Mark Richard: A valuable network in city’s core

The first downtown skywalk celebrated its 50th birthday with little fanfare recently, but skywalks have played an important role in both our history and our success in sustaining a vibrant downtown. Spokane was once a pioneer in this transportation mode, but today many cities that experience distinct seasons utilize skywalks as a means to move their employees and visitors in their urban cores.

Our skywalk network offers not only climate control from the elements but speed and efficiency for downtown’s nearly 30,000 employees running to meetings, grabbing a quick meal or doing some shopping – by eliminating crosswalks and streetlights from their commutes. As a result of this activity, skywalks provide a viable, less-expensive space alternative compared with ground floor storefront retail space for entrepreneurs wishing to capitalize on this foot traffic for their retail or commercial business operations. This is particularly useful for businesses that rely on some amount of incidental visibility but that have a clientele following as well.

Further, many businesses cater directly to downtown employees; making pick-up and deliveries a snap in our busy workdays with a direct pipeline to customers via the network. Banking, watch repair, tailoring, financial management, hair dressers, shoe repair and doggy day care services are a few such examples beyond traditional retail stores.

While recent trends in on-line shopping are good reason to question whether Spokane can sustain this additional floor of retail space, one trek in the system during peak times of the day will demonstrate both the value locals place in our skywalks, and their untapped potential.

I say untapped because I contend that just as brick and mortar retail must constantly re-evaluate their relevance in this digital age, property owners and businesses would be wise to stretch their thinking on how to capitalize on these unique corridors in a manner that can offer more unique experiences people are in search of today; intimate settings where memories are made.

Vancouver, B.C., integrates beautiful art exhibits in some of its skywalks for example. But let’s go a step further. Imagine your stress dissipating as you sit alone at a quaint bistro table sipping on a latte in the downtown library “skywalk café,” mesmerized as your eyes dart back and forth between the words in your book and the magnificent river falls below the new public plaza. At last your battery is recharged and you dart into the adjacent Nordstrom to complete your holiday shopping. Later in the week you catch up over a local craft beer or glass of wine with old friends in the quaint pop-up bar that stretches along the skywalk glass on Wall Street; your spirits lifted by the sounds of the horse and carriage ride as it rumbles below, and as you haphazardly watch for your kids to pass by on the new ice ribbon at the end of the block.

My point is this: Some will argue that skywalks dilute foot traffic to ground floor retail (leaving a perception that less activity is going on in downtown) and that therefore they should be removed. While there is merit to this concern, this doesn’t have to be. Our skywalk system is a valuable transportation network in the downtown core that serves residents and business alike. By addressing them through the same lens as we do our brick-and-mortar buildings in an ever-changing world, they can not only remain relevant but actually serve as a catalyst for a resurgence of off-street commercial and retail uses that add to, not detract, from street-level activity.

With 500 new units of housing coming on line in the next two years and hundreds more in the planning stage, there will be plenty of foot traffic to go around by creating one-of-a-kind experiences; and I can think of few spaces where this could occur that would be more unique and more cool than being suspended over the streets of downtown Spokane.