Riverview Retirement Community, of Spokane, is planning a $10 million expansion of its campus in East Spokane.


Design work is under way on an independent-living complex there that will include between 20 and 25 duplex buildings, with a total of between 40 and 50 living units, says Bob Simonsmeier, Riverviews vice president of finance.


As planned, the duplex buildings will be constructed northwest of the current Riverview complex, located at 1801 E. Upriver Drive, Simonsmeier says.


In recent months, the retirement-home operator has bought a dozen homes on two city blocks where the expansion will be located. Riverview plans to begin demolishing some of those homes next month to make way for the new duplexes.


A construction timetable for the project depends on when design work is completed and regulatory approval is obtained from the city of Spokane, Simonsmeier says. Generally speaking, he says, Riverview hopes to break ground on the first of the duplex buildings this summer and to complete the first few of the structures there late this year.


Completion of the structures will be staggered over a number of months, and the expansion likely would be completed in the summer of 2006, he says.


Peggy Soden, Riverviews vice president of administrative services, says, Theres a lot of demand out there. What weve found is that once we start building, the units are taken quickly.


LRS Architects Inc., of Portland, is designing the expansion, and Riverview is in negotiation with a general contractor that would build the duplexes.


Currently, Riverview has a total of 340 living units. Of those, 190 are for independent-living seniors, and 117 of those 190 are duplex units. The other 73 independent-living units are apartments.


The remaining 150 living units are split evenly between assisted-living and skilled-nursing units.


The planned new duplex units each likely will include about 1,500 square feet of floor space. Each unit will include either three bedrooms or two bedrooms and a den, as well as two bathrooms and a two-car garage. All of the units will be single story, though residents who buy units before they are constructed will have the option of adding a second-story bonus room.


Simonsmeier says that the new units as proposed will be bigger than the centers current independent-living quarters at the retirement complex.


Soden says Riverview hasnt put prices on the new living units yet. The independent-living units it already has, which are for seniors 60 years old and older, currently sell for between $130,000 and $165,000, plus an additional $415 monthly maintenance fee.


Those units are sold under an agreement through which a senior receives 75 percent of the purchase price back upon vacating a unit, Soden says. Riverview, however, might tweak the terms it uses in selling the planned new units, she says.


The planned independent-living addition will be the retirement communitys first expansion since the mid-1990s, Soden says.


In 2002, Riverview studied the possibility of developing a retirement community in Liberty Lake, but decided not to pursue a project there after a study showed insufficient support for such a development, Simonsmeier says.


Riverview, which is associated with Lutheran Churches of the Inland Northwest, first opened at its Upriver campus in 1959.