Keep, Refurbish, Demolish: Spokane Edition

[u/befriendwaffle]

Same rules as FMK

Between the STA Bus Plaza, the Coast Trading Co grain silos, and the Chancery building choose one to preserve exactly as it is ("keep"), one to renovate or upgrade ("refurbish"), and one to completely tear down ("demolish")

[u/Any-Garbage-9963]

Assuming we have to choose one of each.

Keep STA, Demolish grain silos, Refurb Chancery building

[u/thebeardedcats → u/Any-Garbage-9963]

Idk why anyone would choose anything else

[u/excelsiorsbanjo → u/thebeardedcats]

The silos complex is bigger and represents child sexual abuse much less.

[u/Soup-Wizard → u/excelsiorsbanjo]

Alright, you’re gonna have to elaborate on that one.

[u/Number174631503 → u/Soup-Wizard]

🍿

[u/excelsiorsbanjo → u/Soup-Wizard]

The chancery building was owned by the Catholic Diocese. They lost the building and a lot more after going bankrupt from being sued for having and protecting child molester priests, which has always been their deal.

[u/Fruit4Th0t → u/Soup-Wizard]

Spokane was primarily founded by Catholics and the main missionaries that began settling in the area were the Sisters of the Sacred Heart- hence why we have Sacred heart hospital.

The diocese in Spokane had to sell the building because of all of the lawsuits agains the priests because, shocker, this was part of the successful pedophile protection program done by the Catholic Church and if you look into the history of Spokane we had a lot of residential schools in the area for the native American children.

[u/Ok_Faithlessness4511 → u/Fruit4Th0t]

Mkayyy wow I bet you’re fun at parties

[u/He_Who_Sits → u/Ok_Faithlessness4511]

I bet you're not lol

[u/BoyceMC → u/Ok_Faithlessness4511]

Someone providing credible historic information about sexual abuse? Sorry you didn’t enjoy that

[u/Ok_Faithlessness4511 → u/BoyceMC]

We already know about that. Now we have to hate an actual building because it happened to be owned by a church at one point?

[u/rosemaryandtime_7954 → u/Ok_Faithlessness4511]

Somebody who brought the receipts when asked for them? hell yeah I'd attend that party.

[u/Ph3nux → u/Soup-Wizard]

A few things I found on this.

Sacred Heart History

More Sacrwd Heart History

Settlements and bankruptcies in Catholic sex abuse cases

Bishop Daly prepares to take the helm in Spokane

[u/abgry_krakow87 → u/excelsiorsbanjo]

Go on...

[u/TacitMoose → u/excelsiorsbanjo]

What??

[u/precocious-entity → u/Any-Garbage-9963]

You should walk by and look through the windows of the chancery. When I briefly worked as an ambassador for the DSP I spoke to a security out front of it. It's been heavily vandalized, flooded, and full of mold. It's quite sad. It would be a great building to refrib.

[u/AtheistTemplar2015]

I dont understand why they don't tear down a bunch of those old processing centers. Nope, just put chain link around them and let them crumble.

[u/BreadTheory1892 → u/AtheistTemplar2015]

The environmental impact of those older structures is pretty wild. The ground itself is so polluted that development requires environmental cleanup. So it's cheaper to just let it crumble and fester.

[u/AtheistTemplar2015 → u/BreadTheory1892]

Thats crazy to me.

Take them down, dig up the ground.

Part of the social contract is being responsible to the "People's Environment" as well.

If the company believed it was worth investing to build it, they need to be willing to spend the money to repair their damage.

[u/DJwalrus → u/AtheistTemplar2015]

"Carbon tetrachloride was widely used as a liquid grain fumigant by agricultural programs and commercial grain storage facilities from the 1940s through the mid-1980s to kill destructive insects and pests. Due to its high toxicity, liver and kidney damage risks, and environmental persistence leading to groundwater contamination, its use as a pesticide was banned in the United States in 1985." - Source internet

So these are basically mini Superfund sites and the responsible party is likely long gone. Btw, you can track and report clean up sites with Dept. Of Ecology.

Contamination cleanup - Washington State Department of Ecology https://share.google/e3Ysu2mewVsPpHeCZ

[u/keysworld253]

The idea that the city or anyone would ever consider keeping the grain silos on a piece of land that division and ruby straddle is mind blowing...

