Summit Property Development says it expects to begin work shortly on a 30,000-square-foot, multitenant building in the Spokane Valley Plaza, a power center anchored by Wal-Mart and located just south of Interstate 90 and east of Sullivan Road.


David Harding, vice president of Summit, says the building is expected to be completed by about June and likely will house three to five tenants. He declines to divulge the estimated cost of the project.


Summit handles the real estate interests of Spokane-based Metropolitan Mortgage & Securities Co., which owns the Valley Plaza property. The new building is to be constructed just north of Broadway Avenue on the east side of a planned entry road into the power center. Zeck Butler Architects PS, of Spokane, is the architect on the project. A general contractor hasnt been named yet.


LDE Inc., of Spokane, which operates a small chain of 50% Off Cards stores, has reached a tentative agreement to lease a 13,000-square-foot space in the building for a new outlet.


Ellsworth Moland, LDEs president and majority owner, says the planned Valley Plaza store would be the companys sixth. It has two stores on Spokanes North Side, one on the South Hill, one other in the Spokane Valley, and one in Coeur dAlene. Moland says he envisions opening six or seven more stores, preferably in the 14,000- to 15,000-square-foot range and mostly outside of the Spokane area.


Harding says Summit is negotiating with a couple of other retail chains that may take all or most of the remaining space in the planned new building at the Valley Plaza.


Meanwhile, construction is winding down there on a 135,000-square-foot Wal-Mart store thats expected to open by mid-May. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the giant Bentonville, Ark.-based retail chain, last year bought a 13-acre piece of the 34-acre Spokane Valley Plaza site from Metropolitan for about $2.8 million. The Wal-Mart store will be the first retailer to open in the power center.


Plans call for the construction of one other building in the centera large, multitenant structure that would be located directly south of the Red Lion Inn and extend partly along Sullivan Road. A timetable for construction of that building hasnt been disclosed and will depend on the signing of additional tenants. The retail development is expected to have a little over 300,000 square feet of retail space when completed.


Metropolitan is a financial-services company that employs about 440 people and has more than $1 billion in assets.