Riverview Retirement Community, of Spokane, is studying whether to develop a large retirement complex in the Liberty Lake area.


Riverview, which has operated a senior-living development in Spokane for 43 years, has hired Santa Monica, Calif.-based Gerontological Services Inc. to conduct a survey regarding potential interest in such a development. Holly Renfrow, a sales and marketing consultant for Riverview, says the survey will be sent out later this week to between 4,000 and 5,000 senior-citizen households in the Spokane-Coeur dAlene area. It will include questions about interest in, desired locations for, and accommodations for a new Liberty Lake retirement center, she says.


Meantime, Riverview has begun looking at potential sites for such a development. The retirement-home operator would need between 60 acres and 80 acres of land to develop a complex, Renfrow says.


Whether Riverview moves forward with such a project will depend largely on the results of the survey, and the survey responses also will determine what services the complex would include, as well as the number of buildings and living units it would have, Renfrow says. Cost estimates for the project arent available yet, she says.


Survey results wont be tallied for several months, Renfrow says.


Spring of 2003 would be the soonest that we would know which direction were heading, she says.


A Liberty Lake retirement complex would be Riverviews first development outside of its original campus, which is located at 1801 E. Upriver Drive. The retirement-home operator has considered expanding that campus again, but doesnt have any immediate plans to do so. Renfrow says plans to expand the Upriver campus arent contingent upon whether Riverview moves ahead at Liberty Lake.


Riverview, which is affiliated with Lutheran Churches of the Inland Northwest, began serving retirees in 1959 with Riverview Terrace, which now has 95 independent-living units and 50 assisted-living units.


It later added on a 75-bed skilled-nursing facility, which it calls Riverview Care Center. In 1985, it began developing Riverview Village, which consists of 116 independent-living cottages and duplex units. Riverview Village was completed in 1997.