It used to be a big deal. Spokanes downtown skywalk system, once thought to be the second most extensive in the country, teemed with retailers, and shoppers walked it like a mall.


Today, more than 40 percent of the spaces in the 15-block skywalk system are empty, and real estate sources says its becoming difficult to fill them with retailers as the citys retail core shifts to the street level and River Park Square.


Some say more of that second-level floor space could be converted into office space in the future, but such a conversion brings its own set of challenges.


Well probably see less skywalk retail space in the future, says Scot Auble, president of the Auble, Jolicoeur & Gentry commercial real estate appraisal firm here. Those who are able to remodel retail skywalk space into offices probably will do so in the next three years.


Two weeks ago, Auble, Jolicoeur & Gentry completed a study in which it tallied the number of occupied and vacant spaces in the skywalk system as part of an appraisal of the Spokane Transit Authority Plaza, at 701 W. Riverside, which is linked to the skywalk system and has a couple of empty bays on its second floor.


Auble says the firm found that of the 119 skywalk spaces throughout downtown, 49 are vacant. By comparison, he says, 58 of the 317 street-level spaces downtownor 18 percentare vacant.


The skywalk system is a network of second-floor interior hallways and covered pedestrian bridges that connect a collection of office towers, major retail buildings, parking garages, and some public buildings, such as the Spokane Public Library and City Hall. The systems construction started in the 1960s.


With 49 vacant spaces, Auble says it likely will take a number of years to fill all of those empty bays. Also, some of those spaces have come available in recent months, which suggests that the number of vacancies might be on the rise, Auble says.


In the Washington Mutual Financial Center, at 601 W. Main, two tenantsphoto-processor Foto Factory Inc. and high-tech newsletter publisher RedChip Cos. LLChave vacated a total of 8,500 square feet of floor space at the skywalk level in the past two months.


On the second floor of the Crescent Court Building, at 707 W. Main, the Crescent Court food court now has two restaurants remaining, where once there had been six. Craig Soehren, a sales associate at Kiemle & Hagood Co., says that food court struggled to compete with the food court at River Park Square, and the bulk of the restaurants that had been located at Crescent Court opted to let their leases expire in recent months. Attempts to reach two executives at G&B Real Estate Services Inc., which manages the building, late last week and early this week were unsuccessful.


Shift to street level


Most of the vibrant retail activity on the skywalk level today is in or near River Park Square, Soehren says. Other buildings once housed vibrant retail activity, such as the old Burlington Coat Factory building and the Bennett Block, but the Burlington Coat building now is vacant, and much of the Bennett Block skywalk space has been converted to office space.


Aside from River Park Square, foot traffic is much greater at the street level downtown, Soehren says.


Andrew Swanny Swanson, who owns the Metro Caf, located on the skywalk level in the Sherwood Building, at 502 W. Riverside, says that business has been in the skywalk system for about 20 years, and in recent years, he too has noticed foot traffic shifting from skywalks to sidewalks.


Swanson says activity on the street level seems to be constantly improving, both during the day and at night.


It used to be that downtown was a ghost town after 6 (p.m.), he says. Nightlife has really picked up, and there are a lot more regular people around, rather than just characters of the night.


Despite the shift to the streets, Metro Caf has continued to see its business volume grow, Swanson says, because it has a business plan well-suited for its location on the skywalk level. The restaurant is open only for breakfast and lunch, and about 90 percent of its business comes from professionals who work in neighboring office buildings.


The general shift to street-level activity downtownand a de-emphasis of the skywalk systemjibes with the downtown Spokane master plan, commissioned in 1999 by the city of Spokane and the Downtown Spokane Partnership.


That plan calls for maintaining skywalks that are functionally important, but removing those that arent frequently used or that affect the aesthetics of historic buildings negatively. It also calls for boosting street-level storefronts further by providing more stairways that connect skywalks to the sidewalks below, like those at the Main Avenue-Howard Street intersection.


The plan mentions the possible creation of a skywalk master plan, but such a plan never was developed, says Marla Nunberg, marketing director of the Downtown Spokane Partnership. She says the organization also has considered updating the overall, 6-year-old downtown plan, but hasnt undertaken such an effort yet.


While the skywalk hasnt contracted, a bridge is closed between Crescent Court and the vacant former Burlington Coat Factory building.


Two other bridges will reopen, however, in the near future. The former Lamonts Apparel Inc. and J.J. Newberrys Co. buildings currently are being renovated into one three-story, 60,000-square-foot office building that will be anchored by Bank of Whitman. When that building reopens next fall, skywalk links will be reopened between that structure and the Washington Mutual building to the north and the Bank of America Financial Center to the south, says Tim Stulc, vice president of the Vandervert Construction Inc., which is performing the renovation.


Office conversion


Throughout the skywalk systems some of the empty spaces likely will be converted into offices, but such a conversion can be difficult to complete efficiently in some buildings, Auble says. In some cases, the combination of a buildings floor plan and the easement through the building for the skywalk passageway make it difficult to combine spaces to create the larger office spaces many tenants want.


Soehren says office space on the skywalk level can be a tough sell anyway, because most prospective office tenants want space on upper floors and dont need, or want, a lot of foot traffic going past their doors.


Theres a shortage of tenants who want visibility in an office environment, he says.


Also, downtown Spokanes office vacancy rate currently is high as well. Auble, Jolicoeur & Gentry hasnt completed its spring vacancy report yet, but as of last fall, office vacancies in the citys core sat at 20 percent.


The high vacancy rate was due largely to space in newly converted or constructed office buildings coming onto the market and large vacancies in the former Metropolitan Financial Center, after Metropolitan Mortgage & Securities filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization and drastically reduced its staff size. That building now is called the Wells Fargo Center, and in addition to serving as Wells Fargos new downtown home, part of it will be offered for lease to other office tenants.