East Central council working to unite north, south sides of neighborhood

When Interstate 90 arrived in 1968, much of East Central Neighborhood’s history was divided along with its access routes.

“Liberty Park used to be a glorious park, like Manito,” said East Central Community representative Debby Ryan. “It was split in half.”

Residents from the industrial north side, walled off from the residential south side, developed their own neighborhood feel. “There is very much kind of a different cultural feel,” said East Central council chair Randy McGlenn II.

Spokane’s district map draws the line between District 1 and District 2 at I-90, further splitting the neighborhood, but McGlenn sees this as a blessing as well as a curse.

“We get four City Council members that come to our meetings,” he said. “We get a lot of ears to talk to.”

The East Central Neighborhood is bordered by East Trent Avenue to the north and Division Street to the west. The southern border runs east along Eighth Avenue, Rockwood Boulevard and 14th Avenue to Crestline Street, where it connects with the Ben Burr Trail and runs along the bluff to its eastern boundary at Havana Street.

A controversial tenant change in the East Central Community Center in January 2018 caused most frustrated north-side residents to stop attending council meetings altogether.

The Martin Luther King Family Outreach Center took over the community center in January after the Spokane City Council overturned a previous commitment to the East Central Community Organization, which had operated the center since 2012. Accusations of bias and conflicts of interest exacerbated the rift between the north and south sides of the neighborhood.

“A lot of people on this side of the freeway felt disenfranchised,” said East Sprague Business Association President LaVerne Biel.

“A lot of the people who were upset, they just stopped showing up,” McGlenn said. “That’s been one of the challenges; how do we bring those people back to the table?”

In an effort to rebuild the connection, McGlenn and Biel attend each other’s meetings and compare notes. They have plenty to talk about.

MLK has been hampered by the community center’s aged infrastructure. “There’s a lot of repairs to be done,” McGlenn said. “They are still trying to get on their feet with things.

The council supports the center through block grant funding; McGlenn wants to do that again this year – the final year before the neighborhoods switch to the district funding model.

“I just feel like that would give us the best dividend,” he said. “We may not have an opportunity like this again, where we can have that much influence.”

A November bond issue would move the neighborhood’s library from the community center to Liberty Park and add an educational outlet near Libby Center.

“We’ve been trying to make sure that the library stays where there’s people, instead of moving to where there’s businesses,” said Biel.

The incoming freeway connection isn’t catching anyone by surprise. “We’ve been working on this freeway thing for years and years,” said Ryan.

“All of the access to I-90 takes place here,” said McGlenn. “It’s going to take up an enormous chunk of our neighborhood, just building the infrastructure.”

The Altamont Street interchange has been on and off the table; the neighborhood is fighting hard to keep it.

“That main exit is how Chief Garry and people getting off the freeway get up the South Hill,” said Biel. “Otherwise, they have to use Division.”

Glenn said the neighborhood council is petitioning for pedestrian-controlled crosswalks near Liberty Park.

Said Glenn: “We are realistic about our expectations – pedestrian safety has been kind of lacking along the freeway corridor down here – but we’ve seen those implemented in a number of cities with great success.”

Restaurants, nonprofits, thrift shops and vintage stores dot the business district along recently road-diet refurbished East Sprague Avenue below Altamont.

“It’s starting to get more activity,” Biel said. “We are starting to have more restaurants, which improves the walkability of the neighborhood.”

The district’s path to reinvention faces two forbidding obstacles. One was a frustrating surprise, the other frustratingly familiar.

The road diet seemed poised to go off without a hitch. However, with no designed pull-out zones for the buses gave them no choice but to stop in the street, blocking traffic. Other vehicles, frustrated by buses stopping along Sprague, often cut down the side streets.

“We’ve seen a lot of traffic diverge onto First Avenue and an increase in accidents,” McGlenn said.

McGlenn said the traffic count on Sprague has dropped. “People are just going somewhere else,” he said. “It could mean less jobs in our neighborhood if businesses can’t grow along our corridor.”

The council is working with STA on solutions, but as of yet nothing has been decided. One suggestion was to reroute the buses down First Avenue.

Business owners are dealing with another, far older problem, in their efforts to attract customers. “Homeless people are leaving messes in doorways,” Biel said.

Grant Park is showing the effects as well. “There have been a lot of needles, a lot of vandalism,” Biel said.

“We get a lot of focus on that,” McGlenn said. “A good portion of the homeless population tends to coalesce into ours and some of the neighborhoods north of us.”

Biel said the last council meeting featured an extended conversation between the neighborhood and City Council representatives about balancing the social needs of the homeless with the security needs of the homeowners.

“It’s not that we want to displace the homeless,” Biel said. “But there needs to be a shift in the conversation.”