April 11, 2013 Anthony Gill (509) 954-3081 aegill@scu.

edu To Whom It May Concern: As a college student attending Santa Clara University in San Jose, California, I was alarmed when I received word that Dave Black was moving forward with his planned development at Regal and the Palouse Highway. Despite the nearly one thousand mile distance between my university and my home, I keep up-to-date on the goings-on in Spokanefrom development to sports and everything in between. But nothing had quite struck me like the announcement that preliminary preparations were being made for a Target store to be constructed along that busy thoroughfare that I once traveled every day en route from my home in the Southgate Neighborhood to school. Every day I drove by that site, and I wondered when it would happen, when the abandoned homestead on the field would be demolished, when the trees would be leveled, when something new would spring up. I knew it was coming; we all did. As a kid with a vivid imagination and optimistic worldview, I dreamed of the possibilities. I remembered visits to upscale outdoor malls in California, like the Americana at Brand in Los Angeles or Santana Row in San Jose. I fawned over cities like Sandpoint, whose walkable, vibrant downtown I had driven through for years en route to Schweitzer. I longed for the type of community atmosphere unearthed in such neighborhoods as South Perry, whose restoration seemed to have happened suddenly and without notice, and Garland, whose history is welldocumented. As I aged, I became aware of other areas around the city with similar potential. North Monroe, the North Bank, Kendall Yards, the University District, East Sprague in the area now called the International Districteven Hamilton, which now echoes that vision with new urban projects springing up almost daily. I became involved in the minutiae of it all, the details. I discovered publicly-available planning documents online for just about every new urban and regional development project. Kendall Yards. Riverstone in Coeur dAlene. The University District. The North Spokane Corridor. The idea of creating something out of nothing just became incredibly fascinating to me. Gradually, it evolved into a hobby, and one to which I became deeply devoted. Perhaps the neighborhood had something to do with it. In 2006, Walmart proposed a store at 44th and Regal, less than three blocks from Dave Blacks Target development site. It was large, at 186,000 square feet, and it took up nearly the entire lot, which had been cleared earlier. (The clearing would later become a source of controversy due to a wetland that had been located on the site but had disappeared with the clearing.) The neighborhood rose up en masse to counter the proposal; nearly six hundred people, for example, turned out to a traffic hearing at Ferris High School, decrying the negative transportation impacts it would bring. To be sure, a majority was vehemently opposed, and Walmart gave up in 2007 after it was discovered that on-site radio towers would interfere with store operations. But 1

crucially, the Walmart proposal included concessions that Dave Black is not even offering in his current Target site plan. Parking, for example, would have been located on the roof of the bigbox store. The building was designed as close to the street as possible. Sidewalks and pedestrian connections were maintained or improved. Street front spaces would have been leased to other businesses. While the proposal indeed was not perfect, it was decidedly ahead of its time. In 2009, development in the area again bubbled to the surface. Three parcelsthe KXLY site, the Dave Black site, and the so-called Little Mavericks sitewere under review for development, and the neighborhood was interested in developing an integrative site plan in order to ensure that the developments were cohesive and fit with the character of the wider neighborhood. (Though a Home Depot store was initially proposed, it quickly folded due to the ongoing financial crisis.) After numerous sometimes-disastrous planning charrettes with developers, neighborhood representatives, and planning officials, some unflattering press, and even a lawsuit, which was later rescinded, a design vision began to emerge. The sites would be rezoned as a CC1 District Center under Centers and Corridorsone of Spokanes most exciting, contemporary, and innovative zoning types and planning documents. In exchange, the developers would adhere to certain guidelines set forth in a Developers Agreement, which would stick with the land. Among these were integrated and designed pedestrian connections, preserved viewscapes, a common design theme, and a community plaza on one of the sites. The square footage of any big box stores-to-be would be limited and urban designnot suburbanwith multiple stories would be preferred. In the end, both the Developers Agreement and the rezoning of the sites was passed by the City Council. Which brings us today, and my reason for writing. When I pulled out my iPhone on that Monday when the Target proposal was first receiving press attention from KXLY, I immediately started looking for the site plans. Simultaneously terrified and excited, I frantically started sending messages and emails. Im not a NIMBYI want the site to be developed, but I couldnt let go of those naive childhood dreams that the site might be the home of some great, cool, vibrant, funky little piece of community. Instinctually, though, I knew that it wasnt to be. One glance at the illustrative site plan confirmed my suspicions. Dave Black had done the absolute bare minimum required of the 2009 Developers Agreement, and the guidelines set forth in Centers and Corridors and the Spokane Comprehensive Plan. Sure, there were pedestrian connectionsif you counted a sidewalk in the middle of a gigantic parking lot. Parking wasnt the only thing between the streets and the buildingsif you counted a fifty-foot grass swale along the length of the Palouse Highway frontage as a buffer. There was even a community plaza. But as a whole, the plan, despite prior assurances from developers and elected officials, looked like just about any other big box store on North Division or East Sprague. Some separate retail in the corner, then a set back with a large parking lot, and a onestory Target. Plain. Simple. But the problem is that such a plan is a blatant and egregious manipulationa duping, if you willof the basic guidelines set forth in Centers and Corridors. According to the document, CC1 zoning is supposed to be pedestrian-oriented, auto-accommodating. A meandering 2

