The Journal of Business hosted Emilie Cameron, president and CEO of the Downtown Spokane Partnership, for its Elevating The Conversation podcast in an episode that was released earlier this month. Titled The Future of Downtown Spokane, the new release involves a conversation about housing, office space, public safety, and other issues affecting and benefitting Spokane's core. 

The Elevating The Conversation podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, and elsewhere. Search for it on any of those platforms or the Journal's website to hear the entire conversation, but for now, here are five takeaways from the 45-minute episode. 

1. A perfect storm created downtown's public safety issues. People not being on the streets of downtown during the pandemic created an environment where homelessness and drug use became more visible and, frankly, probably happened more frequently. It's not Spokane unique. Particularly across the West Coast, you saw cities where, when no one else is around, that is what happened.

But it's not just the lack of activity. It is a perfect storm of activities. There is absolutely a need for more housing in Spokane, but there's also the fentanyl epidemic, and that's, at this point, beyond crisis stage.

It created an environment where people simply did not feel safe. And I think justifiably so. When you have someone who's acting erratically, whether it be because they're suffering from mental illness, behavioral issues, or substance-use disorders, it creates an environment that doesn't feel safe.

2. People have a right to feel safe. We need to acknowledge that every single person has the right to feel safe. No matter where they are. And for some reason in downtowns, we sort of shrugged our shoulders and said, 'Well, I don't live in that neighborhood. It's just businesses. They can handle it.'

And I think people forget that these are our neighbors who own these businesses. Meanwhile, we want to balance that out with the fact that these are also our neighbors who are on the street and suffering.

And that's really the key. It's about this balance. There are some real problems. You know, people need treatment and there isn't enough of it, whether it be mental health, behavioral health, and everything in between. There's a need for housing. There's a need for shelter, but there's also a need for expectations.

 I just keep saying this, every single person deserves to be and feel safe when they walk down the street in downtown Spokane. And we need to get back to a point where that's our priority.

3. Downtown housing is needed, and the opportunity is apparent. For a long time, housing in downtown was limited to either end of the barbell. It was either that low- to extremely-low income housing or very luxury and high end. We're trying to fill the gap. 

More and more people want to be close to this vibrancy, especially as a younger generation. You are seeing this desire for people to live and work in a place where they don't always have to get in a car to get from point A to point B. 

I think also what we have to realize is that the downtown neighborhood is in the life path for someone. It may not be where someone lives for 25 years, but it may be a rung on that ladder on the way up. Or vice versa. We're seeing a lot of folks who are downsizing coming into downtown as well. 

When you think about what the future of housing looks like in downtown, you are going to see more of it, and frankly, we've needed more for a long time. We also have a unique mix of inventory in terms of historic buildings that could be converted into housing. As we look at our buildings, they are so great for conversion. A lot of my colleagues in peer cities would be jumping for joy if they had the kind of inventory we have. 

4. More people leads to more services. Resident-serving retail, or sometimes we call it lifestyle retail, is incredibly important to the mix downtown. So when you think about having residents, you want to have services for them as well. It's services as simple as hair salons, barber shops, nail salons, gyms, markets, and pharmacies. All of those are important. 

The hard part is, it's a bit of a chicken and the egg. So I often hear people say, why don't we have another grocery store in downtown or a city Target? Part of it is those amenities require having a density to be able to attract that type of retail because they need certain economies of scale. The more housing we can bring in, the quicker we can bring in those services, and vice versa.

We have to look at our policies to help incentivize that kind of retail we want to see. What do people want when they live in a place? As we look forward, it is going to be important. Thoughtful and purposeful activity is essential for our city and for the private sector to look at how we are making sure that we are an attractive place.

5. The office market is sorting itself out.  I think that we all thought that once we got through the pandemic, we'd know within 12 months what the future was going to hold.

No. We're still figuring it out. Spokane is somewhat unique in that our office market has tended to be about 12 months behind the rest of the markets. That's good on one hand. It gives us a chance to react and adapt as we're seeing trends. We're seeing leases that are starting to come due this year, and really over the next 18 months, I think that's really when we're going to see a lot of activity.

We are seeing some employers who are doubling down, and they're taking up more space. We're seeing a lot of folks actually shifting from one building to another. You're seeing inventory levels fluctuate between buildings as that higher-end Class A, higher-end Class B-type inventory really is becoming of interest.

When you think about your employers downtown, what does that mix look like? It's not going to be your just traditional large footprints anymore. It's about downtown being a choice. It's about employers wanting to be downtown because of the collaboration, not just with their own company but with like companies as well.