Zombie Buildings: Hillyard

The old block long Ziggy’s store in Hillyard, at right, now empty (the empty store extends well off the right of this photo). The Safeway is gone, and the Dollar Store chain filed for bankruptcy. The Hillyard Center (government building), hiding roughly in the center, is still there. Back to the right and behind where this photo was taken, there are about 3 blocks of empty buildings or lots, several with for sale or for lease signs.

Across the street the Armory building’s parking lot is empty and weeds are growing through all the cracks. What’s up with that?

More scary stuff.

Federal government offers nearly $1 million bribe to restore L.A.-Spokane air service

Follow the logic (or lack of logic):

• The statement from Sen. Cantwell says L.A.is “the second most travelled destination after Seattle and before Portland“.
• The Federal government will give SIA a nearly $1 million grant that  “would enable the airport to recruit a carrier by offering short-term risk-offsets while the market fully establishes itself“.
• Previous air service to L.A. died after 2004, when the economy was good, and died again in 2008. No grants were used in 2004 or 2008. And we think in this economy, this service will now fly on its own? Hello?
• The 2nd most travelled destination needs a bribe but  the other 9 cities below that level do not?  This grant looks like a crony capitalist bribe as the logic in the explanation does not pencil out.

In this economic disaster, why would this air service last any longer than it did when it died in 2004 and died again in 2008? Will something be done fundamentally differently this time to achieve success?

Getting “free money” from the Feds sounds great, but like the more than half a billion spent on the North Corridor Freeway to/from nowhere, this “feel good” grant will likely have a similar outcome of temporary spending that does not produce the ROI we need right now and long term.

About half of all income in this area now comes from government wages, transfer payments, the government’s share of health care payments, plus outright subsidies of lots of stuff. Like this. This is not sustainable.

(Wow – see the comments to the press coverage – 100% of commenters agree this $1 million bribe is nonsense. And then wow again – we subsidize housing for sheriff’s deputies who get half priced housing for $100 down payments. Seems that Spokane is unable to function without massive government subsidies everywhere.)

Koodos on local news coverage

The Spokesman-Review did a great job with timely reports covering the Garland District fires with stories and photos -see Fire destroys Fergusons Café, badly damages Milk Bottle – Spokesman.com – Sept. 26, 2011. And wow – another fast turnaround tonight – good job!

They were chided for slow coverage of a shooting and SWAT team standoff not long ago and deserve recognition for a great job with these events.

Forbes again calls Spokane the “Scam Capital of America”

The Merry Scamsters of Spokane Strike Again! – Forbes.

Oh great.

Zombie Buildings: Indiana and Division/Ruby

Further north on Division at Indiana and another block of emptiness. And more weeds. This was probably taken in June. When I drove by around Labor Day, the weeds were about 3 feet high. Scary.

This photo was taken quite a while ago. These buildings are still empty, last time I looked. But when I took this photo, there were also empty buildings further to the west, including about 2/3ds of an empty strip mall, plus emptiness across the street, and behind me to the right on the east side of Division. Some of those have filled in so its a bit better today. Let’s hope that continues.

But still – pretty scary.  May be we could grow a corn maze in the vacant lots and use them for fall harvest festivals and Halloween entertainment?

August employment and unemployment update for Spokane

Total non-farm employment (does not include self employed, sole proprietors and active duty military):

There are are 17,000 fewer non-farm jobs than in August of 2008 and this is the smallest number of non-farm jobs in the local market since January of 2005, and 10% below the peak level reached in late 2007 . The average number of employed, Jan-Aug in 2010 was 203,200 and in 2011, was 202,850.  The State says Spokane has a “stable jobs picture” and there is not a “negative trend”.

Unemployment rate (still subject to revision) is at 9.2 percent up from 8.8% in July. (The preliminary estimate for July had been 9.0%, and that figure was revised down to 8.8%.)

Update: August is often a low point in jobs during the year. You’ll note that the number of employed goes down in July by 3,000 to 5,000 but up in September by the same amount. The official explanation is that local school districts employ staff on 10 month annual contracts.  I do not know if that makes them eligible for 2 months of unemployment compensation, or not, and if that impacts unemployment in the summer. The September 2011 non-farm jobs numbers will probably come in at 203,000 to perhaps as high as 205,000, and then end the year around 203,000, less than in 2010.

