How can Spokane better compete in the retail recruitment […]

A 10-Step Plan for the old Macy’s Block — Losing a downtown retail anchor like Macy’s isn’t something cities tend to brag about. But, despite the disappointing loss, many see an opportunity to rehabilitate an old building right in the heart of downtown Spokane. In a future post I intend to explore why Macy’s closed. For now, however, we need to get to work. If leaders in Spokane City Hall are at all interested in leveraging Macy’s closure into an economic development, smart growth, and quality of life opportunity (as I hope they are), there is no time to waste. […]

GSI And The Art Of Illusion — I’m 37. I spent the first 18 years of my life trying to get out of Spokane and the next 18 trying to get back in. This town has a tendency to do that to people. Now, when I look around, I see a large group of us, back home, all hungry for change, and eager to transform Spokane into a 21st century city. But you don’t need to be born and raised to see Spokane’s largely squandered potential. Newcomers can see it, too, and they tend to be all the more confused […]

GSI’s Puffy Talking Points On October 23 Council President Ben Stuckart delivered a letter to Christine Johnson, PhD, President of Spokane Community Colleges and Chairwoman of Greater Spokane, Inc. In it, Stuckart calls for an “internal conversation starter” whereby he questions inherent conflicts that exist between attempting to serve membership and attempting to serve the public. As Stuckart points out in his letter, I have seen GSI oppose massive multi-million dollar projects to protect the interests of current members. This is the opposite of what an economic development organization would and should do. In early 2007, the Spokane Area Economic […]

…and do it for cheap, and within one year. Ask any developer in town and they’ll tell you Spokane’s zoning code is a mess. Ask any property owner trying to put up a fence, or a shed, or re-landscape their property, and they’ll tell you that Spokane’s zoning code is a mess. Ask the Spokane Home Builders’ Association, and they’ll agree. Ask Envision Spokane, and they’ll agree. Ask any neighborhood council member. Ask any city councilmember. Ask the mayor. Ask city employees. Ask the guy who plays electronic violin in front of Riverpark Square. They’ll all tell you the same […]

There’s a few loose threads on the security blanket that covers Spokane’s economic development environment. Some people have noticed it before, and perhaps even have come so close as to rub the tip of their finger against one. Everybody sees it, the loose threads, and yet getting out from under the warmth and comfort of the blanket is too much of a risk despite all the loose ends. What those loose threads need is someone just reckless enough to take a tug. You know as well as I do, we both want to see what happens when it unravels. Like […]

Economic development theories evolve nearly as quickly as the market. Local economic development organizations, therefore, also must evolve in an effort to consistently be at the forefront of economic development practice. Spokane’s performance toward this end has room for improvement. Many eras within the field have been largely discredited and replaced with healthier alternatives. Metro Spokane, however, still clings to several outdated models that cities of the future have long since dismissed. Below are all the broader economic development models tested and practiced by cities and counties throughout the nation. Of course, it’s difficult to capture them all, particularly smaller […]

(Hint: It’s All of Them) — Throughout the early 2000s up until 2008, a Danish corporation called Vestas was shopping for cities to build a $250 million wind turbine manufacturing facility. With employment of roughly 500 great paying primary jobs and, not to mention, the potential of one lucky community to establish a strong base in the alternative energy sector, practically the entire nation was vying for the investment. As coincidence would have it, Greater Spokane, Inc., was in the mix. With their American headquarters firmly established in Portland, Oregon, the brass at Vestas were but a hop, skip, and […]

Nine Simple Economic Development Strategies to Improve Spokane — Below is a simple economic development plan for the City of Spokane and, indeed, for the metro. A few items on the list may perhaps be challenging to implement. Nonetheless, it’s nothing a little verve and creativity can’t solve.   1: Dispel with the notion that fundraising, grant writing, and advocating for special appropriations is economic development. This one generally speaks for itself. I know I’ve said this in a previous posting, but fundraising, grant writing, and generally asking other people for money is not an economic development strategy; to the contrary, it’s […]

Lessons Learned from the Worthy Transaction — Mayor Condon is in a pickle. Like baseball, there are numerous unwritten rules to the economic development game that only experience within the realm can help one follow. Don’t ask me how many there are because no one really has an answer. Over time, as one moves from rookie to journeyman and, eventually, to veteran; all of these unspoken rules become ingrained in your psyche, a sixth-sense that separates the veterans from the rookies. A healthy handful of unspoken rules Mayor Condon just learned the hard way. There’s been a lot of press […]

If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.

