When Louis Davenport opened his palatial new hotel in downtown Spokane in 1914, he played a part in breathing new life into the city. Walt and Karen Worthys reopening of the Davenport Hotel in 2002 appears to have given Spokane a similar boost.


The evidence can be found along the streets near the venerable 13-story hotel, where entrepreneurs say theyve opened businesses that they otherwise wouldnt have if the Davenport hadnt reopened.


As recently as five years ago the area around the Davenport was a blight, says Spokane developer Rob Brewster, president of ConoverBond LLC.


Brewster says last years opening of The Big Easy concert house and a host of other businesses in the district has the downtown district verging on monumental changes.


During the 18 years the Davenport was boarded up, storefronts in the neighborhood surrounding the hotel went dark, and the southwest downtown district went into decline. That all has changed, says Rod Barnett, president of Carr Sales Co., an electric supplies distribution company located one block west from the Davenport.


The opening of the Davenport in 2002 was a catalyst to get stuff moving in the right direction, says Barnett.


Carr Sales has been in business since 1946, long before the Davenport closed for bankruptcy in 1985, and has witnessed the neighborhood revival that the reopening of the 360,000-square-foot hotel has sparked. Although 90 percent of Carr Sales customers are wholesale accounts and thus werent hurt financially by the hotels long closure, Barnett says the businesss retail lighting showroom has seen a major increase in foot traffic in the past two years.


Catalyst is a word also used by Marla Nunberg, marketing director of the Downtown Spokane Partnership, to describe the role the Davenports reopening has played in stimulating new business downtown. She says the Davenport was one piece in a downtown Renaissance that includes more than $1 billion in new investment completed or planned in the core in recent years.


The Worthys bought the vacant hotel building for $6.5 million, and began a $38 million renovation project there in 2000, restoring the lobby and mezzanine and rebuilding the guts of the hotel from the third story up, being careful to maintain the elegant designs created for Davenport almost a century earlier by renowned architect Kirtland Cutter. Their efforts triggered new investment in a 28-square-block area thats become known as the Davenport District, which runs roughly between Sprague and Second avenues and from Madison to Stevens streets.


Brewster says the reopening of the Davenport helped local investors scale a psychological hurdle, removing the excuse not to invest in downtown businesses.


On Jan. 7, Brewster, who has remodeled three other buildings in the downtown area, opened the $1.5 million remodel of the three-story, 36-room Montvale Hotel, located one block west of the Davenport. The bulk of that building had been vacant for years, and Brewster will also open a new restaurant there.


The success of the Davenport has been a big help. It proves that the market can bear higher-end accommodations, Brewster says.


Information isnt readily available on the number of businesses that existed in the Davenport District before the hotel reopened in 2002, says the Downtown Spokane Partnerships Nunberg. In 2003 there were an estimated 173 businesses in the district, about 67 of them retail businesses such as shops and restaurants. By August 2004, that total had risen by 20 percent, to 207 establishments, and the number of retail operations had jumped by 52 percent to 102, she says.


Ian Wingate, owner of Moxie, a European and Asian restaaurant that opened in June directly across Sprague Avenue from the Davenport, says, I probably would not have opened my business had the Davenport not reopened.


A former executive chef at the Davenport Hotel before opening his own restaurant, Wingate says, The opening of the Davenport has made a huge difference in the amount of foot traffic. There now are a lot of people downtown. Its definitely done wonders for the Davenport District.


The Artist Tree, nearby at 828 W. Sprague, has been in business about a year, but also probably wouldnt have opened had the Davenport not reopened, says co-owner Alesha Corlander. The business, which supports about 50 local artists through a consignment-sales relationship, definitely would not have opened at its current location, and probably not have opened downtown at all, had not the Davenport reopened, says Corlander.


Corlanders business partner, Michele Mokray, goes so far as to say the downtown area would have died had the Davenport not reopened.


A neighboring business that opened shortly after the Davenport is the Brews Bros. Expresso Lounge, at 734 W. Sprague. Owner Shae Obando says, The Davenport has a huge impact on our business, especially on the weekends. She also attributes the upswing in sales to other businesses in the vicinity, such as Hotel Lusso, as well.


Walt Worthy himself, who had his first date with wife Karen at the Davenport Hotel in 1970, says, Without a doubt the reopening of the Davenport Hotel is a positive for the downtown area. The whole area is back to life.


Worthy attributes the inner citys rejuvenation to both the reopening of the Davenport and the redevelopment of River Park Square, in 1999.


A big fan of the new Davenport Hotel is Ron Wells, a prominent Spokane real estate developer who has redeveloped a number of older buildings here and has served as chairman of the Spokane Regional Convention and Visitors Bureau. He describes the Davenport and the surrounding business district from 1985 to 2002 as the black hole.


Wells currently is renovating the former Roadway Inn into an office building across First Avenue from the Davenport and says, The opening of the Davenport is definitely a positive influence for surrounding businesses. It has a positive effect on everything around it.


Since opening in September 2002, the Davenport itself has rented out 120,000 guest rooms, says Lynnelle Caudill, hotel general manager. Hotel spokesman Tom McArthur says the hotel had an occupancy rate of over 60 percent last year and looks for a 70 percent occupancy rate in 2005.