Pullman-based developer K. Duane Brelsford plans to make a bold entrance into the Spokane market this year with up to three projects that together would cost more than $20 million.


The prolific developer is well known in the Palouse, having built more than 900 apartment units, five office buildings, and two movie-theater complexes in Pullman; Moscow, Idaho; and Lewiston, Idaho.


Now, Brelsford says he plans to develop a 330-unit apartment complex on the West Plains here and is eyeing development of two movie-theater complexes in the Spokane area.


The planned Spokane-area activity would be in addition to about $78 million in new projects that his main company, Corporate Pointe Developers LLC, plans to get under way this year in Pullman.


The Spokane-area apartment complex project is to be constructed on 15 acres along the south side of U.S. 2, just west of the Triumph Group Inc. airplane-parts manufacturing plant.


Brelsford says work on the first phase of that complex, which is being developed by a company he formed called Deer Creek LLC, is slated to start early this summer. The first phase of the complex, to be called Deer Creek Apartment Community, will include 180 living units, a recreation building, and a swimming pool. He doesnt have a completed cost estimate to release yet on that phase of the project, but says its cost likely will be between $10 million and $12 million.


Work is expected to start early this summer on the first phase, and the first living units there are scheduled to be completed in the spring of 2006. Work on the second phase could start shortly thereafter.


Brelsford says hes negotiating with a possible contractor for the project. The complex is being designed by Russell C. Page Architects PS, of Spokane.


The complex will include larger living units than those Corporate Pointe has developed in Pullman, which mostly house Washington State University students, and rents likely will be medium to high-end.


For the new Spokane-area movie theaters he would like to build, he has identified two potential locations and is studying whether those projects are feasible, Brelsford says. He has teamed up on a similar project in Lewiston with MV Investments LLC, a Spokane company headed by developers Dick Vandervert and Lowell McKee, and says he might do that again on the Spokane theater projects.


Brelsford declines for now to disclose those potential locations, but says he hopes to have decided within three months whether hell move forward with the projects.


Wed like to start at least one of those two projects in 2005, provided our due diligence comes out positive, Brelsford says. He adds, We have to make sure we do our due diligence well when we do a project like these. Otherwise, itd be pretty easy to be eaten up.


One of the theater complexes would include 14 screens, and the other would have eight screens. The larger of the two complexes would have about 42,000 square feet of floor space and would cost about $7.7 million to develop. The smaller one would include 24,000 square feet of space and could be built for about $4 million, he says.


Like the theaters hes developed in Pullman and Lewiston, the complexes here would be called Village Centre Cinemas and would be operated by Corporate Pointe. Also similar to the other theaters, the Spokane cinemas would show newly released, or first-run, movies at market rates, rather than somewhat older films at discounted prices.


Movie distributors typically require first-run theaters to be located a certain distance away from one other, and part of his evaluation of the projects is to make sure the proposed sites are far enough away from established cinemas to be able to show new releases, Brelsford says.


Corporate Pointe is relatively new to the cinema business. Its Pullman complex, which has eight screens, opened just over a year ago, and the 12-screen Lewiston operation opened late last year.


In Pullman


In Pullman, Corporate Pointe has five projects slated to get under way this year. Brown Contracting & Development Corp., of Spokane, is the contractor on all of those jobs.


By far the largest of the projects is a $70 million, 1,090-unit apartment complex planned in northeast Pullman, near the WSU campus, that will be built in five phases over the next five years.


Todd Hawley, a project manager for Brown Contracting, says the first phase of the equestrian-themed complex, to be called Hilltop Stables, will include 156 living units, and work on it should start this spring.


The company also plans to break ground late this summer on a $4 million mixed-use building in downtown Pullman. The planned three-story structure, to be called the University Park Building, will have 23,000 square feet of floor space and will include retail space on the first floor and office space on the second and third floors.


Also, Hawley says, work could start next fall on a two-story, 20,000-square-foot building that would be a twin of University Pointe, a structure that Corporate Pointe developed in downtown Pullman a couple of years ago.


In southeast Pullman, next to the Village Centre Cinemas, Corporate Pointe will develop an 8,000-square-foot restaurant and bar called Fireside Grill, which will be operated by Pullman restaurateur Michael Byrne, Hawley says. He says work on that project likely will start this summer and could finish by year-end.


On the WSU campus, Corporate Pointe has signed a 30-year lease with WSU to manage Adams Mall. The company is planning a $750,000 renovation for a new restaurant there and plans to undertake a $300,000 exterior upgrade there.