Life on the ragged edge. Moments and decisions when there are no maps, no models to follow because nobody has ever done it before – places without even a box to think outside of – are moments when you know you’re onto something special. The ragged edge doesn’t happen naturally. It flows from experts, those that have mastered their craft and traversed every detailed corner of their field. Upon mastery of your craft, you are then, and only then, allowed to bend (or openly break) generally accepted rules, like Cormac McCarthy not using quotation marks when he writes, or Jannett […]

Being born to legacy money is a heavy cross to bear. Family empires built upon timber, minerals, rail, and media during Spokane’s formative years have diminished significantly as mothers and fathers passed and kids born to privilege mismanaged their birthrights. Yet through the generations one legacy family has risen to the challenge of wealth management and maintained a firm grip on the empire their granddaddy built. Of course, I’m talking about the Cowles family. Owners of the Spokesman Review, significant local real estate investments, and timber interests, the family fortune is spoken for by Stacey and Betsy, brother and sister. […]

If old-Spokane truly wants to Cure Spokane, then take a hard look at the civic entities that you control and protect.

Listening to the perspectives of mayoral candidates and city council hopefuls is an exercise in keyword identification. It’s their deployment of keywords that suggest whether they’re qualified to run our city or if they’re nothing more than an empty vessel. For instance, when they don’t have a substantive answer on a subject, such as homelessness, the default talking point is “I’m going to form a task force….” Within the minds of the task force candidates, there’s not a challenge in Spokane that a task force can’t solve. If the task force candidates get elected, I sure do hope all these […]

Tender are the teats of Spokane County Commissioner Al French because he is a Perkins Coie cash cow. There’s only so much tax revenue Spokane County commissioners can spend on fixing roads, improving public safety, or anything else that increases quality of life for county residents. Alas, road quality and public safety be damned, because Commissioner Al French has a casino to slay and price is no object. As a result, the attorneys at the law firm Perkins Coie can light their cigars with Spokane County tax dollars. For instance, the attorney “J. MacLean” of Perkins Coie charges us $685 […]

“We don’t want to be Seattle,” say the naysayers who tend to be the same people against transit initiatives, walkability, and neighborhood revitalization efforts. We don’t want to be Seattle is one of those canaries for those who fear change and cling to their expo ’74 version of Spokane like a toddler with a blankie. We don’t want to be Seattle. We don’t want to engage with a 21st century market place. We don’t want 21st century diversity. We’re not hipsters. We refuse to recognize that Spokane is changing, that the world is changing. Nope, we prefer to be annoyed […]

Want to know how much Northern Quest makes annually? It’s a very big number but technically private information that the Kalispel Tribe has no obligation to share with a wider populace. Want to know how many enrolled Kalispel Tribal citizens there are? It’s a very small number, and they get to split that very big number they milk from their cash-cow, Northern Quest. The Kalispel Tribe is suing the United States Department of the Interior in an effort to stop the Spokane Tribe’s new casino from opening. Funny thing about lawsuits; they’re public information, accessible to anyone. About two hundred […]

Metro Spokane is going through a rebranding exercise led by Visit Spokane, our local tourism promotion organization. Because change is a tough business that stimulates questions and speculation, below are the facts behind why Creative by Nature is perfect for Spokane.   Affordable by Nature Your tax dollars didn’t pay for the rebranding exercise. Tourists and donations did. The total bill for the two-year process is expected to be around $250,000, which (mostly) comes from a bucket of money specifically designated to stimulate metro tourism; a lesser amount of money was donated by our local business community. The same bucket […]

