A community recreation center inside an elementary school. A park or open space within a 10-minute walk of every Spokane resident, even those farthest from the city's core. Free swim lessons for second graders. Open and clean public restrooms throughout the city's park system. Well-lit, all-weather fields within each of the city's high school boundaries.
These innovative projects and more may soon become reality under a collaborative effort between Spokane Parks & Recreation and Spokane Public Schools.
Dubbed "Together Spokane," this package of projects, which has been in the works for nearly two years, will come to voters in two pieces in November.
One piece is a 20-year $240 million levy from Spokane Parks & Recreation that the Spokane City Council voted 6-0 to send to voters (Council member Jonathan Bingle was absent) during its May 5 meeting.
The other piece is a 20-year $200 million bond from Spokane Public Schools. The School Board unanimously approved sending the bond to voters on May 14.
If both are passed, more than 200 projects will be built citywide over the next two decades. These include upgrades and renovations to schools, more maintenance at parks, and many new and improved fields for school sports and local recreation.
Together, the tax initiatives will cost taxpayers an additional 29 cents per $1,000 in assessed property value. That means someone who owns a $330,000 home (the median assessed home value in Spokane County) would see an additional $7.98 in property taxes per month.
Spokane taxpayers are still paying off previous school bonds (including one from 2009 that will end in 2029) and the 2014 Riverfront Park bond (which will end in 2034), so the 29 cents solely represents the increase in property taxes over current rates. In total, taxpayers will be contributing $1.36 per $1,000 in assessed property value each month for schools if the 2025 school bond is approved and $1.18 per $1,000 in assessed value for parks if the levy is passed.
"By working together we have more projects for less of an overall cost to the community," Spokane Public Schools Superintendent Adam Swinyard explains. "That really happens through sharing land, sharing programming, collaborating, coordinating construction, and then almost $11 million of outside funding so far."
The outside funding comes from places like Hoopfest, the Boys & Girls Club, and the Spokane Youth Sports Association, Swinyard says. Even some national organizations have gotten involved. For example, the U.S. Tennis Association will fully fund the construction of an indoor tennis center at Shadle Park High School if both funding requests pass.
"It hits every little niche in the community that [makes citizens] feel like 'This is my community. This is the identity of our neighborhood.' I think that's been missing as we continue to invest in our neighborhoods, and this gives us a chance for those neighborhoods to take ownership in these public spaces," Spokane Parks Director Garrett Jones says. "That investment and seeing that positive act of innovation, to me, is the biggest, most impactful thing that we have not done before in the Spokane community."
WORKING TOGETHER
While school district and city leaders say this is one of the largest collaborations in Spokane's history, it's far from the first. In 2018, Spokane Public Schools ran a $495 million school bond in conjunction with a $77 million public libraries bond. Both were approved by about two-thirds of voters, which paid for construction and renovation of six middle schools and seven libraries in the city over the following six years.
Today, Shaw Middle School's library doubles as the Hillyard Public Library, and the library collections at all of the district's middle schools are now connected with the city's library system.
"Going alone is not even a viable option anymore, both just from the practicality of it and the value aspect, and so, [Together Spokane is] an opportunity in a changing community to say we really believe in collaboration and partnerships," Swinyard says. "We're in a position to establish that as the new normal in Spokane."
Hoping to replicate the success of the 2018 partnership, Swinyard says Spokane Parks & Recreation approached the school district in summer 2023, ahead of the parks levy that was intended to be on February 2024 ballots. Both entities agreed that working together would be beneficial, but when the Spokane City Council voted to postpone the parks levy — the first of three delays — the school district moved forward with its own $200 million bond.
While the bond received 56% voter approval, Washington state law requires these types of tax initiatives to gain 60% voter approval to pass.
That failure reignited work on the collaborative effort now known as "Together Spokane."
JOINT PROJECTS
If both the parks levy and school bond are passed together, they'll fund about 30 joint projects. This includes renovating an indoor aquatic center on Spokane Community College's campus, turning an elementary school into a community center and bringing more sports fields to the city.
School and parks leadership went into "Together Spokane" with two main goals. First, they wanted to ensure every member of the community could be active every day.
"We as a community need to be off of our screens, out of our homes, together, doing something in real life," Swinyard says. "We know that that is critical for a healthy, thriving community."
Second, Swinyard says, every Spokanite should benefit and save money on these projects. That could come from having new trails and parks to explore closer to home, easier access to youth and adult recreation opportunities or from even newer, safer school buildings for their kids.
The need for more sports fields is salient for the district, spokesperson Ryan Lancaster says. Last year, Spokane Public Schools had 15,000 students participating in extracurricular activities, like school sports and afterschool clubs, and this year there are nearly 19,000 students doing the same.
