Spokane commercial and industrial real estate specialists Paul Hawkins, Dick Edwards, and Pete Thompson are seeking prospective tenant-partners for a multistory, retail-office building theyd like to develop downtown.


The building would be three stories or taller and would sit on a 27,000-square-foot site in the west 200 block of Main Avenue, east of an older, three-story building at 239 W. Main that the Spokane-based Phelps & Woodhead Inc. investment brokerage renovated and uses partly for its main offices. The undeveloped site, which is dominated by a large rock ledge that essentially divides the property into two levels, currently is used for parking.


Edwards says he, Hawkins, and Thompson have tied up the site with a preliminary purchase offer, made to owner Harry Green, a Spokane developer, and expect to decide by Sept. 1 whether to proceed with the transaction.


Until then, theyll be seeking through Hawkins Edwards Inc., the real estate agency where they all work, to gauge interest in the project among prospective tenants, who also could become part-owners of the proposed building, Edwards says.


As envisioned, the building would have about 7,000 square feet of retail space on the main floor, which would be large enough to accommodate as many as four or five small shops, Edwards says. The second floor would be used entirely for parking, with perhaps 75 stalls, and would be accessible to vehicles from the higher-elevation alleyway that runs along the top of the rock bluff to the south. The third floor, and any additional floors, would be used for office space.


Hawkins Edwards, currently located in the Riverpoint One building, at 501 N. Riverpoint Blvd., would move to the new building and probably would occupy about 4,000 square feet of space there, Edwards says. The rest of the more than 20,000 square feet of space on the third floor, assuming no additional floors are built, would be available to other tenants.


Construction of the building could begin as early as later this year and be completed by next spring if the project is found to be feasible, Edwards says. He declines to estimate the cost of the project.


He says the site is attractive for retail-office development partly because of its proximity to other envisioned development activity on the east side of downtown, including the proposed convention center expansion, and because its just west of Browne Street, which offers quick access to Interstate 90.