The Spokane Public Facilities District has released a new master plan that includes several potential scenarios for expansion of convention facilities here, green ideas on how to tie its facilities to the Spokane River and Riverfront Park, and a half-dozen suggested sites for one or two nearby grand hotels.

Other than for parking improvements that might get under way in late June on the so-called south block across Spokane Falls Boulevard from the INB Performing Arts Center, the concepts all depend on what might happen in the future and don't represent final decisions on how the district will expand.

"We don't know whether this is exactly what will happen or not, but we needed a plan," Kevin Twohig, the district's executive director, told board members and others Feb. 19. The concepts were based on industry trends and Spokane's history, Twohig said. He added that across North America, convention facilities are being expanded every 10 years, and in the year 2012, it will have been 10 years since voters approved the most recent expansion.

"Does 2012 seem very far away to you? It doesn't to me," Twohig said.

Twohig expects the PFD's board will take a close look at the master plan today, Feb. 26. He says no funding mechanisms have been discussed for any potential future expansion.

Richard A. Schmidt, president of the international consulting firm Conventional Wisdom Corp., of Orlando, Fla., which worked with Spokane's ALSC Architects PS on the master plan, said at the forum that while the PFD opened the exhibit hall just two years ago, "you're still short of space."

The idea behind the plan was to look into the future to determine the maximum size of the facilities and associated parking that would be needed, and to identify hotel development opportunities, Schmidt says. Given those parameters, the team decided that eventually the PFD would need to have:

•250,000 to 300,000 square feet of exhibit space, compared with 100,000 square feet now.

•100,000 to 125,000 square feet of meeting rooms, compared with 40,000 square feet now.

•40,000 to 50,000 square feet of ballroom space, compared with 25,000 square feet now.

•Parking for 1,100 to 1,700 cars, compared with 430 car parks now.

The half-dozen sites identified for possible grand hotels include the south block, a site a half-block farther south across Main, sites on either side of the intersection of Spokane Falls and Browne Street, at the northeast corner of Spokane Falls and Division Street, and the block to the west across Washington from the south block except for the Auntie's Bookstore building.

To Twohig, a grand hotel is "a convention-quality hotel such as the Davenport," which has about 600 rooms. He says the PFD board has no intention of developing a hotel itself.

"Since I've been here we've either had too much convention center (space), and not enough hotels, or not enough convention center, and too many hotels," he told the forum. "We can't expand the convention center very much without having more first-class hotel rooms in Spokane."

The idea behind expansion isn't to bring in bigger events, but to provide adequate facilities for multiple smaller events, which would enable Spokane to attract more meetings and size the facilities for maximum attendance and economic impact per square foot of space, Schmidt said.

Jeff Warner, an architect and principal at ALSC Architects, told the forum new facilities would have to be expandable, financially viable, stimulate development, and give patrons a feeling of safety and pedestrians a friendly environment.

"The connection to the river and to Riverfront Park is really important to a lot of people," Warner said.

The convention complex can serve as a gateway to the city core on Browne; enhance river access on the north side of the facilities; and create a "park-like setting" on the north side of Spokane Falls Boulevard across Washington from Riverfront Park, Warner said.

Other ideas for improving the facilities include making traffic on Main and Spokane Falls two-way in that area, which would allow bus riders to be on the curb side whenever they get on or off the bus and also would slow traffic in that area. He acknowledged that proposing two-way traffic on one-way streets can cause people "to start squirming in their seats."

On Jan. 31, the PFD bought property on the south block owned by Diamond Parking Inc. after settling a condemnation suit the city of Spokane had brought against Diamond on the PFD's behalf. That acquisition should enable the PFD, which acquired the rest of the block earlier, to begin improving the parking lot on the block after it tears down a building at 333 Spokane Falls Boulevard that houses the Boulevard House of Music.

What would happen next on the south block is less certain. Under one concept, the next phase of work would add meeting rooms and exhibition space to the northwest corner of the Group Health Exhibit Hall next to the river. A second phase could include development of a multistory parking garage and loading area on the east side of Washington between Spokane Falls and Main.

A third phase might include an exhibition hall extending east from the garage on Washington beyond the south block and across Bernard Street, with street-level exhibit space and a banquet hall and meeting rooms on the second floor. A fourth phase could involve another building with street-level exhibit space stretching east from the first such building all the way to Browne Street.

The sites of those buildings would include locations occupied by Fruci & Associates, Spokane School District 81's offices, an Azteca Mexican Restaurant, a FedEx Kinko's, the Park Tower Apartments, and Chili's Bar & Grill, but Twohig says such an expansion is so far off—"probably 30 years"—that there's no way to talk about property acquisition yet.

Under that concept, truck loading facilities would be at street level—an arrangement that has proved unpopular elsewhere because it would provide little opportunity for other development nearby, Twohig says. He says because the south block is relatively shallow, at 300 feet between its north and south edges, that concept would result in a blank wall on Main. Under an alternative scenario, lanes would be taken out of Main and Spokane Falls, giving the buildings a longer north-south dimension.

A second concept would sink below grade the parking garage and the new exhibition buildings—and also sink the loading docks. Under that concept, the garage still would be built on the east side of Washington, and the exhibition buildings still would stretch from the garage to Browne someday, but the unloading area would be built on the south side of Main, and trucks would access it via a passageway underneath Main. The exhibit space also would be below grade, although efforts would be made to allow natural light inside through windows, Twohig says.

That concept would allow for development of retail space at street level on Main and Washington and also reduce the height of the exhibition buildings, which is desirable, Twohig says. The downside is that lowering buildings adds to the complexity—and cost—of construction.

A third concept would put both the garage and loading facility on south of Main and the exhibition facility on the south block after the block had been used for a time for surface parking. Later, an exhibition building would be erected between the longtime Convention Center and the Group Health facility on the north side of Spokane Falls. That would require tearing down the DoubleTree Hotel.

A fourth concept would use the south block for both surface parking and the parking garage and involve building a much bigger exhibition hall between the INB and Group Health buildings. That concept, too, would require demolishing the DoubleTree.