Plans for what was believed to be a Costco Wholesale Corp. store in Liberty Lake fell through late last month.

“They decided not to continue with the purchase,” says Doug Yost, vice president of acquisitions and development for Cowles Real Estate, which owns the properties that were being considered through its subsidiary, Centennial Properties LLC.

Yost declines to confirm the identity of the big-box retailer, however, as reported by the Journal in June, many of the envisioned store’s traits were consistent with that of a Costco outlet.

Yost says high construction costs and taxes were among the reasons the retailer backed out of the purchase-and-sale agreement.

An issue regarding the retailer’s request for additional gas pumps may have also played a part in the decision.

“They tried to expand some gas pumps, and they weren’t able to expand them,” Yost says. “I don’t think that was ultimately a deal breaker, but it didn’t help." 

Liberty Lake city officials couldn’t be reached immediately for comment.

The third-party representative of the big-box retailer that Yost was communicating with told him that the interested party decided to “step back for six months and reevaluate.”

While it’s not out of the realm of possibility that the retailer revisits the property in the future, Yost says he doesn’t know if the parcel will still be available in six months.

“There’s a lot of users that would like the opportunity to buy that land and weren’t able to because it was tied up,” Yost says.

The retailer’s decision to back out leaves the area without what would have been a big tax base, Yost says, although he believes there’s still other potential uses of that property that would benefit the community.

“It’s hard to replace somebody like that,” he says. “The land will get developed and there will be other uses, but it’s not the same as having that kind of business.”

The Journal broke the news of a potential Costco store coming to Liberty Lake when records on file with the city showed preliminary plans for a membership-based big-box warehouse.

The records didn’t specify the exact location of the proposed store, but showed the retailer was considering 39.09 acres of land owned by Centennial Properties—the exact acreage of seven connected land parcels along Interstate 90 owned by the company just west of Kramer Parkway and north of Country Vista Drive.

The proposal called for a 160,000-square-foot warehouse and a 24-vehicle gas station.