A Spokane insurance agent and her daughter are buying a roughly 30,000-square-foot building at 116 W. Pacific that formerly served as a warehouse for the now defunct Sylvan Furniture Co. and plan to renovate it for commercial tenants.

The investor, Robi Railey, says that she and her daughter, Heidi Gudgel, are acquiring the three-story structure from the furniture company for about $800,000 and expect to spend about another $1.1 million on interior and exterior upgrades, including installing an elevator.

She says they'll own the 97-year-old building through a company she intends to form called Fairmont Creamery LLC, named after the business that originally was located there. Mark McLees, of NAI Black, is handling the acquisition, says Railey.

She says she has lined up two tenants to lease space on the building's second floor and expects them to be open there by around late spring. One of those planned tenants, which she declines to identify for now, will lease 6,000 square feet of space there, and a personal training fitness studio will occupy the remaining 4,000 square feet on that floor, she says.

Railey and Gudgel are looking to secure one more tenant to lease space on the first or third floor before they begin renovation work on the building. "We're hoping to get something done before the end of the year," Railey says.

She believes the building's 10,000-square-foot first floor is well suited for a restaurant and expects the opening of a new Best Western hotel, currently under construction two blocks to the southeast, to benefit the businesses that locate there.

Spokane architect Barry Nance designed the renovation project, and McCloskey Construction Inc., of Spokane, and Gamble Construction Services & Demolition, of Spokane, will do the demolition and construction work, says Railey.

In June of this year Railey sold a two-story building nearby at 168 S. Division, which she had owned since 2003, for $845,000. That building was built in 1908 and currently houses Railey's Allstate Insurance office, an interior design store called Kimberlee Co., and Melcher Construction.