What do prosperous, modern, mid-sized American metros look like? How do we carve a niche that’s different from our competitors? How does a mid-sized city like Spokane distinguish itself from the pack, be unique, be something that others are not? Spokane, for its part, has generally been stuck in a malaise of mediocrity since Expo-74 – our high-water mark in recent memory. For over 40 years, local folk have pointed to the transformative events of 1974 as the seminal marker in Spokane’s contemporary history. And they are right to do so. The bold decisions that led up to hosting an […]

How to Be Mayor — A city’s mayor is its chief garbage person, pothole filler, sewer cleaner, and public safety officer. It’s a dirty job that requires pragmatism, coalition building, common sense, and leadership. If you were to ask Benjamin Barber about what traits all successful mayors share, I suspect he would cite the four common traits he wrote about in his 2013 book, If Mayors Ruled the World, which are as follows: “[1] A strong personality marked by both hubris and humor. [2] A pragmatic approach to governing. [3] Personal engagement in city affairs. [and 4] Commitment to the city as […]

The clown in the gutter. The woman with a red scarf. The little boy hitch-hiking by a cemetery. That something under your bed. The casino that’s going to close an air force base. It gives me shivers all over. All the unknowns. All the speculation. All the conjecture. It’s terrifying! We need someone to protect us. We need The Phantom Hunter. We need Todd Mielke. Todd Mielke is so good at conjuring phantoms, he’s convinced Greater Spokane, Inc., that he’s the economic development savior for the region, despite the fact he’s been a politician or a lobbyist his entire professional […]

Mayor Condon’s shenanigans of late appear to merit exploration of a recall campaign. Here’s the process to get it done (just in case you’re wondering). In the City of Spokane, there are two possible processes to recall the mayor. The first is driven by the Ethics Commission and is far simpler than the second, which is driven by citizen petition. Here’s a simplified outline for both: Ethics Commission City’s Ethics Commission recommends a recall election to City Council based on the City’s Code of Ethics. City Council must approve the recommendation with a majority plus two vote (assuming all seven Council members […]

June 8, 2016 — Forward Fairchild and Greater Kalispel Incorporated Statement on Governor Inslee’s Decision to Approve the Kalispel Tribe Casino Project — Greater Kalispel Incorporated (GKI) and Forward Fairchild are deeply disappointed in Governor Inslee’s announcement today that he is approving the Kalispel Tribe’s Casino Project over the numerous objections from our community as the location poses a severe threat to the future of Fairchild Air Force Base (FAFB). GKI has been advocating and working to protect jobs at FAFB for more than 50 years. FAFB remains one of GKI’s top community priorities and opposes any activity that could […]

Ever wonder why Greater Spokane, Inc., and the Downtown Spokane Partnership hired former county commissioners to run their respective shops? It’s because core knowledge, skills, and experience within the realm of economic development matters little. Nope, in the Spokane game, it’s advocacy, lobbying, and fundraising that count most. (The funny part is they call it “economic development.”) Economic development isn’t an exercise in philanthropy; it’s market-driven. I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it: fundraising, grant writing, and generally asking other people for money is not an economic development strategy; on the contrary, it’s what you do when you […]

Four years ago Mayor David Condon swept into city hall aiming to instill a degree of business savvy and trim some fat from local government. The youngest of a large family of boys was now in a position to prove his quality, if not for himself certainly for his father and older brothers. Mayor Condon was born connected to Spokane’s old money culture, and he was appropriately groomed via Cataldo and Gonzaga Prep. His family’s mansion on Sumner Avenue was amongst the largest on the street, and conveniently located next door to some of Spokane’s oldest money, otherwise known as […]

The seventh floor of City Hall is an increasingly lonely place. How did Mayor Condon get into this mess? He’s neck-deep in scandal with his head corked-back just trying keep his nose above water. Like an episode of Lost, the more you watch the more questions you have. Without a doubt, Condon is in trouble. The best sideways compliment you can say at this point is: “at least he was smart enough to cover it up until after the election.” Because of that, he’s still got a puncher’s chance. The question is, at the risk of mixing cultural metaphors, are […]