Update: This has now been confirmed. The local school districts lay off their staff in June and then rehire all of them in September.

Spokane County’s unemployment rate fell to 5.7 percent in September, pushed downward by the return of teachers to classrooms.

….

Tweedy said the September improvement is a seasonal impact, resulting from schools adding staff after the summer vacation.

That is according to Spokane area labor economist-for-life, Doug Tweedy.

Zombie Buildings: North of downtown

Just north of downtown along the main north-south road – literally blocks from downtown – we encounter dead buildings. Abandoned buildings and weeds.

Across the street from this is the empty Hollywood Video store (out of business).

On the other side of Hollywood Video is the now closed CompUSA store – the national chain went out of business.

Back on Division and 200 feet north, we look across to the vacant Burgans Furniture store, a block long eyesore. And more vacancies on the left side of the road too.  More weeds.

And the same complex from the back side on a different day.

These photos were taken last spring or early summer – kind of early for a Halloween horror and haunted house tour but definitely scary. Made me scared.

Spokane: When News Breaks …

The Spokesman-Review is appropriately and doing a good job reporting that the police chief and assistant police chief have both announced their resignation. That would be real news.

But over on KHQ.com – and this is not Photoshopped – this is the main breaking news item at the top left of the main page on KHQ:

KHQ has a 5+ minute “discussion” on this incredibly important, earth shattering news item, based on a photo that appeared on Facebook.  This is breaking news in Spokane.

Unbelievable. An embarrassment to Spokane.

Spokane-based Gonzaga and Whitworth universities rank high

Both rank in the top ten of top of  the Western U.S. region subset according to the latest US News rankings. See Regional University West Rankings | Top Regional Universities West | US News Best Colleges.

Gonzaga placed #3, Whitworth at #9 and Eastern Washington University at #63.

The western region covers roughly the western half of the U.S.

In the category of national universities (as compared to regional), the UW ranks #42 and WSU places #115 out of about 280 universities.

Zombie Buildings: Empty Factory Outlet Mall

Update 2019: This post was originally added in 2011. As of 2019, some manufacturing companies are setting in space at this former mall, along with a few holdover retailers still open. The mall has been mostly vacant for a  decade.

Halloween is coming. My local grocery store had the Halloween candy piled high for Labor Day weekend!

Guess its time for some scary posts.  How about Zombie Buildings of Spokane and area?

The former Factory Outlet Mall in Post Falls, serving the combined Spokane-Kootenai MSA is now vacant. Roughly one quarter mile long, the north section is 94% vacant. Across the street, the south section is 100% vacant. When I saw this a couple months back, I was scared.

North Side – 94% vacant.

South Side – 100% vacant. Just to the east, there are more vacant buildings not connected to this complex.

According to an article in the Seattle Times, factory malls are expanding.

An innovative local company that might rescue your summer backyard

Image by audreyjm529 via Flickr

Bothered by yellow jackets as much as we’ve been this summer? Check out RESCUE!® – Making pest control smarter.

Just discovered their excellent insect traps are made in Spokane Valley. As their t-shirt says, “There’s a trap for that”!

Spokane: When news breaks, not much happens

An incident occurred Saturday night that shows the impact of local news room cut backs.

The Incident

Around 9 pm on Saturday, there was a murder, followed by a suicide during the night. Police, sheriff’s deputies, State patrol, SWAT team equivalent, negotiators, K-9 teams, police reserves, an armored vehicle all arrived and the sheriff’s helicopter circled over head for hours. Nearby apartments were evacuated and streets were closed off much of the night. Dozens of officers were involved. This is a big deal in Spokane.

Local News Coverage

Let’s look at how this was covered by the news media in Spokane …

Saturday

• 9 pm: Shooting occurs, police respond.
• 11 pm: KXLY – zero coverage.
  11 pm: KHQ and KREM have short phone calls with their photographer on scene.
  11 pm: The Spokesman-Review tweets that a shooting occurred.
• 12 Midnight: KHQ and KREM add six sentence stories to their web sites.
• (Update: As added in a comment to this post, KHQ and KREM did “okay” – not great, but okay. See the comments for more information.)

