Jim Sheehan, a longtime Spokane attorney, has bought the former Birkebeiner Brewing Co. building at 35 W. Main in downtown Spokane and has started a $1 million renovation project there.


The remodeling project involves converting the three-story, 25,000-square-foot structure, which formerly housed the Birkebeiner restaurant and brewpub, into an office building for nonprofit organizations. Sheehan says he has named the structure the Community Building.


Sheehan also has bought a three-story, 15,000-square-foot structure just to the east and plans to start remodeling it after the first building is complete. He says he expects that building to house a day-care center and possibly a community-run radio station that a grassroots group here is trying to get off the ground.


Sheehan declines to disclose the terms of either transaction.


He says he wont charge rent to the groups in the buildings, but all of the groups will split utilities, taxes, and other such costs generated there.


At the Community Building, remodeling work on the first-floor space is scheduled to be completed in August, and the upper two floors are expected to be finished by November, Sheehan says.


S&P Construction, of Spokane, is the general contractor for the project, which is being designed by OConnor, Monaghan & Sommers Inc.


So far, 13 groups have agreed to take space in the Community Building, Sheehan says. Global Folk Art plans to move its store into a first-floor space in August. The rest of the first floor will be a common area for use by tenants.


Sheehan says a group hes involved with, called Center For Justice, which provides civil legal services to low-income people, will move its offices in November to a space on the third floor of the building from the Minnesota Building, at 423 W. First.


Other groupsall nonprofit organizationsthat plan to take office space on the buildings second and third floors in November include Inland Mediation, Inland Northwest Land Trust, Kettle Range Conservation Group, Landscape Photography, New Priorities, Northwest Fair Housing Alliance, Northwest Plant Health Research Foundation, Peace & Justice Action League of Spokane, Save Our Wild Salmon, Washington Environmental Council, and Zen Cote.


OConnor, Monaghan & Sommers still is designing the office space on the second and third floors, so its unclear currently whether there will be space available in the building for additional organizations.