"If we have a sports complex, then we'll be able to host large tournaments," Swinyard says, referring to the planned Merkel Sports Complex expansion, which would develop more fields at the former Joe Albi Stadium site. "[Then] that family doesn't have to drive to Tri-Cities or Yakima for an out-of-town tournament. Or maybe that family couldn't ever go in the first place because they couldn't afford it. We understand the economic challenges, we understand the realities of a tax burden. And that's why one of the goals was that people could look at it and say, 'Oh, well, that actually saves me money in the long run.'"
Spokanites have been asking Parks & Recreation for more indoor aquatic centers for years, but building a new center could cost upward of $100 million, Parks Director Jones says. That cost has been prohibitive, but through this partnership, the parks department and school district realized they could meet this need for much less money by renovating an unused pool at Spokane Community Colleges.
"Having this year-round facility and building that into the curriculum at the school district, to have every second grader receive swimming lessons is crucial when we look at water safety around the community that we live in," Jones says. "We're looking at maybe a million [dollars] to $1.5 million for actual physical investments in that facility, and that return that we can get now to that location is great for us."
Jones says this project is especially important for the school district's neurodivergent students, as the leading cause of death for kids with autism in the U.S. is drowning.
Each joint project relies on both the parks levy and the school bond being passed by voters in November. However, if voters only approve one or the other, there are still plenty of projects that will be completed.
NEW PARKS & RENOVATED RESTROOMS
Spokane Parks & Recreation has historically focused on targeted special projects, such as the $64 million investment in Riverfront Park that voters approved in 2014, Jones says. So this major collaboration, which intends to spread funds throughout the city, is new for the department.
"This is a kind of a complete shift into that 'every single neighborhood, every single park, every single school' having an investment mentality," Jones says. "It's not only the capital investment, but it's also the maintenance and operations and security enhancement investments, too."
More than half of Spokane residents who were surveyed for the 2022 Parks and Natural Lands Master Plan said they didn't feel welcome or safe in city parks due to trash, drug use and encampments. If the parks levy is approved, the city will double its park ranger staff to provide a physical presence in most neighborhood parks.
"Right now, our park ranger program is very centered around Riverfront Park, and that's how it's been managed in the past," Jones says. "We've seen the benefit in Riverfront Park, so now it's being able to duplicate that to all our park spaces and school grounds."
The parks levy will also fund repairs and replacements for every bathroom in Spokane parks, many of which are closed to the public because they don't work during colder months.
"If we're providing a programmed experience at one of our parks, whether that is soccer, lacrosse, football, we must have the appropriate amenities to be able to accommodate that, and right now we can't achieve that because a lot of our restrooms are built to where they have to be winterized in freezing temperatures," Jones explains.
Additionally, one of Spokane Parks & Recreation's most ambitious goals is to ensure that every Spokanite is at most a 10-minute walk from a park or open space. If the levy passes, the city will be able to build three new parks in neighborhoods that don't currently have easy access.
In Northwest Spokane, the city will build Meadowglen Park on about 30 acres of land in the North Indian Trail neighborhood. Under the current plan, 14 acres of the land will be developed into a park, and the other 16 acres will be preserved as natural habitat.
In Northeast Spokane's Shiloh Hills neighborhood, they'll build Friendship Park.
The third park will be opened in the Latah/Hangman neighborhood on the edge of the Qualchan Golf Course, Jones says. The school district also owns land in the same area, and if the school bond passes planning will start for a new elementary school there.
Creating a new park requires a lot of input from those who live nearby, Jones says. So each may look different, maybe including a sports court or a dog park or a covered shelter.
"We work with the community on what those needs and priorities are, and then we build that into a design," Jones says.
NEW & IMPROVED SCHOOLS
On top of improvements to each of the district's schools, the school bond by itself will allow Spokane Public Schools to create a new trades-based high school at the Spokane Community College campus. This would be a full-day program for high school students interested in a trades career. Ninth and 10th grade students will take classes just like their peers, then shift to a Running Start model in 11th and 12th grades.
"This is an incredible opportunity for kids to graduate, get that diploma, also get that two-year technical degree and be really ready to launch successfully into the workforce," Swinyard explains. "It's a huge value for the students, while at the same time being an incredible enhancement to workforce development and having more kids ready to go to meet some of these career fields that are in really high demand. We need plumbers. We need electricians. We need those individuals to do the trades in our community in order for our economy to be successful and for us to meet the needs of our local residents."
The bond will also fund the Community School's relocation. Currently, the project-based high school operates inside an old elementary school on North Monroe Street. If the bond is passed, the school will be moved into the district's recently acquired building in the University District. ♦
