Spokane University District Ecological Assets and Performance Standards Study

Riparian ecosystem conceptual cross-section. Image: Cascasa Land Design

How ecological performance standards can guide a growing urban district

The University District is Spokane's center for research, life sciences, and energy innovation — and it's growing faster than the surrounding city. The University District Public Development Authority (UDPDA) wanted to ensure that growth sustains, improves, and restores the District's ecological assets — not diminishes it.

In 2023, UDPDA retained Greene Economics to develop ecological performance standards for the 770-acre District — standards to guide future design and construction. 

Greene Economics began by documenting what the land once was. Working with Spokane Tribal Member Warren Seyler — whose knowledge of the river, the forests, and the Tribe's relationship to this place was foundational to the study — alongside a team of economists, ecologists, biologists, urban planners, and landscape architects, we reviewed over fifty planning and scientific resources and interviewed key stakeholders.

Before development, the site supported ponderosa pine savanna, shrub-steppe grassland, riparian corridor, and river floodplain. The river also served as a fishing, foraging, and cultural gathering place central to the Spokane Tribe's way of life. These ecosystems filtered water and recharged the Spokane Valley-Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer — which remains today the only drinking water source for over 500,000 people and one of only two federally designated sole-source aquifers in the nation. They also stored an estimated 65 to 261 metric tons of carbon per acre.

Today, over 64 percent of the District is impervious surface, only 2.8 percent of trees are native species, and soils are largely degraded or buried.

To close the gap between historic and current ecosystem services within the District, we drew on principles of biomimicry and regenerative design, which go beyond net-zero to actively restore what has been lost. We identified twelve core ecosystem services and established measurable performance targets for each, based on those historical conditions.

Targets include limiting water withdrawals to historical aquifer recharge rates, reducing impervious surface to restore pre-development stormwater infiltration, and restoring native vegetation in ratios that mirror the original ponderosa pine savanna.

From those targets, we translated performance into design standards across three realms: a 200-foot riparian buffer along the Spokane River, the public realm (streets, parks, rights-of-way), and the built environment (new construction and retrofits). Conceptual cross-sections developed with Cascara Land Design illustrate how these standards apply across each realm.

The study gives planners, architects, Urbanova, and six university partners a shared ecological framework — a common foundation for master planning, capital investment, and individual project design across the District’s 770-acre revitalization.