July 2020 - Parks & Recreation - 50

Spokane's
Riverfront Pavilion
How this renovation in Washington state serves as
a portal to the past while looking toward the future

istening to Matt Walker talk about the Riverfront Park project in
Spokane, Washington, it's clear that his excitement is palpable.
" Pictures don't do it justice. I wonder how amazing it looks
from the sky, " he says.
Walker, a project manager for Hill International, is talking about Spokane's
Riverfront Park pavilion and its recent renovations, which began in December
2017 and were completed in September 2020. The project is one of many under
the Riverfront Park Bond Program for which Hill is providing program, project
and construction management. The renovation is a point of pride for its project
manager, not only because of the role Walker played, but also because he's been
a Spokane resident for more than 16 years. This pavilion, he believes, will help
breathe new life back into Spokane's downtown Riverfront Park.

A Piece of History
and a Warning to All
Until recently, the pavilion had
been hidden away by buildings.
Like unsightly carpet in an old
house, " the pavilion was wall-towall concrete, " Walker says. " It
was a concrete jungle. "
However, the pavilion didn't always look this way.
In the 1970s, much like today,
the world had the environment on
its mind. It was the beginning of
the " modern environmental movement, " a time when nature became
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more than just breathtaking scenery. Scientific evidence had declared pollution a credible threat to
a once thriving world that humans
were slowly poisoning with vehicle
emissions, factories and litter. Protecting the earth became part of
the nation's agenda, so the United
States created the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) in 1970
and passed various " clean " legislation, like the Clean Air Act of 1970
and the Clean Water Act of 1972.
In May 1974, Spokane hosted Expo '74, a world's fair with a

theme that was the first of its kind:
" Celebrating Tomorrow's Fresh
New Environment. "
Nature had been on the minds
of Spokane officials well before
the start of the fair. Citizens and
politicians wanted to clean up the
industrial downtown area, including railroad tracks that intersected
streets and caused traffic jams, and
dilapidated buildings that blocked
views of the cherished Spokane
River and Falls.
Officials and community members considered Spokane Falls to
be the city's greatest attraction and
wanted to reunite the people with
its roaring waters. But the town was
small and didn't have the money to
fund such big dreams. As a solution, officials devised a plan to host
a world's fair, which would allow
the city to obtain state and federal
funding to pay for the town's cleanup. Once the fair left, the city could
create a downtown park that would
revitalize the community and bring
nature back to its citizens, some

PHOTOS COURTESY OF CITY OF SPOKANE PARKS & RECREATION

By Lindsey Wells and Elizabeth J. Zipf, LEED AP BD+C

July 2020 - Parks & Recreation

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