SPOKANE, Wash. — The sounds of construction equipment currently cutting through the air in downtown Spokane will lead to the sound of cheering in just a year in a half.
“When they started to peel up the earth, it got everybody’s heart going,” Spokane Public Schools Director of Capital Projects and Planning Greg Forsyth said.
With the site breaking ground just a few weeks ago, the Downtown Spokane Stadium is going from concept to reality.
“Our earthwork and our preparation will go on through March and April, and then we’ll start to bring the building out of the ground in May. We’ll construct the buildings and fields until August or September of 2023,” Forsyth said.
The four-story stadium will serve as a home for all of Spokane’s public school football teams and a USL team.
That’s a lot of teams to serve as a home stadium for, so the designers made sure that when a team is hosting, it truly feels like their field.
“It was really important to us at Spokane Public Schools to make home stadiums. It’ll be LED light displays around the exterior of the stadium (that can change color), it’ll be a raise the flag, it’ll be individual banners and colors inside the stadium as well,” Forsyth said.
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What could make this stadium unique to all other stadiums in Spokane though goes far beyond the LED lighting.
“We’re hoping to get a large video board, which would include all the things that would go with a video board, so that’d probably be our biggest toy,” Forsyth said. He added that they would like to have high school students participate in gameday production.
Photos: Downtown Spokane Stadium
The school district is also looking to incorporate the soon-to-be-demolished Joe Albi’s history into their new stadium. They will relocate the Joe Fan statue and the original Memorial Stadium plaque to the district’s new digs.
It’s not just about the past or the now though for the building’s constructors.
“We kept an eye on the future to make sure we didn’t put any infrastructure in position that would limit us," Forsyth said.
"So, we do have that ability to expand 10, 15 years down the road, or five, whoever knows. We made the east side of the stadium adaptable for another level of bleachers. We made other areas available for larger concessions. All those things that would go with a larger stadium.”
We would be remiss to not mention the biggest thing that held up the stadium for so long: Parking. What’s the latest on that?
“We feel that we have plenty of parking with the new areas around the facility. I know that the public facilities district is always looking to improve those things, and I think we’re covered,” Forsyth said.
By the way, all parking for Spokane Public Schools events will be free.
