Spokane developer Dave Black has won a Washington state appellate court ruling affirming his right to buy—for about $2 million—a piece of property on the South Hill that long has been eyed for possible commercial development.

The nearly 10-acre, rectangular-shaped parcel, at 4915 S. Regal, stretches between Regal Street and the Palouse Highway a short distance south of where those two thoroughfares intersect. It adjoins a 4.6-acre strip of land at 4803 S. Regal, fronting on the Palouse Highway, that Dave Black Properties already owns, county records show.

The parcel had been marketed over a period of many years to retail chains such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Fred Meyer Stores, court documents indicate, but—until last year—lacked the needed commercial zoning. Resolution of the dispute, stemming from a five-year-old agreement, would appear to remove one more hurdle to eventual development of the site.

A three-judge appellate court panel here, affirming a lower court ruling, rejected claims by property owners Kenneth and Phyllis Seiler that a sale agreement Kenneth Seiler signed with Black in 2004 was unenforceable and that it effectively ended before Black took steps to complete the transaction. Also, the panel awarded Black attorney fees, per the terms of the agreement.

Black couldn't be reached immediately for comment.

Court documents say Kenneth Seiler inherited the property, which was zoned for single-family rural use, in 1975, and sought to sell it for commercial development in the 1990s, but rezoning it was problematic.

In September 2004, he and Black signed an initial agreement calling for Black to buy the property, contingent on obtaining necessary regulatory approvals. The agreement didn't have a set termination date, but Black agreed to pursue regulatory approval diligently and to apply for rezoning within 30 days of accepting the agreement, the court documents say. Also, he agreed to pay all costs for obtaining rezoning and development approval, and both men agreed the costs for rezoning would be additional earnest money, but not applied to the purchase price.

Later that month, they reached a final agreement under which Black would buy the property for $4.50 a square foot, or just under $2 million. Black provided a signed promissory note for about $26,000 as earnest money toward the purchase price, payable at closing, then worked continuously on the project beginning in October 2004, but rezoning still hadn't been approved three years later, court documents say. Seiler then proposed modifying the agreement to set a termination date of Nov. 30, 2007, but Black refused.

Seiler sued Black a month later, seeking a ruling that the agreement was unenforceable "for lack of consideration" and because three years had passed without zoning approval. Alternatively, he asked the court to set a reasonable termination date for the agreement. He then offered to sell Black the property at an increased price of $7 a square foot, the ruling says.

In the spring of 2008, though, with rezoning approval still pending, Black told Seiler he intended to close on the property under the original agreement, but Seiler declined, so Black countersued. Shortly thereafter, the Spokane City Council approved the requested comprehensive plan and zoning changes, culminating a process that had cost Black more than $100,000 in consulting, engineering, and legal fees, the ruling says.

Spokane County Superior Court Judge Jerome J. Leveque later ruled in Black's favor on the validity of the agreement, after which Seiler appealed.