State-of-the-art gondolas added to park’s Sky Ride

Construction crews have begun installing the new gondolas on the Riverfront Park Sky Ride, bringing sightseers closer to viewing the Spokane Falls from above all year long.

New technology and enclosed cabins will make it possible to enjoy the attraction even in winter, when cold weather has kept many away from the ride because the original open-air gondolas left them exposed to the icy elements.

“This system is obviously state of the art,” said Craig Butz, assistant manager of the Park and Recreation Division. “It’s the same system used up on ski hills, so we will be able to use it now when the falls are really the most active from wintertime to summer.”

The revamped attraction will take riders over the falls daily from March to October, and on weekends and holidays from November through February. The new setup will provide access for riders with disabilities, move faster and carry more people every hour.

But it will cost a bit more to ride now.

Tickets will be $6 for adults; $5 for teens, senior citizens and military personnel; and $4 for children ages 3 to 12. Before the ride was closed two years ago, tickets were $4.75 for all riders.

“We’re expecting the revenue from the tickets to not only retire our debt, but to add to our funds,” Butz said. “With this package we’re going to set aside funds for parts and pieces in the future.”

The 15 new purple gondolas are the top of the line – fully enclosed, with automatic doors and seating for six, a vast improvement over the old gondolas installed for the 1974 World’s Fair held in Riverfront Park, construction site manager Carl Perkins said.

The old system was a second-hand ride, built in the 1960s and then sold to Spokane for the fair, Butz said.

The $2.5 million project was scheduled to open when construction on the Monroe Street Bridge is completed in mid-September. The ride passes under the bridge as it spans the Spokane River falls and gorge.

But with the bridge railings already in place, the Parks and Recreation Division hopes to open the ride around Labor Day weekend.

Butz said he is confident that the project, paid for with a Spokane City Council bond, would come in under budget and open on time.

A gondola’s expected life is approximately 20 years, with refurbishments every five to 10 years, according to the Parks and Recreation Division. Butz said that when the time came to make a decision about the ride’s future, and the options were weighed, the best choice was to buy a new system and replace all the elements.

“Its time had come,” he said.

Once the construction crews finish installing and calibrating the mechanical elements of the ride the city still has two to three weeks of work to rebuild a ticket pavilion, re-landscape the area and build a shelter for the operator.

Butz said he hopes the improvements – like a more prominent starting point in the southwest corner of the park – will bring new attention to what was once a locals-only favorite.

“Before, it was kind of a diamond in the rough. You had to kind of go hunt for it. If you weren’t from Spokane you wouldn’t know anything about it,” he said. “It’s the best way to see the Spokane Falls. You can’t go wrong.”