Spokane developer Dick Vandervert says he is talking with 24 Hour Fitness, the big Pleasanton, Calif.-based fitness-club chain, about building an exercise facility for the chain on land behind the Northpointe Plaza shopping center on Spokanes North Side.


Vandervert stresses that an agreement hasnt been reached yet with 24 Hour Fitness, so any possible plans that have been discussed are preliminary. He says, though, that the chain has talked to him about the possibility of building a 40,000-square-foot structure on a portion of the land that he owns behind the ShopKo store at Northpointe Plaza.


Molly French, a spokeswoman for 24 Hour Fitness, says she has no information at this time about a project in the Spokane area.


A development company headed by Vandervert, called Northpointe Office Building LLC, already has begun work on a separate three-story, 102,000-square-foot office building on a 6.2-acre parcel behind the ShopKo store. The exercise club would share land with the new office building, if plans for the exercise facility proceed, Vandervert says.


24 Hour Fitness entered the Spokane-Coeur dAlene market in 1998 when it bought Sta-Fit Racquet & Athletic Clubs, which operated five clubs here and three in North Idaho. Its unclear whether the proposed facility at Northpointe would replace the chains current North Side club, at 8707 N. Division.


24 Hour Fitness operates clubs in nine U.S. states, as well as in Asia, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.