Water feature eliminated from Depot Park master plan

Depot Park is expected to go through some major upgrades in coming years, but a few of the items on the list have changed.

The city continues to implement the park’s master plan that was approved in 2012. However, City Council last month approved changes to that master plan.

Chief among the modifications to the plan is the elimination of a planned water feature. Other changes include the reconstruction of all of Spokane Avenue, from Railway to Depot streets, adding angled parking on Railway Street and adding a bicycle and pedestrian path along the north side of the O’Shaughnessy Center with a mid-block crossing on Central Avenue.

Depot Park hosts roughly eight major events and many smaller events during the year.

“It’s nice to see the Depot Park master plan move ahead,” Councilor Richard Hildner said. “This means additional amenities for the city.”

Ryan Mitchell, with Robert Peccia & Associates, and landscape architect Bruce Boody worked on the revisions to the plan.

Mitchell explained the reason for eliminating the water feature saying that state regulations made the project cost prohibitive because the water would have to be treated and the area fenced.

“Also with water conservation it’s just not the way we want to operate,” he said.

In the original master plan it called only for a section of Spokane Avenue to be reconstructed, but Mitchell said it made more sense to reconstruct the whole street.

On Railway Street, the plan calls for changing the parking to angled rather than the current parallel parking. This was changed to keep car doors from opening out onto the pedestrian walkway that runs along the south edge of the park.

“It doesn’t encroach into the park that much,” he said.

The city has applied to BNSF for an easement to create an underpass for Baker Avenue that would allow for the construction of a bike and pedestrian path near the O’Shaughnessy Center. The path is part of the city’s downtown master plan and the bike and pedestrian plan, and now has been added to the Depot Park master plan.

Depot Park has been scheduled for a number of changes this summer that are part of the master plan. The removal of the existing building and adjacent parking lot is planned along with improving drainage in the area north of the building that had been the location of a pond.

A new gazebo and landscaping on the southeast corner of the park was completed last month. The gazebo is 24 feet in size and handicap accessible.

Hazardous trees were also removed from the park.

Work set for the next few years is expected to include installing a tent area on the east edge of the park that includes permanent fixtures to place tent poles into, widening and changes to the sidewalks around the park, and widening of Central Avenue and Spokane Avenue streets on each side of the park.

The city purchased Depot Park in 2009 and created a master plan for the design and development of the park to meet the current and future needs of the community in regard to downtown open space.

The Depot Park master plan calls for projects estimated at about $1.8 million. The funds for the work will come from the city’s tax increment finance fund, and will have to be completed before the TIF district sunsets in 2020.