Downtown Spokane Partnership is preparing the city’s core for back-to-back weekends of major women’s sports events.

The USA Volleyball Pacific Northwest Qualifier tournament will take place at various venues in the Spokane area March 22-24 and March 28-30.

Additionally, from March 28-31, the Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena will be the site of six games for the NCAA women’s basketball tournament.

DSP is gearing up to clean and refresh key areas, with a special emphasis on south downtown and the Interstate 90 gateways.

“Anything we can do as a community to showcase Spokane will only bring greater opportunities for future tournaments and events,” says DSP President and CEO Emilie Cameron in a press release.

Last year, when both the men’s and women’s NCAA basketball tournaments were in town at the same time as the volleyball tournament, downtown Spokane visits reached 170,000 in one weekend, up sharply from an average of 75,000 visits per weekend over the course of the entire year, says Elisabeth Hooker, vice president of marketing and programming at DSP.

The total-visit data, which includes people in Spokane and from out of town, is collected using software that tracks cell phone usage in the downtown area, she says.

DSP’s Downtown Clean Team will focus on litter and graffiti abatement in the areas east of Bernard Street between the railroad tracks and Fourth Avenue.

The organization is coordinating efforts with nonprofit Dignified Workday, the city’s contracted cleaning crew operating in the South Downtown Division gateway area, and with the city’s code enforcement to align efforts.

DSP also is working with the Washington State Department of Transportation, which has shifted to daytime schedules to address graffiti removal along I-90 in the downtown core.

DSP is a private, nonprofit membership organization that advocates for the city’s core and provides supplemental security and cleaning services to businesses operating in the core's Business Improvement District.