The Gateway to Old Spokane —  There’s a room in the office building Greater Spokane, Inc., calls home with a plaque outside its doorway. A lot of people walk by it on their way into meetings. GSI’s primary corporate conference room is big — can fit a healthy 50 or so folks. They hold press conferences in it, board meetings, committee meetings, even regular old routine meetings. This is where Spokane’s most influential power brokers conjoin, where they ritualize consensus building — a unique custom formed over the course of generations whereby the topic de-jure is thoroughly analyzed to ensure […]

…and do it for cheap, and within one year. Ask any developer in town and they’ll tell you Spokane’s zoning code is a mess. Ask any property owner trying to put up a fence, or a shed, or re-landscape their property, and they’ll tell you that Spokane’s zoning code is a mess. Ask the Spokane Home Builders’ Association, and they’ll agree. Ask Envision Spokane, and they’ll agree. Ask any neighborhood council member. Ask any city councilmember. Ask the mayor. Ask city employees. Ask the guy who plays electronic violin in front of Riverpark Square. They’ll all tell you the same […]

It’s All About Fundamentals — Below is a list of five things Spokane can do to improve basic services.   Master the Basics There are vast swaths of Spokane – entire neighborhoods – that desperately need just the basics. It confounds me, like it does many residents, why this facet of managing the public domain appears to be so complicated, particularly when it all seems so simple: Make sure streets are in good repair. Make sure pedestrians have a safe place to walk. Make sure cyclists have a safe place to ride. Beautify the public realm. Maintain it all.   […]

Exploring Spokane’s Political Class – There are precious few reasons why Spokane should not be considered one of the premier cities in the nation, and recognized throughout as such—a magnet for innovative, entrepreneurial individuals seeking a higher quality of life in an environment, both urban and natural, where all their needs are met. Instead, those who live outside the orbit of the Northwest only have a vague notion of where Spokane is, how big we are, and what we have to offer. We may perhaps be the most obscure city in America. Where, exactly, is Spokane? Far flung, indeed, by […]

Spokane, Washington. SpokanePlanner.

City planning is a field far-flung from architecture. It is mystifying to think that architects are more qualified to plan cities than, say, geographers, sociologists, or even civil engineers. Architecture is a peculiar field because it represents the marriage between empirical and subjective studies. If a building functions perfectly yet looks atrocious, has the architect failed or succeeded? Perhaps, because geographers, sociologists, and civil engineers do not get the luxury of subjective analysis per se, the architect can stake rightful claim as city planner. If we look closer, however, it is revealed the architect resides over an illusionary fiefdom. The […]

Spokane Economic Development — Spokane’s economic development environment is elusive to articulate. Who, in fact, is in charge of it? If a tech firm wants to build their headquarters downtown, who should they talk to first? How about primary jobs, who signs the check providing incentives for those projects? Quality of life, urban infill, beautification, the arts (yeah, that’s economic development, too), what mechanisms fund those initiatives? Saturated with many actors, from the State of Washington all the way down to local non-profits, ask the folks who play in this arena and even they will have a hard time providing […]

The City of Spokane is about to lose its second Costco. The first one closed in the year 2000. Not in the history of downtown development is it a good thing to lose an anchor like Macy’s — alas, downtown’s last true department store. Costco needs more space (as did the first one that abandoned the city in 2000), and Macy’s is downsizing its portfolio. It hardly needs to be said but both closures are significant hits to Spokane’s retail environment, each for its own reasons. What does this all mean? How can Spokane better compete in the retail recruitment […]

The Gateway to Old Spokane —  There’s a room in the office building Greater Spokane, Inc., calls home with a plaque outside its doorway. A lot of people walk by it on their way into meetings. GSI’s primary corporate conference room is big — can fit a healthy 50 or so folks. They hold press conferences in it, board meetings, committee meetings, even regular old routine meetings. This is where Spokane’s most influential power brokers conjoin, where they ritualize consensus building — a unique custom formed over the course of generations whereby the topic de-jure is thoroughly analyzed to ensure […]

