Spokane

Leasing authority turned over to PFD
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Mike Prager
Staff writer

Spokane City Council members decided Monday to get out of the commercial real estate leasing business.

They voted 5-2 to give the Spokane Public Facilities District authority over a proposed land-swap and lease between the district and Azteca Mexican Restaurant.

The swap makes way for expansion of the Spokane Convention Center through the addition of a 100,000-square-foot exhibit hall on land east of the existing Convention Center.

Ramos Enterprises, which operates Azteca at 200 W. Spokane Falls, owns a 57,000-square-foot piece of the land being sought for the convention center.

Rather than buy the restaurant site for an asking price of more than $5 million, the PFD had offered to sublease a city-owned site to the restaurant at the northeast corner of Washington and Main, officials said.

The PFD would give Azteca's owners a 30-year lease on a 10,000-square-foot site, plus $2.1 million to build a new restaurant and access to parking. The proposed lease also calls for a possible 10-year extension.

The PFD currently holds a lease from the city on the land, and had asked the council to approve a sublease with Azteca.

Instead, the council agreed to turn over the land to the PFD within the next few weeks.

Council members Steve Corker, Roberta Greene, Al French, Steve Eugster and Dennis Hession voted in favor of the action.

French said he was troubled that the sublease made it appear the city was subsidizing a private business.

Eugster said voters had approved the Convention Center expansion and turning over ownership of the land at Washington and Main to the PFD would move that decision ahead.

He said there would be no change in the city's financial interests.

Council President Rob Higgins and Cherie Rodgers voted no.

Rodgers said she preferred that the PFD purchase the Azteca site, and not offer the lease swap.

Higgins said he opposed the decision to build the enlarged exhibit hall on the land where Azteca now sits.

He said the single-story restaurant was not appropriate in an urban environment and its patrons would take up as many as 110 parking spaces needed for events downtown.

In an interview after the council vote, PFD Executive Director Kevin Twohig said the restaurant building would conform with older downtown buildings with little setback from sidewalks.

He said construction of the new restaurant could be completed by mid-2004 in time for demolition of the old one and ground preparation for the expansion, scheduled to begin this summer.

The convention center expansion is expected to be completed in 2006.

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