Doug Yost, director of real estate investments for Centennial Real Estate Investments, says seven of 16 finished apartment units in the Chronicle Building, at 926 W. Sprague downtown, already have been leased and now are occupied.

“It’s off to a great start,” Yost says of early leasing at the downtown building. “Leasing couldn’t be any better right now. The first tenants moved in on April 1.”

Yost says demand is strong for more residential apartments downtown.

Centennial Real Estate Investments, a subsidiary of Cowles Co., of Spokane, is converting four floors of the Chronicle Building into 32 apartments.

The project includes creating eight living units per floor on the third through sixth floors in the seven-story structure. Yost declines to say how much the conversion project is expected to cost.

He says construction on the fourth and fifth floors has been finished, and construction on the third and sixth floors will be completed by the end of April.

In other improvements to the building, the seventh floor will have a rooftop lounge and deck access for tenants, a new lobby and leasing office will be constructed, and a potential restaurant will be built, Yost says.

Five of the apartment units on each floor will be one-bedroom, one-bathroom units, and the other three will have two bedrooms and two bathrooms, Yost says.

The single-bedroom units range in size from 670 square feet to 800 square feet of space, and the two-bedroom units are between 1,100 and 1,200 square feet.

Monthly rent is $1,100 per month for the one-bedroom units, and between $1,500 and $1,800 for two-bedroom units, Yost says.

“At the rate they’re going, we expect all units to be occupied by the end of June,” he says.

MMEC Architects & Interiors, of Spokane, is the architect on the project, and Walker Construction Inc., also of Spokane, is the general contractor. Cowles Real Estate Co. owns the Chronicle Building, and Yost says Centennial Real Estate Investments will provide property management services for the new apartments.

Cowles Co. owns The Spokesman-Review, the Journal of Business, and the downtown River Park Square shopping mall, among other properties.

Cowles Co. also formerly owned the afternoon Spokane Daily Chronicle, which occupied the Chronicle Building for decades until it was absorbed by The Spokesman-Review and ceased publishing in 1992.