The Blvd. | To be condemned?

The Blvd. | To be condemned?

I read a Myspace comment posted Nov 15 2007 3:31 PM on http://www.myspace.com/hailthegunfire by Ryan Levey [ERC] that said:

"Alright, so here's the deal with The Blvd, the Spokane Convention Center is trying to get the building condemned so they can build an expansion over on that side of the street.

"So The Blvd is being taken to court. This process takes several months, so we only have to worry in the long run. It's not even a for sure thing yet. But knowing the luck of the music scene, it'll go down just like Fat Tuesday's. And The Big Dipper. And The Detour. And every other venue we can get going for us."

I couldn't quite understand how The Blvd as a business could be "taken to court" over a property issue such as this. After some searching around, I found an article, which I've linked to below, that explains what has been going on. All my research came from this article. I couldn't however, find out what is going on now; as far as a master plan. It sounds like a waiting game.

Pretty much, the Spokane Public Facilities District, who owns things such as the Convention Center and the INB Performing Arts Center (Opera House) and the Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena would like the property for expansion. It has been said that the SPFD is claiming that the owner of the property and the single building at 333 W. Spokane Falls Blvd., is refusing to sell his property to them.

The Executive Director of the SPFD was quoted in an article by Richard Ripley in the Spokane Journal of Business issue dated March 08, 2007, as saying "...property is needed to do something for the public good, and someone is not willing to accept market value for their property.”

The SPFD did infact ask the city to condemn the property [1] for "the good of the public" which it makes this an eminent domain issue. Read the definition of eminent domain at Wikipedia.org.

The owner, Glen Cloninger, says he just wants market value for his property and is not refusing to sell.