Spokane skywalks

The city’s upper avenues once served as busy footpaths between bustling commercial centers. Today, with two new skywalks under construction.

Section:Gallery

Sun., Jan. 7, 2018

Using the downstown Spokane skywalk system, pedestrians walk between the Crescent Court building and River Park Square, Friday, Jan 5, 2018.

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Using the downtown Spokane skywalk system, pedestrians walk between the Crescent Court building and River Park Square, Friday, Jan 5, 2018.

Colin Mulvany The Spokesman-Review Buy this photo
Dru Hieber, owner of the Bennett Block in downtown Spokane, plans to renovate the skywalk that connects her building to the Parkade starting in spring.

Colin Mulvany The Spokesman-Review Buy this photo
In this 1966 file photo, the booms of two construction derricks resemble two busy, giant arms placing materials for the fast-rising Parkade building in downtown Spokane. This view looks southwest from Main and Stevens. The 10-level structure will feature awning-covered "skywalks" circling its second floor, foot bridges crossing over traffic to other nearby stores and a mall with a number of small shops and a fountain. Seven downtown businesses are investing in the $3.5 million retail parking facility, which will have 969 car stalls and have 37,000 square feet of retail facility on its ground floor. Sceva Construction Company is building Parkade, designed by Warren Cummings Heylman & Associates.

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This is a 1967 photo of the second span of the pedestrian walk across Howard, at the northeast corner of Howard and Main. This was the early stage of the "skywalk" system that currently links many downtown businesses.

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Skywalk from Brooks to Parkade in 1967.

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The downtown Spokane Skywalk system was bustling in April of 1977.

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David A. Clack., left, helps Mayor Bair with scissors on Riverside skywalk in 1978.

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This is the latest link in Spokane's expanding downtown skywalk system as seen against a backdrop of the Parkade parking structure. The span across Stevens at Riverside links First National and Old National banks. Apr. 3, 1978.

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The first skywalk to bridge Riverside Avenue links the Old National Bank Building to the Paulsen Building, from which this photo was taken in 1978. The framework for the second-story span in the West 400 block of Riverside was installed yesterday. Another section will bridge Stevens and extend to the Sherwood Building at W510 Riverside, then connect with the Parkade, hub of a growing core-area skywalk system.

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In this 1979 file photo, replacement of fabric canopies over downtown Spokane's first skywalk sections with metal covers of progressing toward a scheduled completion date in early July. The sections, linking blocks at the intersection of Main and Howard, will be enclosed with windows and will be "climate controlled."

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Remodeled Skywalk on Howard and Main in 1979.

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Main street skywalks. Apr. 26, 1979.

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Workers from H. Halvorson Construction Co. and Hite Crane and Rigging Co. took advantage of light Sunday traffic to begin installing the first skywalk across Riverside Avenue in downtown Spokane in 1979. The skywalk, above, connects the Paulsen Building and the Sherwood Building in the W400 block of Riverside. It is part of a skywalk system planed by Old National Bancorporation to link its subsidiaries, Old National Bank of Washington and First National Bank of Spokane, with the Parkade and Paulsen Buildings. Other links in the system under construction include skywalks from the Parkade to First National Bank and from First National to the ONB building. The skywalk plan was approved by the City Council in July despite objections from Richard J. Weber, a Spokane County appraiser, who said the skywalks would have a "tragic impact" on the ONB building, which called "very possibly the Northwest's masterpiece of terra cotta architecture," and on Riverside, "the ceremonial avenue of the city."

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Welder working on skywalk between Saa First tower and parking garage over Sprague Avenue in 1981.

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Vaulting Main along Howard is the first span of a "skywalk" system planned eventually to link a number of major downtown buildings with the Parkade parking and retail facility, shown here at right in 1987. The pre-cast concrete beams were lifted into place Friday. Another span in the first section of the overhead system will cross Howard to the Bon Marche on the northwest corner.

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Firefighters stand outside the Orange Julius restaurant on the second floor of the Parkade in 1989. Firefighters used axers to break through Skywalk windows at about 7:15 pm Wednesday. The firefighter on the left is Lt Byron Henderson. His colleagues is unidentified.

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Students perform street theater to protest US policy in Central America and the Persian Gulf in a downtown skywalk in 1990. Thorin Brown points at Elijah Harrison while Davis Krell performs from the floor. The group of students from Ferris and Mead high schools and Spokane Falls Community College dispersed when police arrived.

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Rain didn't deter shoppers in downtown Spokane in 1990. These two head for the Skywalk at Main and Wall. Skywalks

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1991 - Larry Soehren shows repairmen damage done to the skywalk across Howard Street after a truck hit it. The damage was purely cosmetic.

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1991 - Charlie Pierce, left, ropes off part of the sidewalk between Main and Riverside after an Atlas Van Lines truck got stuck under a downtown Spokane skywalk Thursday. No one was injured but the skywalk was damaged.

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Shoppers pause to watch the Lilac parade from the skywalk above Wall Street in 1991.

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Larry Lajiness of Goebel Construction gently guides a 72-foot skybridge to its resting place at River park Square in 1993. The bridge spans Lincoln Street to the construction site of the Spokane Public Library. Crews had to jockey the structure up and down and back and forth to make it fit.

Dan Pelle The Spokesman-Review Buy this photo