Spokane Valley TPA Commission Meeting - August 25, 2026
Spokane Valley TPA Commission Meeting - August 25, 2026
The Spokane Valley Transient Parking Authority (TPA) Commission met on August 25, 2026, to review administrative reports, revenue updates, and a presentation from Spokane Sports on the new Course Spokane Valley venue. Discussions included budget planning for 2027, a potential TPA fee increase, and challenges in attracting and retaining major sports events.
Administrative Report
- Terry (staff) reported occupancy rates hovering around 64%, down 2% year-over-year, and highlighted the Discover the Valley campaign’s 65% engagement rate with 27,000 active users. Expedia data showed a 75% overnight stay rate in the market, with only 2.8% leaving the area.
- No opportunity fund applications have been received, but a Spokane Sports application is expected, prompting a potential special meeting.
- Budget discussions are slated for October 2026, with City Council adoption required by November 15. Allocations were $1.27 million in 2024 and 2025, $1.7 million in 2026 (including rollover funds), and a projected $1.3 million in 2027 under a normal revenue year.
- The state TPA’s extra $2 per room could sunset by June 2027; the city is working with Visit Spokane to make it permanent.
- A two-year, $30,000 annual subscription for Placer AI data is ongoing.
Revenue Update
- Sarah reported collections running 6.3% above last year, despite occupancy dips, attributing discrepancies to data lags (two-month delay) and unrecorded Canadian visitors (not included in CoStar data).
- Commissioners discussed raising the TPA fee from $4 to $5, which could generate approximately $300,000 annually, and noted a sports district study that recommended a similar mechanism including restaurants.
- The city maintains a 25% minimum fund balance for cash flow purposes, with conservative budgeting practices.
Spokane Sports Presentation
- Ashley Blake (virtually) presented on the Course Spokane Valley, a purpose-built cross-country venue that opened August 15, 2026. The venue has far exceeded the Johnson Consulting Report’s first-year benchmark of 900 visitors: 21,000 attendees are expected from eight tourism events, generating 5,720 hotel room nights and $620,000 in new hotel revenue.
- Key 2026 events include Nike NXR and Nike Bob Furman, which Blake hopes to make permanent (currently year-to-year contracts). For 2027, the portfolio projects 7,958 room nights (39% growth) with the addition of two high-profile events.
- Challenges noted: parking and transportation infrastructure (moving 10,000 people via shuttle), and high operating costs in Washington state (e.g., dumpster costs triple those in Boise, new taxes on AV and security).
- Ruth Fitzgerald, Hotel Relations Manager, addressed hotel participation in booking mechanisms: about nine of Aerie Valley’s hotels regularly participate, and she urged commissioners to encourage broader engagement and post-event data sharing.
- The venue is a finalist for SportsTravel’s Best New Sports Venue award.
Key Outcomes
- No formal votes were taken beyond adjournment (passed unanimously).
- The commission will meet in October for budget discussions and may schedule a special meeting to review the Spokane Sports opportunity fund application.
- Continued dialogue on a TPA fee increase and efforts to secure permanent status for the $2 surcharge to stabilize revenue.
Meeting Transcript
We're ready. I know. I know it's great. We appreciate that too. I guess I the hotel world has had a very crazy month so far. I think our whole greater city areas had a very crazy month. So hope everyone is safe and doing well with as much as we can. So we can call a meeting to order or our honest meeting here. And are there any public comments to start or from Zoom? No one signed up via Zoom. And the only attendee we have is Ashley for the presentation later. Do we have Sarah is on her way? She's coming, but we can we can back up to that and we could go ahead and move into the administrative report if you'd like. All right. So in your packet, excuse me, is your normal data that you like to go over. I'm not going to get into details with it for you, but I am going to call out a couple of highlights. In the CoStar report, we are still seeing that we have an occupancy rate hovering around 64%. That's still down about 2% year over year. In the um hotel motel uh Discover the Valley campaign analytics, couple of strong things that we're seeing. 65% engagement rate, 27,000 active users, which means they're engaging for a longer period of time. And then Expedia. With that, we saw 71,000. And it that number, what we're seeing is we're seeing about a 75% stay rate in our market overnight. We were only seeing about a um two percent 2.8% or 2.8,000, which was 4% actually left the market to have an overnight stay elsewhere. So pretty good capture there. Like that number. I do not have any opportunity fund applications for you yet. I am told I will be receiving a Spokane sports application. So next month, or we'll call a special meeting and review that as soon as we can. I want to remind you that we're getting ready to go into budget discussions. And those budget discussions are going to happen in October this year. City Council has to adopt the budget that you put forward by November 15th. And so we'll be at City Council in early November and here in uh October on that. So in 2024, you were allocating 1.27 million. In 2025, you had approximately 1.27 million. And then in 2026, remember you had some extra funds. Those rollover funds actually bumped that amount up to 1.7,000. Now, when we're looking at revenues this year, we're looking at more of a normal revenue year. And that's coming in at approximately 1.3 million. Couple of things to remember. The TPA, the state could sunset that extra $2. And that's going to impact our revenue dramatically if that happens. I personally for the city am participating in discussions with Visit Spokane and helping to move that forward and make certain that that stays. The goal is that it would be made permanent so that it didn't have a sunset period any longer. So that's one of the things that we're working on. One of the things I want you to remember as you're moving into budget planning and thinking about destination marketing and sports marketing, because those two contracts will still we can still fund those two contracts this next year. Next year we also have to go out to an RFP to make certain that we're utilizing the right procurement path. So we'll we may make a change in 2028. Don't yet know. Now the TPA dollars, last year you allocated 30,000 for the Placer AI data, and you put one uh 170,000 into the opportunity fund.
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