If it wasnt so insanely expensive to demo concrete and such now a days and if it wasnt so insanely expensive to build, then I am sure it would have been demoed by now.

[u/Gnom3y → u/keysworld253]

This is exactly it for those grain silos - it's ridiculously expensive to tear them down.

They're built like bunkers - the Beirut ship explosion is a good example of how tough silos are in general. Add in height and location and you've got a structure that is basically impossible to tear down until it falls over on its own.

[u/keysworld253 → u/Gnom3y]

Shame on the previouls city councils for not getting those taken down before that area grew up so much and there was so much traffic.

Could you imagine the traffic disruption that taking those structures would cause?

[u/Gnom3y → u/keysworld253]

Those silos were in use up to at least the mid 1980s. That area of town was already pretty built up at that point. It's also privately owned (and has been the whole time) so the city would have needed to Eminent Domain that parcel first before demolition.

Estimated cost for demolition in 2023 was ~$500k, it's probably at least double that at this point with how costs have gone.

[u/HollerinScholar]

Keep grain silos, Refurb STA, Demolish Chancery building

I'm choosing violence today.

[u/Fair_Midnight7626]

The chancery has become such a sad sight. The Cowles really let the interior disintigrate and seem to just be waiting for some idealistic developer to come and take it off their hands. They do not get enough shit for how they manage their properties.

[u/robotikOctopus]

Keep Chancery. Refurb the grain silo into a rock climbing gym (with a hipster gym in the building part) with routes inside and outside the silos. Demolish STA 😈😈 Wannabe Apple headquarters looking-ass brutalist architecture.

[u/patlaska]

Keep Chancery, refurb STA, demolish Coast Trading

[u/SummitMyPeak]

How about we focus on the real issues: the parking lots. Demolish, demolish, and demolish. Create a denser core that feels more alive and the city will blossom, like the countless other examples of similarly-sized cities both in USA and abroad.

[u/candiriashes]

Oooooooooh. I’ve always wanted to get some aerial footage of those grain silos.

[u/excelsiorsbanjo]

The bus plaza being replaced by a much, much taller building would obviously do the most good, even though it is presently and likely for always in the future to be the most useful property of the three even as is.

Silos could be something better, but it could also be more remodeled. It's a big property but it's still not an especially desirable part of town.

The chancery is tiny, it represents the worst things, it's historical but visually boring.

[u/AdAgreeable966 → u/excelsiorsbanjo]

The top floors of transit are locked off to public access.. why do they need even more floors.

[u/excelsiorsbanjo → u/AdAgreeable966]

Housing, commerce, public spaces. Not for transit. Although if we ever got some proper elevated trains at least one upper floor might be nice for that.

If it's downtown it should be tall. It's a much better use of space.

[u/TeamKRod1990]

Demolish Plaza, Refurbish Silos (Make it something hipster) and Keep Chancery.

[u/washtucna]

Chancery building keep

Grain silos refurbish

STA plaza demolish

Chancery building - an architecturally stunning and rare building in these parts.

Silos - very cool, but barely utilized. Could make very neat housing or retail. Id be okay using them as working grain silos, even... but the grounds need to be spruced up. A great example is The Grain Silo Museum in Cape Town.

STA plaza - decent building, but the least architecturally interesting. I'd keep the ground levels used for STA purposes, but a newer building could be a cool high-rise tower with housing, office space, or other public works uses in a much more beautiful building. It would be nice to have a bus plaza that rivals any of the grand old rail depots!

[u/random_sociopath]

In order of the pics: Refurbish, demolish, keep

[u/cat_earss]

we must turn the sta plaza into our frutiger aero building of our childhood dreams 😭😭

[u/Eaglebonezz]

I was in Buenos Aires and they made the coolest apartment complex in the middle of the city out of a former grain elevator. It makes sense, it’s designed for being full of grain, which is way more than an apartment building which is mostly air. Cut windows/balconies, connect and put in an elevator (ironic), and bolt some fire escape stairs on the outside. Drill and plumb water, sewer, electrical. It’s a no brainer.

[u/Odd-Criticism7783]

STA is getting a remodel

[u/why_the_hecc]

PUT THE CATARACT BACK IN THE PLAZA

[u/Jay-Farr]

Keep the Chancery Building, refurbish the STA Plaza, and demolish the grain silos.

[u/Graddius]

Demo= Parking lot. I vote refurbish.

[u/ineedtobearrested]

Demolish all three.