Valley’s Old Plantation torn down

To most Spokane Valley residents it was known as the Old Plantation.

The restaurant sitting on the corner of Vista Road and Sprague Avenue went from being a fancy place to take your family for dinner, to several different iterations of nightclub and live music venue, before sitting empty for two years.

And last week it was torn down.

“I couldn’t get a tenant to take on the project,” said owner David Birge. “We hired an architect and did drawings and did all we could. We sat on the property for two years.”

Birge said he originally planned to restore the old stone building and estimated it would cost about $250,000 just to get the property up to date and ready for a new business.

And a new tenant would still have to put in another $100,000.

“It just wasn’t happening,” Birge said.

Jayne Singleton, executive director of the Spokane Valley Heritage Museum, said she was shocked when she heard the Plantation was being torn down.

“Last I heard they were trying to keep it around,” Singleton said.

The original stone building was constructed in the 1930s, Singleton said.

The first business on the site was Art Warsinski’s Evergreen Fur Farms, which opened in 1911. In the late 1920s, Warsinski turned the fur farm into the Evergreen Zoo, providing a home for animals that had lived in the zoo in Manito Park.

Singleton is not sure how long the zoo stayed in operation.

“In 1943 the Boots and Saddles Club opened there,” Singleton said. “That’s the first restaurant and bar.” The restaurant later became the Plantation.

Birge said he remembers taking his wife there for dinner in the 1980s.

“It was a nice restaurant then,” he said.

But the last 15 years, no restaurant or bar was able to gain a foothold there.

Now the empty lot is for lease. Birge also owns two lots to the west of the Plantation – a pawn shop and a mental health provider are located there – but said he has no plans to do anything to those parcels.

Spokane Valley does not have a historic preservation ordinance, but the City Council is considering adopting one in conjunction with the Spokane historic preservation office.

Singleton said there are many more old buildings in Spokane Valley – even some from the late 1800s – and that a historic preservation ordinance won’t necessarily stop them from being torn down.

“We can’t prevent people from doing things to their private property,” Singleton said.

The local historic marker commemorating the Mullan Trail that was located in front of the restaurant remains untouched.

The Valley Heritage Museum will be allowed to salvage a few things from the Plantation.

“I’m really happy about that,” Singleton said.