The Golden Circle – The Boise State University football program has a lot in common with Gonzaga University men’s basketball program. Both programs suffered from decades of quiet, mediocre teams before bursting into the national sports psyche forcing east-coast-biased pundits to reorient their perspectives a bit more westerly. Ian Johnson’s Statue of Liberty, trick play, two-point conversation to win the 2007 Fiesta Bowl did just as much for the Boise area as Casey Calvary’s tip-in with four seconds remaining to beat Florida and advance to the Elite-8 in the 1999 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. Boise State football is to the […]

Ever Pubescent Spokane – Let’s begin our journey by developing an understanding of Spokane as a product. Ask different people and they’ll have different perspectives on how best to market the metro. Understandably, “Near Nature, Near Perfect” was a logical choice for a regional slogan. Somewhat ironically, it was the urban advocate Downtown Spokane Partnership who trail-blazed the consensus building process around a new slogan in the early 2000s. According to an article in the Seattle Times that explained why boosters changed from the long-standing “Lilac City” to a slogan that attempts to accentuate Spokane’s natural amenities, “The city of nearly 200,000 could […]

Exploring Spokane’s Political Class – There are precious few reasons why Spokane should not be considered one of the premier cities in the nation, and recognized throughout as such—a magnet for innovative, entrepreneurial individuals seeking a higher quality of life in an environment, both urban and natural, where all their needs are met. Instead, those who live outside the orbit of the Northwest only have a vague notion of where Spokane is, how big we are, and what we have to offer. We may perhaps be the most obscure city in America. Where, exactly, is Spokane? Far flung, indeed, by […]

Spokane’s Best Parks – Mission Park squeezes a whole lot of amenities into 13 simple acres of flat, tree-lined greens. The Park is the recreational anchor of the historic Logan Neighborhood. Located only a few blocks from Gonzaga University, Mission Park provides a venue for students and families to enjoy the outdoors. The park is firmly woven into the fabric of Spokane. Historic buildings and old homes interplay with Mission Park’s surroundings almost to perfection. Not to mention, let’s count the amenities: baseball fields, tennis courts, horseshoe pits, playground, splash pads, Spokane River frontage, Centennial Trail connectivity, and a pool. […]

Spokane’s Best Parks – Corbin Park is a former horse-racing oval that now offers a green oasis on the lower north side of Spokane. How cool is Corbin Park? The park was designed in 1916 by the Olmsted brothers whose father, not coincidentally, designed Central Park in New York City. Renowned park planners in their own right, parks throughout the City of Spokane were influenced by their wisdom, and Corbin demonstrates some of their hallmark planning techniques by creating different spaces in different places. Despite being a flat, nearly perfect oval, as you meander from one side of Corbin Park […]

Spokane’s Best Parks – Audubon Park is 27 acres of rolling Ponderosa Pines, playgrounds, splash pads, ball fields and basketball courts. Located in northwest Spokane in the Audubon / Downriver neighborhood, Audubon Park anchors one of the quaintest neighborhoods in town. Acreage and playground space in the park gets a boost from Finch Elementary, located in Audubon’s northeast corner. Therefore, if the park’s playgrounds are a bit too rough and tumble for your toddler, you can wander up to the school and utilize their toddler-oriented playground and feel a bit more secure in their fenced-in play areas. Audubon Park is […]

Spokane’s Best Parks – Comstock Park is similar in almost every way to Audubon Park (the 9th best park in Spokane) except for one significant factor, instead of a simple splash pad, Comstock has a full-blown pool and aquatics area. Comstock Park is the first park on the list located on Spokane’s South Hill in the Comstock neighborhood. At nearly 25 acres, with rolling greens, mature trees, playgrounds, and ball fields, you may be surprised to hear that Comstock is one of the worst parks on the South Hill of Spokane. This says much about Spokane’s superior quality of park […]

