A $2 million design phase of what's being called the Division Street Gateway project, intended to create a welcoming corridor to the city of Spokane and the University District, is expected to move forward as soon as the City Council approves a prime consultant, says Ann Deasy, a city spokeswoman.

The city is negotiating a contract with the Portland, Ore., office of Berkeley, Calif.-based urban planning firm MIG Inc. for that consulting work, Deasy says. MIG has worked on other planning projects for the city, including a downtown plan update.

Sub-consultants chosen by the city to work with MIG include the Spokane office of Seattle-based Coffman Engineers Inc., the Oakland, Calif.-based transportation engineering firm DKS & Associates, and the Spokane office of Seattle-based environmental engineering firm GeoEngineers Inc., the city says.

The project, to be paid for with local funds through the University District Revitalization Area, will come up for vote before the City Council within two to six months. Work should begin shortly afterward, and will take one to two years to complete, Deasy says.

The Division Street Gateway project will involve making aesthetic and safety improvements to the about 1.3-mile corridor and intersections along Division Street from Interstate 90 north to Sharp Avenue, which falls within the boundaries of the University District, says Brandon Betty, the district's project coordinator.

"There will be some design work, but it is also a prioritization project," Betty says. "Those intersections are expensive. We're not going to be handed a huge chunk of money to do all of them at once," he says of the project's scope.

A number of current planning documents, including the downtown plan update, a Riverpoint master plan, and a U-District strategic master plan, include work on that portion of Division, Betty says. "We're not starting over" with planning for Division Street, but rather tying together ideas from all the plans, he says.

The Division Street Gateway plan will "let drivers know they're in a community, not just on a highway. We want to create a place rather than a thoroughfare. We need to get away from the spastic feel of signage that doesn't match," Betty says. He says planners will work on "a design with consistencies and similarities in the intersections."

The plan also will focus on creating safe street crossings for pedestrians and cyclists traveling from downtown to the University District to the east, and to the medical district to the south, Betty says. "We also want to overcome the current perception that Division Street is dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists, which it is," he says.

The redevelopment of each intersection will be a separate project, and no one has estimated the total cost of the work for all of the about 12 intersections in the corridor, Betty says. The first intersection scheduled for redevelopment is at Division and Riverside Avenue. Riverside Avenue also will be extended to the east and named Martin Luther King Jr. Way from Division to Trent Avenue. The redeveloped intersection and Riverside extension will be federally funded, Betty says.