Three firms are finalists for Riverfront Park design

Iconic. Tremendous treasure. The heart of an entire region.

Superlatives were not lacking Tuesday as the city named the three finalists who will compete to determine the overall look and feel of Spokane’s Riverfront Park.

In front of the park’s Rotary Fountain in bright sunshine, parks Director Leroy Eadie introduced the teams, one of which will be chosen this summer by the city’s Park Board to design the park’s public spaces and park grounds, work that will effectively set the tone for the overall theme of the park.

Eadie also didn’t avoid breathless praise.

“When there’s a mention of the greatest urban parks in America, we want our Riverfront Park to be at the top of that list,” Eadie said, pointing to Boston’s Post Office Square, Brooklyn’s Prospect Park and Chicago’s Millennium Park.

What was lacking among the finalists was a local design team, though all three teams emphasized local connections they would tap in their work on the park, which is awaiting a five-year, $60 million renovation after two-thirds of voters approved a bond for the work in November. The three teams will publicly present their designs at Spokane City Hall on June 3.

Eadie said 13 local firms will work with the three finalists, calling the partnerships a “perfect marriage.”

“If we’re really going to stand on that national and international level of a pre-eminent urban park, we really need that combination,” Eadie said.

Monique Cotton, spokeswoman for the city’s Parks and Recreation Department, said no locally based firm was among the nine that submitted proposals. The three finalists are from the West Coast.

Portland’s Walker Macy has developed a number of waterfront spaces, including in Portland and Corvallis, Oregon, and in Sacramento, California. The firm also has designed numerous public spaces, including schools, parks, plazas and museums.

J. Douglas Macy, a founding principal of the firm, said his firm has worked on projects in Spokane for 25 years.

“It’s one of the great cities of the Inland Empire,” Macy said. “It’s always been one of my favorite places in the world.”

The Berger Partnership, from Seattle, has worked on many parks on the state’s West Side, and on projects for educational institutions such as Seattle University, the University of Washington and Whitman College.

Guy Michaelsen, who spoke for the firm at the news conference, was flanked by locals like Steve McNutt, a past president of the park board and principal at NAC Architecture, and Dave Nelson, a landscape architect with Land Expressions who is responsible for Spokane’s new Huntington Park.

“Dave bleeds Riverfront Park,” Michaelsen said, mentioning that Nelson’s father played a large role in the park’s design during Expo ’74. “He knows where the bodies are buried.”

Hargreaves Associates, from San Francisco, created the Olympic Park for the 2012 Olympics in London and the William J. Clinton Presidential Center, which surrounds Clinton’s presidential library. The firm has designed parks across the country, as well as in the United Kingdom and Australia.

Gavin McMillan, a senior principal and director of sustainability at Hargreaves, said the message of Expo ’74 reached him in Australia and inspired him to do what he does today.

“Personally, when I was a boy and this park first opened, I was on another continent and I was dreaming of becoming an architect,” McMillan said. “But I heard the message of the green Expo, which led me into landscape architecture, which led me to working on Expo in another place, which led me to working on the green Olympic Games … in London in 2012. I kind of feel like I’ve come full circle in being here today with the possibility of working on this project.”