Spokane’s Best Parks – Cannon Hill Park is perhaps the most picturesque in Spokane. Meandering meadows, stone-built footbridges, and a rich canopy of deciduous trees create a scene fit a for a  La Grande Jatte painting. If Manito Park is the heart of the South Hill, Cannon Hill Park is the soul. Once a brick quarry, when the clay was mined out in the early 1900s, the famed Olmsted Brothers designed the rolling meadows and duck pond seamlessly into the surrounding neighborhood. Today, Cannon Hill Park serves as one of Spokane’s post-card scenes. Cannon Hill is the second smallest park […]

Spokane’s Best Parks – Finch Arboretum may be the most unique on the list of Spokane’s Best Parks, and is the first park on the list that provides a landscape more diverse than simple greens with a playground or two. In fact, diversity is the rule, rather than the exception for Finch Arboretum. To explore the entirety of it takes the bulk of a day. The magic behind Finch Arboretum is how the landscape evolves as you move deeper into the park. Upon arrival, the visitor is greeted with a lush, rolling landscape featuring shallow Garden Springs Creek, a pond, […]

Spokane’s Best Parks – Cliff Park is brilliant in its simplicity yet unique in many ways. Clocking in at the 5th spot on Spokane’s Best Parks list, it’s also the smallest of the bunch (only 4.2 acres). Cliff Park’s center piece is a giant basalt outcrop that towers above the surrounding neighborhood. There are no playgrounds or splash pads or ball fields at Cliff Park, just meandering trails that lead you to the top of the cliff. Children love getting lost in the park’s trail network. As Spokane Historical points out, historically the Spokane Tribe of Indians utilized Cliff Park’s peak […]

Spokane’s Best Parks – Liberty Park is the 4th best park in Spokane for good reason. It’s the first park on the list that begins to incorporate larger acreages and more dynamic changes as you explore different spaces within it. Liberty Park is located a stone’s throw from downtown on Spokane’s lower eastside and has been the victim, in many ways, of large public works projects that have proved to fragment the neighborhood – namely Interstate 90. As a result, Liberty Park and the surrounding neighborhood have seen decades of decline. Although probably not the best place to visit alone […]

Spokane’s Best Parks – In lesser cities, Lincoln Park would be considered the crème-de-le-crème of the park system but, in Spokane, it is ranked third on the list of Spokane’s Best Parks. Bisected in half by a steep bluff that, in places, is a sheer cliff, the upper and lower halves of Lincoln Park are distinctly different environments. At roughly 51 acres, located in Spokane’s Lincoln Park neighborhood, the famed Olmsted brothers recognized the value of Lincoln Park’s dramatic topography and designed a place that has unique flavors for all palettes. The park’s lower portion is a generally flat, tree-lined […]

Spokane’s Best Parks – Manito Park is so big and diverse, you’re gonna’ need a map. The heart of Spokane’s South Hill, it’s a tough call placing Manito at number two on Spokane’s Best Parks list. It’s more than just a recreational space, it’s a destination. And it’s more than just a destination, it’s what makes Spokane, Spokane. Without it, the City would be a lesser place. Although Manito Park does have several obvious hard boundaries (such as Grand Blvd.), much of it flows into and out of surrounding neighborhoods so seamlessly you hardly know when you’ve left. Dense tree-lined […]

Spokane’s Best Parks – Riverfront Park is Spokane’s best park. It’s all about the waterfalls, which are aplenty, and provide for one of the most unique urban destinations in the world. How many major metros can boast waterfalls ripping through the core of their central city? Well, let’s count them: there’s Buffalo/Niagara, certainly America’s most famous waterfalls, but they’re not downtown. Greenville, South Carolina, has Falls’ Park, which is located downtown, and those waterfalls are wonderful, but there is only one drop (Spokane has 3), and it’s not as high as Spokane’s, and the Reed River doesn’t run at 500,000 […]