On a sweltering summer day, the sidewalks of downtown Spokane offer little relief. With only 7% tree canopy coverage, the city's core bakes. A new $6 million federal grant aims to change that, however.

The city of Spokane, in collaboration with the Downtown Spokane Partnership, is launching a reforestation pilot program to enhance the city center’s tree canopies and transform its concrete corridors into cooler, greener streets.

The initiative, which received funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service for a five-year program, will offer property owners free replacement trees, technical support, and irrigation monitoring to prevent the common cycle of costly planting and quick die-offs. 

City leaders and property owners alike expect the effort to reduce heat, revitalize the city's business core, and improve the quality of life of thousands of people who call downtown home.

Emilie Cameron, president and CEO of Downtown Spokane Partnership, says her organization has been working closely with city staff to finalize the program’s details.

She anticipates the program will begin by the end of the year.

“Downtown is everyone’s neighborhood,” Cameron says. “Every citizen will get a benefit, whether it's people who work downtown and get to enjoy the shade of trees as they walk to their lunch break, or people visiting downtown.”

Spokane's downtown core is home to about 3,000 residents and has the least amount of tree canopy coverage of all the city's neighborhoods, she notes.

Spokane City Council Member Jonathan Bingle, who represents District 1, which includes downtown, says property owners have been asking for years why downtown trees don’t survive. Many voiced an interest to invest in more trees for the city's core, he says, but also expressed confusion surrounding the responsibility of caring for and watering the greenery.

“This program really understands all the barriers to getting things planted and maintained downtown and is trying to implement fixes there,” Bingle says. 

One important fix, he notes, is clarity over the city’s irrigation system, in which some water lines are city-owned and some are private. The only map of the irrigation system, Bingle says, is a hand-drawn map that was created for Expo '74. Since then, the number of people with knowledge of the city’s irrigation system has been limited to just two, with institutional knowledge being lost each time someone leaves or retires. Bingle says he will pursue a water line study and request funding, anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000, from the state egislature.

The canopy program will be overseen and managed by the city of Spokane's Parks & Recreation department. Katie Kosanke, an urban forester in the department, says the program blends education, oversight, and early intervention. Most downtown tree failures, she explains, are simply due to lack of water, often because irrigation systems get shut off without anyone noticing that trees depend on them, such as when a tenant moves out.

DSP’s Clean Team, she notes, is already out on the streets watering flower baskets and keeping eyes on plants and other greenery. By partnering with DSP, tree problems can be caught before it’s too late, which will also prevent costly removals and replacements.

“We’ll provide them with some education for tree monitoring; they’ve actually started doing some of this already, where they are recognizing a tree that is not getting water,” Kosanke says. “With the new program, DSP will then get in touch with the abutting property owner and/or tenant to bring the issue to their awareness.”

A focus of the program is planting and caring for trees in low-income areas, Kosanke adds. Downtown is included in that low-income category.

Another challenge faced by downtown property owners is finding urban arborists who are affordable and willing to work in the city's core, says Kosanke. Because the downtown area has difficult conditions for planting and growing trees, many will decline the work, or services will be too expensive for property owners to hire.

Improving canopy conditions downtown will require tough, nonnative species able to withstand urban conditions, such as honey locust trees, hybrid elm trees, zelkova trees, and Kentucky coffeetrees, Kosanke says. These are medium to large trees that are typically planted to create canopies for cooling, business attraction, and pedestrian comfort. 

The reforestation pilot program, unfortunately, can’t rely solely on planting native trees to the area, as ponderosa pine trees are too large and serviceberry trees are too small, she adds.

Research supports what city leaders expect from the new program. Bingle points to studies that have found that tree canopies can lower surrounding air temperatures by 10 to 15 degrees, offering relief on the hottest summer days. Shade trees don’t just cool sidewalks; they also encourage people to walk, shop, and linger longer, boosting foot traffic for nearby businesses.

Nationally, urban forestry experts highlight tree canopy coverage as a key tool for improving public health, reducing energy costs, and mitigating the “heat island effect,” which impacts some downtown areas with especially punishing conditions during extreme weather, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

“Trees are great for business,” Kosanke says. “People travel from further away, spend more time, and spend more money in landscaped business districts. Our favorite restaurant patios all have trees.”