Sunday

• Sunday morning: A commenter says KHQ did not mention the shooting on their morning news show and wonders why Pig Out in the Park was more important than the murder of a young woman.
• 7:15 am: KXLY tweets that a shooting happened last night.
• 9:11 AM: KXLY mentions the event on their website.
• 10 AM: KXLY posts unedited video on their web site. (This is good.)
• 10:40 AM:   The Seattle-Times, the Seattle PI, the Tri-City Herald and the Tacoma News Tribune run stories on the shooting. Wenatchee World covers a Wenatchee warehouse fire that started at 8 on Sunday and after 10 am, has a story and photos online.
• 11:40 AM: Seattle TV has the story.
• 2 to 3 PM: Six hours after 4 newspapers across the state had the story, and 18 hours after the shooting, Spokane’s own local paper, the Spokesman-Review publishes an 8 sentence story. (That is as soon as we saw any coverage.)

Was this an important story in Spokane? As of Monday, this was the #1 most viewed story at the local TV station web sites.

Does Spokane’s news media lack resources to cover urgent, breaking news outside of regular business hours?  Looks that way.  They may want to take an introspective look at how they could do better.

What impact will the lack of news resources have on a community in terms of losing coverage of urgent news events, local government initiatives, education, business activities, economic development, and projects pushed by local developers?

Update: One week later, here’s an example of a smaller deal that was reported and online quickly, rather than 18 hours later. Hopefully the event above led to some new ideas for covering timely news.

Related articles

• Chart of local newspaper newsroom staffing levels (inlandnw.wordpress.com)
• Spokane electric bus trolley approved by City Council (inlandnw.wordpress.com)

Spokane’s North Corridor Half Billion $ Boondoggle

Corridor funding may hit dead end – Spokesman.com – Sept. 4, 2011.

This is the half billion $ freeway from nowhere to nowhere in north Spokane.

Spokane’s economy is fading because leadership blew money on projects that did not deliver a positive return on investment to the whole community but instead benefited powerful and well connected rent-seekers siphoning public money for projects that benefit themselves.

Chart of local newspaper newsroom staffing levels

Yesterday, the local paper announced that 12 (or 13) people had taken an early retirement offer. The following chart is an approximation of SR newsroom staffing based on old news reports about their staffing and prior layoffs.  Over the past decade, the number of newsroom staff appears to have fallen by half.

12 Vet SR Staffers Take Buyout – Huckleberries Online – Spokesman.com – Sept. 1, 2011.

The number of newsroom staff left is vague – seems to be around 70. Am guessing the paper plans to move to outsourcing, hiring out individual stories and just printing press releases, like their affiliated KHQ.com TV station web site.

If the trend of the prior decade continues, the newsroom will not exist within ten years.

The local paper is suffering due to a combination of a loss of local advertising caused by Spokane’s ill economy and the drop in print newspaper subscribers caused by new media competition.

Additional comments and data sources follow

Boeing to build new 737MAX airliner – but where? Not in Spokane.

Business & Technology | Boeing says new 737Max has nearly 500 commitments | Seattle Times Newspaper.

Boeing has not yet selected the manufacturing location for the new plane but says it will not be South Carolina and is considering sites other than Renton, Wa.

Boeing once had a sub assembly facility in Spokane, opening in about 1990 but sold it in 2004. The buyer cut existing pay by up to 15%, with new hires making half of what Boeing had paid. GSI would like Boeing to consider Spokane because of our low wages and cheap land.

Update Nov 30th, 2011: Boeing has selected Renton. I read the Accenture consultant’s report and while Spokane’s bid was okay, it was missing key elements, such as a strong engineering force, university R&D and graduate programs in engineering (Spokane has zero). The main advantage for Spokane was – low wages and cheap land.

Greater Spokane Inc (GSI) and some of the media got way ahead with the hype. KXLY ran a story over the weekend saying that Spokane was the “top spot“.

The hype said Spokane was a top contender but then after the Renton announcement, the spin is that Spokane was never bidding for the plant, but only for supplier opportunities. May be in the distant future, if 737MAX production expands, would they consider other locations for a 737 factory.

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Back in Spokane, the County’s Engineering and Roads Department has a sizable layoff. There’s not much work for them to do around here now that the sewer lines have been installed.