MOSES LAKE — Consultants hired by the city of Moses Lake to come up with some affordable options for dressing up downtown will be presenting some of their conclusions to residents, the Moses Lake City Council and city officials in December.  

The consultants showed the results of their discussions so far with city residents at a pair of workshops Oct. 15. The immediate goal, said Guy Michaelsen, part of the consulting team, is to come up with an affordable project that could start next year. 

"The intent is instead of saying, 'We need to sell it and we need to pass a bond and we need to spend millions of dollars,' it's 'let's generate support for a small idea, prove that it works, and then build towards doing more and more.' It's really about the idea of little things that move us in the right direction," Michaelsen said. 

Dave Cutler, who leads the consulting team, said the designers will take what they heard from residents, council members and city officials and come up with some ideas. 

"We have to go back and work a little bit," Cutler said. 

Doug Coutts, the city's director of parks, recreation and cultural services, emphasized that all ideas suggested so far are still just ideas. He cited a remark from Moses Lake City Manager Rob Karlinsey. 

"He said this cake isn't baked yet – what we're talking about here are ingredients. We're going to mix these and put something together and try and put it in the oven. Nothing's been put in the oven yet. We haven't mixed any agreements. All we've got is options," Coutts said.  

City officials are focusing on West Third Avenue, the area between Civic Center Park and South Beech Street for a start. Michaelsen said some characteristics of Third Avenue are common to West Fifth and West Broadway avenues as well. 

"It is hot here – you are in a desert," he said. "Shade is really key. Your downtown does not have a lot of shade. David talked about the fact that there's the cool buildings with the overhangs that provide shade, but the streets could use more shade." 

Trees provide shade, and Michaelsen said one of the options is buying trees that could survive and grow in a downtown landscape, along with shade structures until the trees got bigger. 

"Water. We don't want to use potable water because there's water issues in the city, and we know that. But water makes for comfortable, cooler places for humanoids," he said. 

Moses Lake's growth was due to the establishment of farmlands watered by the Columbia Basin Project. 

"Let's find a way to celebrate the irrigation district and not feel bad about the fact that we are watering plants downtown to create a lush green downtown like Walla Walla has," he said. 

The project ideas are built around the idea of starting small.  

"In the near term we want to err on (the side of) action. Being ambitious, what could we have done by next May if we were really, really ambitious?" Michaelsen said. "One thing would be Sinkiuse Square." 

The space has some things going for it, he said, but it could use some upgrades. 

"It's a good design esthetically, but it's not a place you want to spend time. It doesn't have comfortable seating, doesn't have shade, and it doesn't really have a lot of amenities," Michaelsen said.  

The Third Avenue side is exposed to the street, he said, so one possibility would be adding trees to create a buffer.  

"Start to get some interim shade canopies over it and put in some new seating and amenities," he said.  

Trees also could be added at the other end of the square, taking up three or four spaces in the adjoining parking lot. The installations wouldn't have to be permanent, he said; he suggested using trees that could grow in planters, especially on the parking lot side.  

"This is near-term, so those trees are never going to get that big because they're in a planter, but still they're going to create shade and an edge," Michaelsen said.  

Among other things, more use of the square could open the way for more use of its stage, he said.  

In the case of longer-term improvements along Third Avenue, the existing trees may not be the best fit, he said. 

"I want to unpack and understand more about why they've been replaced over the years or why they haven't thrived," he said. "It is a common thing we hear as landscape architects is, 'Oh, they planted the wrong trees,' and then every 10 years the trees are changed, so they never get big. Big trees take time, and they take space, and they take soil." 

That being the case, he said, the best way to promote tree growth might be repurposing some parking spaces along the street.  

"One of the ideas is, what if, where we have a lot of that angle parking, we just find two strategic spots across the street from each other where we can take two parking stalls and plant an amazing tree," Michaelsen said. "Still have room to let people get in and out, and just do a little parklet where a tree has room to grow and create this canopy that shades the street and the sidewalk. Maybe we put in a little urban kind of railing along it with plants and stuff, so it feels buffered from the parking, and it could just be a little piece of landscape, or it could have a bench."