Sundance Plaza LLC, of Spokane, has inked Albertsons Inc. as the supermarket anchor for the planned Sundance Plaza Shopping Center on Spokanes North Side, and after a years delay, is moving forward with the projects $5.2 million first phase.


The retail centers site is located on the west side of Indian Trail Road between Barnes and Lowell avenues, and the complex is envisioned to include 300,000 square feet of floor space eventually. Spokane developer Dick Vandervert is the managing partner of Sundance Plaza.


The developments first stage will consist of 90,000 square feet of retail space, including the 57,000-square-foot Albertsons, says Tim Stulc, a project manager for Vandervert Construction Inc., which is the general contractor for the project. That structure is scheduled to be completed in September, he says.


Albertsons also plans to build a gas station-convenience store, called Albertsons Express, along Indian Trail in front of its supermarket, he says.


Vandervert also has started work on a 5,000-square-foot building on a retail pad there for a new Spokane Teachers Credit Union branch. That structure is expected to be completed in August, Stulc says.


Steve Dahlstrom, the credit unions president and CEO, says the branch will be its seventh overall and will be similar in design to a recently-constructed branch along 29th Avenue on Spokanes South Hill.


Dahlstrom says the credit union decided to build a branch there, because it has a large concentration of customers in that neighborhood.


In roughly a month, Vandervert is scheduled to start work on three buildings with about 28,000 square feet of retail space. Two buildings to the south of the Albertsons will have about 22,000 square feet of floor space, and one to the north will have about 6,000 square feet of space. Stulc says Sundance Plaza is negotiating leases for those spaces with several prospective tenants, but no agreements have been reached yet. Completion of those structures is expected to coincide with completion of the Albertsons store in September.


Bernardo-Wills Architects PC, of Spokane, designed Sundance Plaza, and Spokane architect Jerry Shogan designed the credit union branch.


Much of the infrastructure, including curbing and parking-lot lighting, has been in place on the site for more than a year. Sundance Plaza disclosed plans in January 2001 to start work the following March on the developments first buildings, but the project was delayed by a dispute with neighboring landowner Harlan Douglass concerning relocation of a natural-gas line onto Douglass property and widening of Barnes Road, at the northern end of Sundance Plaza. Stulc says those issues have been resolved to the point that Sundance Plaza can move forward with the project.