Sounds of synergy – Hustle and bustle of people at work and play help make Carnegie Square model for Spokane

Jeff and Julia Postlewait enjoy the success of their downtown Rocket Bakery while dreaming of one day transforming it into a small grocery.

Ron Wells has a two-minute walking commute from his upscale condominium on Riverside Avenue to his office above the Rocket.

Alison Boggs
Staff writer

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/news-story.asp?date=011804&ID=s1473668&cat=section.business

A tile store next door and frame shop nearby send customers strolling back and forth, as do a shabby chic shop and antique dealer specializing in jewelry.

These businesses are all part of the mix at one of the more successful live, work and play neighborhoods in Spokane — Carnegie Square, developed by Wells and his wife, Julie.

All mixed up in a matter of a few square blocks around First and Cedar are the bakery, a deli, a bike shop, a hairdresser, antique shops, a frame store, tile shop and auto repairman. There are offices above the first-floor retail, and in buildings nearby. All of it is surrounded by hundreds of apartment units and nearby condominiums.

"Right now as I’m standing here I can hear the music and the hum of people’s conversations next door and I can hear people moving around in the tile shop," said Betsy Winter, owner of Shabby Sisters, which is sandwiched between the tile shop and bakery.

"You just feel like you’re part of something bigger, and I like that."

Commercial real estate developers say that feeling needs to spread in Spokane. There’s much talk of New Urbanism these days — a development style in which people can walk from where they live to where they work and play. The pedestrian is emphasized; the car is not.

The goal is to create synergy in a neighborhood that makes it a lively, vibrant place to be. That’s the type of development plan Seattle firm Nitze-Stagen is shooting for on Metropolitan Mortgage’s 76-acre Summit property on the north bank of the Spokane River.

It’s a model that has contributed to the success of Carnegie Square since the Wellses began renovating it 15 to 20 years ago.

"It’s a micromodel of what needs to happen on a bigger scale," said Scot Auble, of commercial real estate appraisers Auble, Jolicoeur and Gentry. "That’s the kind of synergy Ron Wells has worked into the Carnegie Square area."

Still, there’s room for improvement, said Tobby Hatley, a reporter for KHQ, Spokane’s NBC affiliate. Hatley has lived downtown for more than three years.

"What we really need downtown more than anything else are — in this order — a grocery store and a dry cleaner," Hatley said. "I think with all those people who live around there, you have your proverbial critical mass."

Jeff Postlewait tentatively agrees. The Rocket Bakery owner said he feels an "underlying growing energy" in Carnegie Square and thinks the time may come soon when he could transform the bakery into a small neighborhood grocery, similar to his Rocket Market on 43rd and Scott.

"We’re not rushing into it, but we definitely see the need," Postlewait said.

He’s been talking to downtown developers, such as the partners in the Odd Girls block to the east and Jim Kolva, a who is building housing nearby, and is excited about the idea.

"We’re trying to figure out when’s a good time," Postlewait said. "We’re all over it growing down there."

Also, the recent success of the Blue Chip Lofts, just off Adams and First, shows that Spokane is hungry for affordable downtown housing. The recently completed lofts sold out before the interior construction began.

"My feeling is more and more people are getting like me — they’d live downtown with the right place," said Chuck Little, whose family has owned Watts Automotive in Carnegie Square since the 1950s.

Little remembers being a kid in Spokane in the 1950s when auto dealers and parts shops dominated the west end of downtown.

When Lewis and Clark High School let out for the day, he’d head to the Carnegie Library to kill time until his dad closed shop and the pair could head home.

Then the dealers moved north and the parts shops followed. The area surrounding First and Cedar streets fell on rough times, with boarded up buildings, drug dealing and prostitution.

"I used to walk downtown, and every building was full. Then in the ’70s it was just a ghost town down here," Little said.

For the past 30 years, Little’s business has had a solid customer base, with not much room to expand, so the neighborhood’s decline didn’t hurt him financially, he said. However, he applauds the Wellses for the transformation.

The Wellses began buying and renovating buildings in the neighborhood in the mid-1980s and early 1990s, starting with the San Marco and Buena Vista apartment buildings. They followed with the Eldridge, on the southeast corner of Cedar and First, and moved their own offices there in February 1993. The Grand Coulee building across the street, on the southwest corner, was next.

Drawn to the area by the character of the historic buildings, they had renovated seven structures in the neighborhood by the mid-1990s, Ron Wells said.

"It is a little success story in terms of creating a neighborhood that feels like a neighborhood," he said. "There’s a real sense of accomplishment in seeing a series of buildings start to compose a neighborhood."

To energize street-level retail, the Wellses created Spokane Tile and Design Co. in 1993 in the Eldridge. Vino! A Wine Shop, moved into the building, as did Cravens Coffee Co.

Both eventually moved, but Simon Craven-Thompson said Carnegie Square provided the perfect launch for his business.

"I can’t think of anywhere better we could have been than right there," he said of beginning Cravens in an 800-square-foot spot in Carnegie Square in April 1993. The company moved out in October 1996 into a 4,000-square-foot spot at 1003 E. Trent.

Still, Craven-Thompson said, despite a "really awful bar" across the street that eventually closed, Carnegie Square provided Cravens exactly what it needed — great exposure.

"We thought we could get in at good low rates and we’ll be part of this little business district that will emerge around us," Craven-Thompson said.

"And that’s exactly what happened."

He said the company would have stayed if space had been available. Carnegie Square’s success resulted from "bringing in high-quality businesses, people working hard at what they did. It was a small-business magnet," Craven-Thompson said. "There were antiques across the street, and you could get your hair cut. It was amazing to me how quickly it happened."

Steve Loveland’s Two Wheel Transit bike shop was one of the first tenants in the square. He opened in 1984, then moved twice before returning eight years ago.

"It’s part of the learning curve," he said. "I’ve tried and made more mistakes than some of my competitors." Now he’s planning a move to Browne’s Addition because he wants to own his own building and be near the bicyclists who hang out at The Elk restaurant.

Still, he said, Carnegie Square has been good to him. "Almost every business that’s here has a real history," Loveland said.

Wells said KHQ’s move downtown just a block away from Carnegie Square made a huge difference and continued the area’s momentum. Across from KHQ, the Odd Girls block continues to spread west, with galleries, shops and performing arts.

"It is a destination area. People that find out about us keep coming back," said Deena Moe-Caruso, who owns Finders Keepers at 112 S. Cedar. The front of her store is dominated by at least a dozen display cases featuring antique jewelry of all colors and styles. In the back, a canary named Keeper flits about his cage.

"With the deli and the bakery, it’s just a fun neighborhood to hang out in."

On a recent afternoon, a KHQ employee strolled from Carnegie Square toward the station. Winter told two older women in her shop about her "color" sales — on this day everything pink was 15 percent off. A young man posted fliers on the Rocket Bakery’s bulletin board, and a mountain biker took off down the street from Two Wheel Transit.

"This is what small-business America is," Loveland said. "The malls aren’t it."