SL receives grant for master plan

Hope is to increase city's tourist attractions

The city of Soap Lake's biggest assets are its lake and its people.

And now a $35,000 grant through the Washington Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development (CTED) is going to help the city devise a master plan to use those assets and increase the Soap Lake economy.

"Basically, what we want to do is look at our downtown area and our downtown beaches, and see what can be done to make them more attractive to tourists and visitors," said Burr Beckwith, chair of the Soap Lake planning commission.

The city has selected the planning group Arai Jackson Ellison Murakami, LLP, to advise them on developing a master plan. A resolution to hire the group will be approved by the Soap Lake City Council tonight, said mayor Wayne Hovde.

"The reason why we picked them, more than anything, because we had seven really qualified applicants, was that we just genuinely liked them and they liked Soap Lake and we could see all that enthusiasm," said Fredrick Slough, member of the Soap Lake planning commission.

"They were the only one of the planning groups that bothered to come here, and they spent half a day with us before they wrote their proposal, and got a lot of background information," Beckwith said.

He said that the city is hiring the planners to make sure that its vision has not become too narrow, but also don't want them to go off in entirely new directions.

"We want to build on the work that we've done," Slough said. "We've spent hours and hours and hours discussing what we want, how we should do it and how we can get everybody on board. And we want to be able to build on that instead of starting over with that issue."

Items on the master plan include the look of downtown, parking and traffic, creating some walk and bike trails at gateway signage to attract passers-by on Highway 17 to come into the main body of town.

One of the items that won't be receiving a lot of focus in the group's marketing study, but has been promoted by the SL Chamber of Commerce for about a year, is the economic feasibility of having a city-owned, year-round spa on the beach, Slough said.

Beckwith said another feasibility study for the spa is in the works.

"The biggest unique thing that we have going for us is the lake," he said. "That's a wonderful asset, and spas are becoming much more popular."

"The Chamber's idea was that we have a pretty good tourist business in Soap Lake, only for our summers," Slough explained. "If we could have an attraction that would bring people here for the wintertime, they could enjoy the cold weather and keep the hotels filled. Then the downtown area could have shops that could be more successful. It's hard to keep a shop open that only makes money for three months."

Beckwith and Slough said that local efforts like the remodeling of the RV park and renovations of Masquers Theater, as well as advice from professional economists, make the city more attractive to organizations who provide gramt money.

Beckwith said that the city also received a grant from the U.S. Forestry Service to help complete the theater, and received a planning grant to conduct a feasibility study on what can be done with an elementary school building in the center of town.

Hovde said that the master plan has to be completed by the end of December, and said that the group will begin conducting interviews within the next two weeks. The hope is to begin work on their suggestions by spring.

Overall, the master plan benefits "those of us that plan to live here the rest of our lives," Slough said with a chuckle. "Our opinion is that we're here and we've got to make it a nice place to live."

"We think we might be a little underappreciated and not taken seriously in Grant County," Beckwith said. "There's a little bit of the show the world thing in there, that we'd really like to see it develop and progress."