Greenstone Corp., the Liberty Lake based real estate development company, is about to embark on a $50 million phase of construction in Kendall Yards that will include the largest project the company has taken on so far, says Jim Frank, Greenstone CEO.

“We’ve stated permitting for a large mixed-use project,” Frank says.

The project will include 230,000 square feet of office, retail, and residential space in two buildings to be constructed on the west half of a 5-acre parcel of vacant land at 1001 W. Summit Parkway, between the Inlander Building and Monroe Street, Frank says. The two buildings will sit atop a single-level, partially underground parking garage, he says.

The project doesn’t have an official name yet, Frank says, although it’s referred to as the Podium in preliminary planning documents, because the parking garage portion will serve as a podium on which two multistory commercial structures will be built.

One structure will be a four-story, 66,300-square-foot office building. 

The other structure will have six stories, with a total of 130 apartment units on the second through sixth floors, Frank says. The apartment building will have retail space facing Summit and resident amenities on the rest of the first floor.

The 85,000-square-foot parking garage will be partially underground with daylight exposure on the south side. Frank says it will have about 290 stalls, and the overall project also will include surface parking for about 22 vehicles.

The project also will include an open plaza with views of the river and public access to the Centennial Trail from Summit, Frank says.

Greenstone hasn’t named a contractor for the project yet..

“It will be the biggest thing Greenstone has ever done as far as a single construction project,” Frank says.

Bernardo|Wills Architects PS, of Spokane, and Shoesmith Cox Architects PLLC, of Seattle, are designing the project.

“It’s such a large project, two architectural firms are involved,” Frank says.

Greenstone plans to begin construction this year.

“The first phase is going to be construction of the parking garage, which will start sometime in late 2017,” Frank says. “We have to build the parking garage first to provide the foundation for the whole thing.”

He says construction on the residential and office structures likely will start next year.

“It will probably be 2019 before we have full occupancy of the buildings,” he says.

Frank says Greenstone is seeing some early interest from prospective tenants for the office and retail space, although preleasing isn’t the current focus of the development.

“Occupancy is a couple years out. We’re not pushing that aspect now,” he says. “There’s been enough demand for office and retail in Kendall Yards that we’re comfortable with the market for it.”

More than 20 businesses now are operating in Kendall Yards, a 78-acre urban village overlooking the Spokane River Gorge northwest of downtown. Kendall Yards residents so far occupy a mix of more than 300 living units that include upscale single-family homes, moderately priced townhomes, and apartments.

Adding to that, several other major projects are planned or ongoing at Kendall Yards, Frank says.

Among them, work is nearly complete on a $4.5 million, three-story medical office building at 456 N. Jefferson Way, and the tenants, Providence Medical Group and Columbia Medical Associates, are moving into the 38,000-square-foot structure, he says.

My Fresh Market, an $8 million, 26,000-square-foot independent grocery store, is under construction at the northwest corner of Monroe and Summit.

“We’re aiming for a May or June opening date,” Frank says.

The $15 million, 130-unit Highline Phase V apartment complex is under construction at 528 W. Cedar, and units will be ready this summer for tenants to move in, he says.

An upscale rental project, the $5.3 million, 24-unit Elm Street Apartments, is under construction at the southwest corner of Elm Street and Summit.

Construction also is under way on the $2.2 million Kendall Yards Bluff Building, at 1323 W. Summit. 

Frank says a “major restaurant” tenant, which he declines to name yet, is lined up to lease a significant portion of that three-level, 14,000-square-foot building.

An upcoming project will be the $1.2 million two-building Nettleton Corners project, Frank says.

“We’ll be permitting a small retail cluster on Nettleton and Ohio Street in the next couple of months and starting construction in midsummer on 7,000 square feet of retail space,” he says.

Greenstone bought the Kendall Yards property in 2009 from a company headed by former Coeur d’Alene real estate magnate Marshall Chesrown, who relinquished most of his real estate holdings during the Great Recession.

Since then, Greenstone’s master plan for Kendall Yards has grown to envision a total of 1,500 residential units, and up to 350,000 square feet of commercial space.