sidewalk through a parking lot does not make a development pedestrian-oriented. Moreover, 750 parking spotsthats four for every 1,000 square feet of retail space, where the City of Spokane requirement is only onemakes a development auto-oriented, rather than autoaccommodating. Pedestrian-oriented would mean that all buildings are built to the street, in order to add vibrancy, with parking either behind or underground. Pedestrian-oriented would mean providing a walking path around the site or a clear path for Ferris High School and Adams Elementary students to use that doesnt involve walking through a parking lot. Pedestrianoriented would mean an emphasis on street-front parking so as to reduce the amount of congestion and confusion involved with navigating parking lots. As such, Dave Blacks current proposal should not meet threshold for the pedestrian-oriented, auto accommodating uses of CC1 Centers and Corridors zoning. A grass swale, likewise, does not constitute the type of buffer between parking and street that Centers and Corridors envisions. Rather, the document envisions the building itselfand associated sidewalksforming the buffer between the street and the parking. This reduces vehicular speeds and creates a more lively, pedestrian-friendly experience. Quite literally, its the difference between South Perry, which sees frequent pedestrian and bicyclist traffic, and North Division, which sees scarcely any. Like North Division, however, Dave Blacks plan puts the main Target store in the middle of a sea of cars, without building it to the street or providing additional facilities. In the southwest corner of the site, a pad is left with parking as the only buffer between the street and the building. Again, the building is not up to the street, as Centers and Corridors mandates, thus failing to meet that crucial bit of the equation. Finally, no buildings in the Black proposal are multi-story, shirking a guideline set forth in both Centers and Corridors and in the 2009 Developers Agreement. Though multi-story construction is said not to be required, it is preferred. Which would lead one to believe that Dave Black might make an effort to at least half-heartedly comply, perhaps with an ancillary building. Alas, the site plan contains no multi-story buildings. Normally, that might not be an issue, but given the other parts of the 2009 Developers Agreement and Centers and Corridors with which the developer has taken a quite generous interpretation, shouldnt at least something be taken more seriously? Why should we allow such an wide berth on all of the guidelines? The developer should at least make the effort to produce a two-story Target store, as Walmart did in 2006 at 44th and Regal. A two-story construction would be more typical of CC1 zoning and would allow additional space for street-front retail along the Palouse Highway and pedestrian enhancements elsewhere. It would enliven and further build-out the site as the type of infill project for which CC1 was designed. And theres historical precedent, both on the South Hill with other retailers like Walmart, and elsewhere with Target. These concessions would be valuable for the community, the developers, and for Target, which would gain a significant amount of neighborhood goodwill. In the end, though, it appears that doing just enough will pass off in Spokane as it always does, despite the fact that the spirit and intent of these planning documents invites and inspires developers, neighborhood members, and representatives to build the best possible projects using all available resources. To be sure, despite years of planning (dozens of developer-neighborhood charrettes), of dreaming (a streetcar from the South Hill STA Park & Ride to the Moran Prairie 3

Library!), of believing, of being told by developers and elected representatives that we would be able to pull off a Kendall Yards in this neighborhood, Dave Black has come back from a fouryear-long sabbatical and decided to give us Northpointe. And this case is telling. Not just about the state of planning and development in the Spokane area, but also about the regions wider culture. Its almost as if theres a huge veil of complacency hanging just beyond the citys boundaries. Im finding that there are a lot of inspiring, innovative, and groundbreaking ideas in the inland Northwest. The problem is that people are too complacent to try anything. There are a lot of ideas, a lot of talents, but no one with the courage to share them or develop them. For example, the University District has been lauded as the next great leap forward for Spokane, but its been chronically underfunded. The North South Freeway will dramatically improve air quality and transportation times, but no local legislators or Councilmembers have the chutzpah to go to Olympia and beg at the feet of the Legislature for more funding. I could go down the list. Light rail, rapid transit, streetcars, the North Bankall soundly defeated because for some reason, in this town, it is a sin to dare to dream. Or at least, its a sin to actually achieve a dream. No wonder so many college-aged students leave Spokane and never come back. Why would you come back to complacency when you could go to, say, Seattle, and engineer great new aircraft for Boeing or great technological advances at Microsoft? Why would you come back to complacency when you could live in a city like Portland or Austin or Vancouver, that inspires its neighborhoods to develop unique, cool, vibrant identities? Why would you come back to complacency when you could turn dreams into reality? (Answer: you wouldnt.) Of course, I know, however, that at the very least, I will be back. I have unfinished business here. I still need to help the city grow from its complacency into action. From ideas into movement. From possibilities into realities. The current leaderships inaction has inspired me. I still need to help create Spokane achieve the potential that we all know that it has bubbling just under the surface. Theres a long road ahead, but I believe in the community. I believe that we can reclaim a bunch of former warehouses and turn the area into the Wests newest medical school. I believe that we can transform a downtown relic of Expo 74 into the nations best, most beautiful downtown park for the next forty years. And I believe that we can do more than just the bare minimum. I believe that we can more closely follow the 2009 Developers Agreement, Centers and Corridors, and the Spokane Comprehensive Plan according to the spirit with which those documents were intended. After all, the community deserves more than complacency. It deserves action. Sincerely,

Anthony Gill