Iron Bridge LLC has secured a tenant to take most of the first building at its Iron Bridge Corporate Campus and hopes to start work soon on $30 million in additional structures at the largely undeveloped office park along the Spokane River east of downtown Spokane.


Kent Hull, Iron Bridge LLCs managing partner, says that Bloomington, Ill.-based State Farm Insurance Co. has leased about 19,000 square feet of office space in the two-story, 24,000-square-foot building that was completed early this year at 1224 E. Trent. Tenant improvements on that space currently are under way.


State Farm plans to open a claims-processing and training center in that space, says Paul Wilde, a Du Pont, Wash.-based State Farm spokesman. The company is opening similar offices in Portland, Boise, and other cities, Wilde says.


Wilde couldnt confirm how many people would work at the new office. Hull says, however, that State Farm has requested at least 100 parking slots for its employees, and says a State Farm employee has told him that 95 to 100 people would work there.


Meantime, Hull says, It looks like were about ready to move ahead with some pretty big projects there.


Iron Bridge is into advanced stages of negotiations with tenants for future buildings, Hull says. One tenant, whose name he declines for now to disclose, has told Hull it intends to lease between 150,000 square feet and 180,000 square feet of yet-to-be-built office space at the park. Another undisclosed tenant is looking to lease about 40,000 square feet of floor space there, Hull says.


Three office buildings and one parking garage would be built to accommodate those prospective tenants, he says.


For the larger tenant, Iron Bridge would build twin three-story, 90,000-square-foot office buildings. If it lands that tenant, Iron Bridge would break ground early next year on the first of those structures, at the northwest corner of Trent and Perry Street, just west of the State Farm building State Farm will occupy. The development company would build the second big building farther north on the west side of Perry, beginning in early 2005, Hull says.


Each of those buildings would cost between $10 million and $11 million to develop and would take about six months to construct.


A $3.5 million, four-level parking garage that would serve the entire complex would be built between the two big structures, Hull says. Work on that project would begin at about the same time as the first big office building early next year.


The third additional office building, the one that would include 42,000 square feet of floor space, would be two stories tall. The structure would be built at the northeast corner of Perry Street and Springfield Avenue, a block north of the parks first structure, Hull says.


If Iron Bridge signs the prospective tenant for that new building, work on the estimated $4 million project would start early next year.


Hull says Iron Bridge wont move forward with the large, twin office buildings and parking garage until the prospective tenant signs a lease. It might move forward with the smaller building speculatively, he says.


Divcon Inc., of Spokane, is the general contractor for projects at Iron Bridge, and Ron Joseph Architect, of Spokane, designed the buildings.


The current master plan for Iron Bridge calls for a total of five office buildings, two parking garages, and a riverside restaurant. The development is situated on the former Layrite Products Co. site and is named after an old iron railroad bridge that crosses the Spokane River at the west side of the park. The site is located on the north side of Trent, roughly between Erie and Hogan streets.


Iron Bridge LLC is working with the city of Spokane to form a tax-increment financing district that would include the Iron Bridge property and some surrounding land. Such a district could raise money to redeck the old bridge for pedestrian traffic and establish connecting walking trails and an interpretive center along the river.


Hull says such a district would raise $800,000 for those improvements, as well as some road and water-line improvements, but its still unclear when that district might be formed.