Drawings give 3-D picture of Sinkiuse Square proposals
ALSC Architecture of the Tri-Cities and Spokane provide detailed proposals for a redesign of Sinkiuse Square on Third Avenue in downtown Moses Lake. The square would remove parking for public restrooms and basalt columns.<br>Courtesy image
Updated concept drawings to come before council later this month
MOSES LAKE — A proposed redesign for a downtown gathering place has gone 3-D.
While city officials continue to work toward proposed changes to Sinkiuse Square, an architecture firm has done some pro bono work to give the city a better visual idea of the changes.
ALSC Architecture of the Tri-Cities and Spokane used some of its software to come up with the renditions. Those drawings incorporated many of the elements city officials have been working on in its proposed redesign. Elements like bathrooms, water, basalt columns and a performance stage were seen by many different angles on the site that sits beside the Moses Lake Post Office.
"We like to provide that support," said ALSC architect Steve Mallory said, "to let the city help themselves."
Mallory said his firm will provide as much assistance as the can for the Sinkiuse project, which is part of a larger downtown revitalization proposal that also includes changes to Third Avenue and a new building for the city's Museum and Arts Center.
"We're doing work with them right now," he said, "and hopefully we'll do more in the future."
About a dozen different slides of Sinkiuse offer various angles of different proposals, and Mallory said it will be easy to make changes in the program if needed.
A few of those changes have already happened since the first slides were printed. Moses Lake City Manager Joe Gavinski said some tweaks have already been made to the concept, such as the area's clock tower being moved to a roundabout and the movement of bathrooms from sunken to street level for handicap access, have already been made. But Gavinski added that the whole plan continues to be in the concept stages.
The idea of having both a bathroom and a stage downtown is a concept at least one councilman is in favor of.
"It will give us a men's and a women's bathroom downtown," said Councilman Lee Blackwell, "which I believe is fairly needed."
Councilman Brent Reese said every time he sees a plan he likes what he sees, but said he feels the city has to continue to work to find a consensus for what it likes.
An updated version of the Sinkiuse renditions, Gavinski said, will be brought to the council at a meeting later this month. Once a plan is approved by the council Gavinski said city officials will next go forward with cost estimates for the square, a project he said the city has not yet determined a price for.
Bids and construction on a final square project will probably happen simultaneously with construction on a Third Avenue redesign, Gavinski said. The council voted unanimously in April to support a plan that revamps Third Avenue with wider sidewalks, extended curbs and more parallel parking.
The two projects are part of a downtown revitalization project that first began a few years ago, and will also later include a new MAC building. The council in May approved funding for a preliminary design for a new MAC building, a building that Gavinski said could also house a performing arts center.
Conceptually, the new MAC building could also hold a new city council chambers, which Gavinski said would free up the current chambers for some much-needed office space. A location for the new MAC center has not been selected, but Gavinski did mention that the city does already own much of the land surrounding its current City Hall campus.
"There's lots of potential, lots of ideas," he said, "we just need to find some way to get some money into that project."