A proposed three-story, 280,000-square-foot field house addition to Liberty Launch Academy, a nonprofit private school serving preschool to 12th-grade students in Liberty Lake, will add over a dozen courts, a turf field, and other amenities for student use, says Luke Kjar, executive director of Liberty Launch Academy and CEO of Liberty Lake-based MODE, a co-working, fitness, wellness, and creative business hub.

Liberty Launch Academy is located at MODE Campus, at 2110 N. Molter Road in Liberty Lake. The field house addition will be constructed north of the existing campus building, replacing an existing parking lot, according to site plan information on file with the city of Liberty Lake.

The planned field house will include an indoor turf field striped for football, lacrosse, soccer, and rugby; seven pickleball courts; six basketball courts that also will serve as 12 volleyball courts; a rock wall; wrestling mats; classrooms, and a courtyard, says Kjar.

“The addition is really the last, final piece of our school that we've been missing, because a lot of our students, teachers, and parents were athletes, and anyone that's been an athlete knows how important (athletics) was and is to who they've become,” Kjar says. “We want to have a very strong athletic presence at our school and give opportunities for kids to be the greatest athletes that they could be.”

The field house also will include seating, a viewing deck, locker rooms, and training areas, Kjar adds.

Kjar declines to disclose the estimated cost of the project, and no cost was listed on permit information on file with the city of Liberty Lake.

Cleveland-based OSPORTS, a sports and entertainment architecture firm, is providing architectural services. Kirkland, Washington-based Apex Steel Inc. will build the main structure with pre-engineered building materials provided by Grand Island, Nebraska-based Chief Buildings Inc., Kjar says.

“We have some amazing partners, contractors, and specialty workers who are coming in and putting community first (on this project),” says Scott Reid, chief operating officer at MODE and an advisory board member at Liberty Launch Academy. “They see the value of what this will do for the school and the overall community, especially locally here at Liberty Lake.”

Developers currently are awaiting permit approval. Construction is anticipated to start in summer 2026, Kjar says. Interior work is expected to be completed by fall and the building is expected to open the first quarter of 2027, he says.

Students will have access to the facility during the school's operating hours, and the space will be available for community activities and events after hours, Kjar emphasizes.

“It’s a facility for the school to use, but after school hours, we will allow for club sports to be housed there, and for these facilities to not only be for our students, but for the community,” he says. “But its primary use is going to be for Liberty Launch Academy.”

The current MODE campus building was constructed by Hewlett Packard in the late 1970’s, Kjar says. MODE purchased the building for $11.4 million in 2022 from Jim Frank, owner of Liberty Lake-based Greenstone Corp. 

Frank — one of the owners of the Meadowwood Technology Campus, a 70-acre property comprised of four office buildings with 450,000 square feet of office space — suggested Kjar tour the property and later sold him the largest building and the 21 acres it sat on, the Journal previously reported. 

“This is a really amazing building that we got an opportunity to buy, and now this is just going to polish it off,” Kjar says.

The nonprofit private school was established in 2022 by Kjar, according to Liberty Launch Academy’s website. 

"We took the scar tissue of our own education and from the data that's available, it's a clear indicator that kids today aren't doing well in school and in the real world," Kjar says. "We made a school that highlighted those things adults and parents and people that think different about education think of when they ask, 'What would we build if we could control everything?' And that's what the school is."

The school is in its fourth year and expects to have over 400 students enrolled in fall semester 2026, says Kjar.

“With the capacity for 700 or 800 total (students), we can almost double and have an incredible thing going,” he says.

Project updates

*The city of Spokane has issued a change of use permit to Spokane-based franchisee Fit SpokNorth LLC for a planned Planet Fitness to be constructed at 9534 N. Newport Highway, in a former Shopko building.

The new gym is planned to occupy about 25,000 square feet of vacant space at the southern end of the former Shopko store, which closed in 2019, the Journal previously reported.

The new gym will join three other Planet Fitness franchise locations in the area: at 1617 W. Northwest Blvd., in Spokane; 13112 E. Sprague, in Spokane Valley; and at 200 W. Hanley, in Coeur d’Alene.