Eastern Washington University is soliciting offers for its four-story, 67,000-square-foot EWU Spokane Center building downtown, and plans to construct a larger building in the nearby Riverpoint Higher Education Park.


That envisioned project, though, is part of a broader strategystill being formedto expand the universitys academic offerings in Spokane. EWU will look at bringing more signature programs here that fill a particular niche or need, including through greater collaboration with the business community, university officials say.


This is more about Eastern taking a big step to make its presence felt downtown more than it has before. This will allow EWU to position itself as a key economic driver in the community, asserts Ron Dalla, interim provost and vice president for academic affairs.


Dalla says a group that includes the universitys deans is developing an updated academic plan for EWUs Spokane operations. It hopes to complete that plan by the end of this month for presentation to the presidents executive committee and, later, the universitys board of trustees, he says.


The focus of the planning effort, he says, is to evaluate the programs that EWU currently offers in Spokane and to explore what additional programs might be a good fit for the Spokane market and also complement what Washington State University offers at Riverpoint.


A mini-summit of EWUs deans was planned this week to move toward finalization of some of the details on a new academic plan for Spokane. Dalla says that Earl Gibbons, EWUs vice provost for international and educational outreach and a member of the deans council, has been a key participant in the process, chairing a university task force that submitted a report to the presidents office in early January outlining a mission and long-term vision for EWUs Spokane operations.


Gibbons says that report looked at things such as how EWU would like to be seen by the Spokane community and how it could support the citys efforts to make the University District into a living, thriving thing.


Also being factored into the Spokane academic plan are the findings of a needs study conducted by Patrick Jones, executive director of EWUs Institute for Public Policy and Economic Analysis, who surveyed Spokane employers about what academic programs would help them meet their work-force needs.


Dalla says the academic plan needs to be completed soon, because it will dictate the size and uses of the building thats to be constructed at Riverpoint.


Our intent is to move as rapidly as we can, but be thoughtful about it, he says.


Although the size of the planned building at Riverpoint isnt known yet, Shawn King, EWUs associate vice president for facilities and planning, says he expects that it will have around 100,000 square feet of floor space. The university also hasnt determined yet where on the Riverpoint campus the structure will be built, although it has begun evaluating possible sites there.


Bids for the universitys current building downtown must be submitted by April 20 to the state General Administration department, which is handling the offering. The state has set a minimum asking price of $3.77 million for the four-story structure, located at 705 W. First. The university has housed its Spokane branch operations there since 1983.


EWU plans to use money from the sale of that building to fund design and planning work for the envisioned Riverpoint building, and expects to seek state construction dollars for that building in the 2009-2011 biennium, King says.


Until that project is completed, classes currently held in the downtown center would have to be moved to other, as yet undetermined locations here or shifted back to the universitys Cheney campus. EWU would prefer to keep its classes in the building on First for as long as possible after the sale, but its ability to do so would depend on the buyers needs, King says.


The mostly steel-frame and concrete building is a unique structure architecturally, with an inset dark-glass facade that recedes into wells below ground level. King says the interior walls dont bear any structural load, which means that a buyer would have the ability to go in there and open it up to create larger spaces if so desired.


Its very over-designed where structural members are a lot larger than they need to be, he says.


Hotel and other projects completed in that area over the last couple of years have improved the neighborhood substantially, but EWU wants to have a stronger presence in the University District, in which the Riverpoint campus is located, university representatives say.


More than one-quarter of EWUs roughly 9,500 students currently take classes in Spokane, including 1,129 at the downtown center and 1,552 in buildings on the Riverpoint campus, and the university would like to continue to increase that number, they say.


The downtown center serves a somewhat nontraditional population, with upper-division and graduate level courses as well as professional and liberal arts programs.


At the Riverpoint campus, EWUs College of Business and Public Administration occupies space in the Phase 1 Classroom Building and already has a strong presence there. In the Health Sciences Building there, the university also offers a physical therapy doctorate program, graduate-level occupational therapy program, and a dental hygiene program.


Contact Kim Crompton at (509) 344-1263 or via e-mail at kimc@spokanejournal.com.