Real estate investor and developer Rob Brewster Jr. says he has bought the long-vacant Holley Mason Building in downtown Spokane and plans to rehabilitate the historic six-story structure.


Brewster, who grew up in Spokane but now lives mostly in Washington, D.C., acquired the building from Louis and Patricia Dahmen Ray, of Spokane, for $475,000. He now is seeking tenants for the building and says the timing of the rehab will depend on how successful he is in that effort.


He adds that he already is negotiating with a couple of sizable prospective tenants, and says, I hope to find somebody fairly soon.


Brewster envisions turning the Holley Mason into a mixed-used facility, with a restaurant and other retail users on the main floor and high-tech, Internet-style professional offices on most of the upper floors. He intends to market that space heavily to computer-oriented professionals, such as lawyers, architects, accountants, and software developers, and to wire the building to meet their electronic needs.


The 93-year-old Holley Mason is located at 157 S. Howard, just south of the railroad viaduct, and has been unoccupied for more than 20 years. Designed by onetime Spokane architect Albert Held, its said to be the first reinforced-concrete structure built in Spokane and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.


With a total of 132,000 square feet of floor space, counting the basement and a mezzanine level, it is one of the largest vacant retail-office buildingsif not the largestin the Spokane area. By comparison, the 98-year-old American Legion Building, a mostly vacant six-story structure at 108 N. Washington, has only about 51,000 square feet of floor space, and the 106-year-old Levy Block, a vacant three-story building at 118 N. Stevens that once housed an upscale restaurant called Strobels, has only about 9,000 square feet of floor space.


Teresa Brum, Spokane city-county historic preservation officer, says the rehabilitation of an older building often creates a domino effect of surrounding improvements, such as has occurred in recent years in the Carnegie area at the west end of downtown. I think (rehabilitation of) the Holley Mason could have a similar effect in the block that its in, or the surrounding blocks, she says.


Brewster took an option on the Holley Mason last fall. Also, he hired John Rovtar Design Studio Inc., of Spokane, to do some planning studies on the building and asked Ed Walker, of Walkers Construction Inc., to estimate renovation costs.


Brewster says he expects to spend as much as $3 million to $4 million over a period of several years to rehabilitate the building, if his hopes for the structure turn out as planned. Regardless of how successful he is in that effort, his purchase of the building alone represents a significant development. Several other prospective buyers have eyed and prepared ambitious proposals for the structure in recent years, but none went ahead with the purchase of the structure.


About two years ago, Tahleigha and Nelson Aitchison, of Spokane, proposed a project that would have turned most of the building into a holistic health and wellness center, housing a broad mix of alternative health-care providers, salon and spa services, and businesses selling organic and environment-friendly products. Their plans stalled, however, when an option that the couple had entered into lapsed before they could line up interim investor financing for the project.


Three years earlier, Davenport Arts District officials had announced that International Eagle Corp., of Sacramento, Calif., planned to develop the Holley Mason into a mixed-use facility, with space for retail, dining, entertainment, and housing activities. That project, however, also failed to materialize.


The Holley Mason has a well-preserved, turn-of-the-century facade, noted for its ornate mix of buff-colored brick and terra cota architectural features. The interior is gutted down to the concrete on all levels, with all of the plumbing, electrical, and mechanical systems having been removed.


Rocky Rothrock, of Crowley Commercial Real Estate, and Mike Nicholson, of Nicholson-Wood Realtors, handled Brewsters purchase of the building.


As reported earlier, Brewster bought another downtown buildingthe three-story Montvale Block, at the southwest corner of First Avenue and Monroe Streetabout a year and a half ago, and is working to restore that structure as well.


Two longtime retail tenants, Starks Vacuum Cleaner Sales & Service Inc. and Music City Spokane, occupy most of the main floor of that 99-year-old, 38,000-square-foot building. Brewster has cleaned up the upper floors of the building and is searching for tenants for those floors.


He has said that ultimately he would like to lure a restaurant to the building and participate with neighboring property owners in transforming the area at First and Monroe into a lively, nighttime-entertainment district.