The group assigned to examine options for expanding the city of Spokanes convention facilities expects now to recommend that the facilities be expanded to the eastjust south of the DoubleTree Hotel Spokane City Centerrather than on the block to the south across Spokane Falls Boulevard as had been proposed.


The new proposed location makes the most sense from cost and feasibility standpoints, says Shaun Cross, chairman of the group, called Facilities 2000, which is made up of both elected officials and community leaders.


The 15-member group, which was formed early this year at a joint meeting of the Spokane City Council, the Spokane County Commission, and the Spokane Public Facilities District board, is scheduled to issue a report in late October or early November detailing its recommendations for the expansion project, Cross says. Cross also is a member of the board of the Spokane Public Facilities District, which would receive the report along with the City Council and County Commission. All three probably would have to take action to move the project ahead.


The favored expansion option would extend the Convention Centers exhibit hall, south of the DoubleTree, and all the way to Azteca, which would be reconfigured as part of the project, says Al French, an architect and representative to Facilities 2000 from city neighborhood groups. Also, an 800-space parking garage would be built east of Azteca and would extend to the northwest corner of Division Street and Spokane Falls.


In addition, the DoubleTrees main entrance would be moved to the hotels east side and would be redeveloped to become a prominent feature of the convention-center-hotel complex, French says. C.I. Shenanigans Restaurant, located northeast of the DoubleTree, would remain in its current location.


Facilities 2000 has targeted the new proposed site partly because the city owns some land there, and Riverfront Associates, the partnership that owns the DoubleTree facility, which is operated by Hilton Hotels Corp., and surrounding property, is working with expansion advocates on the possibility of donating land for the expansion, Cross says.


Cross says that expanding the convention facilities eastward likely would cost $60 million to $65 million, much less than the estimated $90 million it would cost to build an expansion to the south, on the other side of Spokane Falls Boulevard from the Spokane Center, which includes the Opera House, the Ag Trade Center, and the Convention Center.


The land acquisition is the principal difference, he says.


Much of the land on the block south of the convention facilities is owned by Spokane architect Glen Cloninger. An investment group of which Cloninger is a member has proposed building a high-rise office tower there with a parking garage that could serve the tower and convention center. Cloningers group suggests that the proposed convention-center expansion should be built farther east from its project, across Bernard Street, where the Fruci family is building a new structure that will house a Kinkos Inc. outlet and office space.


Cross says the Facilities 2000 report will recommend that the convention-center expansion be served by the proposed parking garage at Division and Spokane Falls. Riverfront Associates long has considered building a parking garage there, and when the Sen. Sam Guess Memorial Bridge, which carries Division Street over the Spokane River, was built in the early 1990s to replace an older bridge, road width and a retaining wall at the bridges south end were configured to accommodate a ramp that would lead from the bridge to a parking garage.


The Facilities 2000 report also likely will recommend that the convention-center expansion include 125,000 square feet of space, up from the 100,000-square-foot expansion initially proposed, Cross says. Updated information on the convention market provided this summer by PricewaterhouseCoopers, which prepared a 1997 study that evaluated Spokanes convention-center-expansion options, indicates that more space would be needed than originally planned in the expansion for Spokanes facilities to be competitive in attracting big meetings, Cross says.


Facilities 2000 still is studying the cost of the project and potential funding mechanisms, Cross says. The 1999 Legislature approved a state sales-tax credit to help fund the project, and expansion proponents plan to ask voters to extend taxes that funded the construction of the Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena. Cross says details on selling bonds to finance the expansion still are being hammered out.


Whatever the final details on the funding package, the groups report is expected to recommend that $11.4 million of the bond proceeds be used to upgrade at the Spokane County Fair & Expo Center and perhaps that $7 million be set aside for projects at Mirabeau Point, Cross says. The group also supports a proposal to build a sports complex near the fairgrounds, and likely would earmark some remaining funds for that project, he says.