The saga over saving downtown Spokane’s historic Rookery Block ended in disappointment for the community’s preservationists. The three venerable buildings are gone. The Merton tumbled in 2004; the Rookery and Mohawk followed in 2006.

But at least the tussle produced a consolation prize. In 2005, the Spokane City Council adopted an ordinance that generally prevents demolition of a downtown historic building unless it’s going to be replaced with a new structure.

That law didn’t spare the Rookery and Mohawk, because owner Wendell Reugh had secured his demolition permit before it was enacted. Hence, the space along Howard between Riverside and Sprague now features a surface parking lot.

Thanks to design standards that have been evolving over the past several years, Reugh’s parking lot is a far cry from the sprawling, featureless expanses of uneven asphalt that blot the cityscape a few blocks to the east. It has landscape features and is surrounded by a stone wall and street trees that lend a modest aesthetic touch.

But while it’s an improvement on the kind of eyesore that might have been suffered in the past, it does not conform to the plans that Reugh’s company submitted to city officials before the lot was built. Rather than sending the developer back to do it over, however, the city found a way, by requiring performance bonds, to go forward with a project in which the developer didn’t adhere to his own plans.

That could leave other developers – whose more responsible approach is evident in such recent projects as the AmericanWest Bank and the American Legion Building – to wonder why they took pains to play by the rules.

In the case of Reugh’s parking lot, a variety of discrepancies have caught city agencies’ attention, but the most significant seems to be that while the plans conformed to the city’s requirement that trees be spaced every 25 feet, they are actually farther apart. The lot is about seven trees short of compliance.

The Downtown Spokane Plan – which emphasizes the importance of street trees in a healthy, pedestrian-friendly core – has been embraced by downtown business owners, not because they love regulation, but because they understand the link between community vitality and proper urban design.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the Rookery, Mohawk and Merton buildings were constructed, downtown Spokane underwent a bold spurt of progress. Something similar is happening today, as evidenced by the Davenport Hotel, the Fox Theater, the University District, Steamplant Grill, Kendall Yards and a general flurry of loft and condo activity.

It would be a colossal mistake to take a lackadaisical attitude toward the planning standards that will assure quality projects.

To capitalize fully on the promise that awaits downtown Spokane, regulatory departments need to work cooperatively with developers who want to be part of the vision. But they need to be firm when firmness is called for.