A Spokane development company has bought the former Ashley Gardens at Fairwood retirement complex on Spokanes North Side and three acres of vacant land nearby.


The company, Alpol Enterprises LLC, has landed tenants for the bulk of the space in the twin, 7,000-square-foot structures, including a venture that wants to open an elder-care facility there, says Rob Allen, who owns Alpol with Todd Pollock. The total purchase price was about $1.5 million.


The property is located at 12420 N. Ruby, just north of Hastings Road and a couple of blocks west of U.S. 395.


The company also is looking to develop two buildings on the vacant land, which is south of the old Ashley Gardens complex, along Hastings between Ruby and Mayfair streets.


In the westernmost of the two former Ashley Gardens buildings, Therapeutic Dimensions Inc., a physical-therapy products company that Allen and Pollock also own, leases about 3,500 square feet of floor space. That company has been located there for a couple of years, Allen says. He says, however, that he and Pollock would like to move to a different location and would find a new home for Therapeutic Dimensions if a prospective tenant interested in its space stepped forward.


A Spokane-based online mortgage processor, MortgageZone Inc., has agreed to lease the rest of the space in that building, Allen says. That company plans to consolidate its Spokane Valley and Deer Park offices there next month, he says.


In the east building, Mark and Cynthia Rogers, a Newport, Wash., couple that operates three Eastern Washington adult-family homes, has leased 3,500 square feet of floor space and has an option to lease the balance of the space in that building, Allen says.


He says the couple is seeking approval from the Washington state Department of Social and Health Services to open there a dementia and elder-care facility, called Cornerstone Court, that could have as many as 18 to 20 beds. They hope to receive that approval and open the facility next month, he says.


On the vacant land south of the two buildings, Allen says Alpol envisions developing an office building at the northeast corner of the Hastings and Ruby and either a bank branch or office structure at the northwest corner of Hastings and Mayfair.


A bank had planned to put a branch on the latter site, but later pulled out of that project, Allen says. A traffic study, site plan, and zoning approval all had been completed before the bank decided not to move forward with its branch, so some of the necessary development work is completed if another bank or a credit union wanted to put a branch there, he says.


While Alpol is marketing the property to banks and credit unions, it also is looking into developing an office building on that site and would move forward with such a plan if a financial institution doesnt come forward. It currently is unclear how big the office building would be, he says.


Ashley Gardens Management Inc., of Issaquah, Wash., had operated three facilities here earlier this decade, but had closed all of its facilities statewide 2002 as the company went out of business.