Five years ago this week, your favorite bar closed, that concert you had tickets for got canceled, and your go-to restaurant hadn't figured out how to ramp up takeout yet. Chances are, all of those emptied venues were downtown. The heart of Spokane became a ghost town, and we're still grappling with the economic, social and psychological impacts of that time.
To help us make sense of it, the Inlander interviewed Emilie Cameron, president of the Downtown Spokane Partnership. She offered unique insights into how downtown Spokane survived the pandemic and where it's headed now. Her responses have been edited for length and clarity.
INLANDER: What were the biggest impacts that COVID had on downtown Spokane?
CAMERON: Well, I think the most obvious is with the closure of business, just an overnight drop in activity in downtown.
It’s an important caveat that I did not get to Spokane until 2022, but I was in California, and it sounds like we were in very similar conditions. For a long time, downtown was purposefully the place for people to gather. Then, COVID created a fear of gathering. You often think about the tangible piece of people not being here and the economic impact of that, but then there’s the intangible part of, “What does that mean psychologically?” when you’re being told not to physically be together.
From what I can tell, over the last 20 years, Spokane had really grown, leaps and bounds, by way of revitalization initiatives. But fast-forward, and downtown Spokane was just disproportionately impacted by reduced foot traffic. We didn’t have as many residents living in the downtown core as other downtowns that had a strong residential population.
Overnight disappearance of foot traffic left empty streets then also created conditions where negative activity could flourish. This is not unique to Spokane, but without a balance of multiple people using downtown, one group I think maybe became more noticeable. I can’t tell you off the top of my head if homeless counts increased or decreased, but I think it definitely became more noticeable.
Five years later, is downtown Spokane still feeling any impacts from COVID?
We like to say the pandemic is in the rearview mirror, but that does not mean that we are not still continuing to feel the effect of the pandemic. Probably for some years to come, urban centers will continue in the recovery efforts, the most obvious being, what does the future of work look like downtown? About 70% of the employees who were in downtown pre-pandemic have returned to downtown today. They may not be in downtown as frequently as they were prior to 2020, but it is encouraging because there are many downtowns that have not reached that level yet.
But we have also seen large floors vacated by tenants that are no longer in downtown. They’ve made decisions either to downsize or move operations entirely, and some of that is because of remote work. Some of that was already in progress but maybe was sped up because of COVID.
But it also creates opportunity for downtown as we think about, what does the next generation of downtown Spokane look like? Who are the tenants? I think we’re seeing a very strong appetite again around an entrepreneurial ecosystem. That’s something that you saw out of the Great Recession — people leaning in again to what their passions were. I think we’re seeing that again here as we come out of COVID, and people are following that dream of working for themselves. What’s so unique about downtown is that this is where people and ideas collide and spark innovation. We’re seeing that really start to take off again.
For housing, we’re continuing to see new projects. We’re seeing a very strong appetite for living downtown. We’ve got several buildings right now that have 100% occupancy. And because of our architecture, the style of buildings we have, we have the “right bones,” so to speak, to convert office space into apartments. That doesn’t make it easy and doesn’t make it cheap, but I think you’re seeing an appetite not just among developers for that, but you’re really seeing an appetite among consumers who want to live in those types of spaces.
And then, what is so unique about downtown Spokane is that we are a destination — this is a place for not just regional travelers, but international travelers. I think you’re gonna continue to see that being an important part of our recovery in the next phase of defining downtown.
How would that change downtown if it was more residential and less office space?
On the street is a really critical part of creating vibrancy in a place. We talk a lot about that feeling of downtown, that feeling of activity. Residents are so crucial because they’re using downtown 24 hours a day. They are adding the density just by using their neighborhood naturally. Sometimes I think we forget because it’s such a hub for employment that downtown is also a neighborhood — it’s part of that full ecosystem and keeping a city healthy.
Do you have any idea of how much money downtown lost when things were closed?
Unfortunately, I don’t know that I can answer that question. But I can tell you, today, some numbers that are important to think about: Roughly 20% of the city’s taxable sales tax is generated downtown. About 15% of the city’s total workforce works downtown, and about 12% of the city’s total businesses are downtown, and 12% of restaurants and bars specifically are located downtown.
It’s even more impressive when you realize that downtown is only 0.7 % of the city’s total landmass. The national talking point you often hear is that for every dollar you invest in downtown, you get $7 back as a community. On average outside of downtown, every dollar you invest you get 50 cents back. It doesn’t mean it’s bad to invest outside of downtown, but it’s important to think about why a healthy downtown is so important to a city or to a region. It’s generating this important revenue that supports necessary public services in every single neighborhood throughout the city.
How does the experience of the pandemic transform your vision for the future?
It’s an interesting question — what is resiliency and how do you ever prepare for something like this again? We have to recognize that this was a phenomenal event. You probably could never really truly be prepared for it. However, the idea of resiliency is something that we’re constantly thinking about. The reason we want to be intentional about supporting more housing downtown is the idea that it builds a more resilient downtown.
Everyone felt the impact of COVID, but as a neighborhood, downtown was disproportionately impacted. The attempt to restart it does require intention and commitment and champions. Like I said with some of the stats, when downtown is healthy, the city is healthy. The region is healthy. Whether that be the lens of economics with tax revenue generation, but also the intangible. Especially for a place like Spokane, downtown is our identity as a region.
There’s a lot of evidence that shows that when you are emotionally invested in your place, you’re a happier person. Your community is healthier. It’s more connected. Downtown is crucial to that. It’s a place where everyone in the community can come together, gather, share, and innovate. When we have a strong and healthy downtown, it pays dividends for our community. So my hope is that we first recognize how special and important our downtown is, and then we continue to be intentional in making investments and support and championing the various elements it takes for downtown to thrive — so that everyone can thrive.♦
Editor's note: This story was updated on Friday, March 21 to remove a reference to $1 billion in taxable sales, and correctly state that about 20% of the city's taxable sales occur downtown.
