Built in 1928, the City Ramp Garage is a hallmark example of the Art Deco style, and is the first sixstory, staggered-floor, ramp-type parking garage built in Spokane intended to house 350 vehicles. The idea of the multi-floor motor ramp parking garage was formed by three downtown Spokane building owners, who in 1928, banded together to “solve Spokane’s parking problem.” The garage owners did not want a “drab, warehouse-type building” but instead preferred something that would “harmonize with the rest of the neighborhood.” The Art Deco-style parking garage was designed by Whitehouse & Price, a prominent and prolific Spokane architectural firm that was responsible for many homes, churches, schools, sorority/fraternity halls, and commercial buildings in the area. The city-wide impact of the City Ramp Garage continues to be felt in Spokane and is associated with many “firsts” at the time it was built. These include the garage’s example as the first slip-form type of concrete construction in Spokane, the most modern ramp-type parking garage west of the Mississippi River, the first joint effort on the part of Spokane building owners to provide parking for clients, and one of the region’s first parking garages open to the public.

City Ramp Garage was individually listed on the National Register in 2012 and as contributing property in the East Downtown Historic District in 2003.

Management Agreement

National Register Nomination