Garco Construction, of Spokane, has begun offering development services through a new affiliate company, called Garco Development Services, and has bought two projects, at Liberty Lake and in Pasco, Wash.


Those projects include the planned development of a 55,500-square-foot distribution center in the Liberty Lake Center business park for Bergen Brunswig Medical Corp. and an 11,300-square-foot occupational health center in the Broadmoor Park development on the west side of Pasco along Interstate 182.


Don Enemark, president of Garco Development Services, says the company bought the Liberty Lake project site and related development plans from Western United Life Assurance Co., of Spokane, and the Pasco project assets from Metropolitan Mortgage & Securities Co., also of Spokane.


Enemark was hired at the beginning of this year to form Garcos new development unit. He formerly was president of Spokane-based Summit Property Development, which oversees Metro-politans real estate portfolio. Metro-politans development properties include the 99-acre Liberty Lake Center and the 400-acre, multifaceted Broadmoor Park. Western United Life Assurance is a subsidiary of Metropolitan.


Garco Construction will be the general contractor on the previously announced Bergen Brunswig project, and expects to begin building that estimated $3 million structure next month, Enemark says. The project is expected to be completed by about mid-August, he says. Bergen Brunswig, which operates a medical and surgical supplies distribution center here at 715 E. Sprague, plans to move that operation into the building at Liberty Lake and will lease the new structure. Bergen Brunswig Medical is a subsidiary of Bergen Brunswig Corp., a Fortune 200 company.


Enemark says Garco Construction is beginning work now on the occupational health center in Pasco for the Our Lady of Lourdes medical network and expects to complete that project in June. The health center project, which has an estimated value of more than $1.5 million, is the first phase of whats expected to be a multiphase development, he says.


Garco Development Services plans to offer a range of commercial-project coordination services, such as site evaluation, cost calculation, and land-use regulatory approval, to potential clients in Washington, Idaho, and Oregon, Enemark says.


This is a natural extension from the services they (Garco) already provide, he says, noting the construction company also has a longstanding design department that allows it to handle architectural needs in-house.


Enemark says, I think the people who will benefit most from the service will be those who arent in the real estate market all of the time, but who have development-related needs and feel most comfortable delegating some or all of those responsibilities.


Garco Construction, which has origins dating back to 1953, is one of Spokanes largest general contractors. It reported contract revenue of $50 million for 1997, the most recent year for which figures were available. Two of the larger projects it has built here in recent years were Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena and the main portion of the Spokane Valley Mall.