A Utah contractor has won a $21 million contract to design and build an Interstate 90 interchange in west Post Falls that some predict will rekindle the stalled commercial development currently anchored by the big Cabela's sporting goods outlet and a Walmart retail store.

The contractor, Ralph L. Wadsworth Construction Co. (RLW), has begun design work on what's to be called the Beck Road interchange with H.W. Lochner Inc., a Chicago-based transportation engineering firm, and will begin construction in the spring, says Eric Keck, Post Falls city administrator. The interchange is scheduled to be completed by the end of this year, Keck says.

The Beck Road interchange is to become the primary freeway access to the 200-acre Pointe at Post Falls commercial development on the west edge of Post Falls, where the Cabela's store opened in 2007 and a Walmart supercenter opened in 2010.

Keck says he expects the project will revitalize interest in further development at the Pointe at Post Falls, where, with the notable exception of the Walmart store, the recession had stifled previously anticipated growth.

"We've heard from a number of business concerns that have said they would come if they knew in certain terms that an interchange will be there," Keck says, adding, "We've heard that once they see dirt moving, they will buy property or lease land to get businesses going as well."

Foursquare Properties Inc., the Carlsbad, Calif.-based developer of the Pointe at Post Falls, is eager for the interchange project to get started, says Jeffrey Vitek, Foursquare's vice president.

"We think it's going to bring a lot of activity," Vitek says.

The interchange project is expected to help firm up commitments from certain retailers, restaurants, office users, and hotels to locate in the Pointe at Post Falls development, he says, although he declines to name them yet.

"We will start to make announcements within the next couple of months," Vitek says.

Mooresville, N.C.-based Lowe's Cos. had been expected to submit building plans to the city for a home-improvement retail store just east of Cabela's and west of Walmart in 2009, but those plans haven't come to fruition.

"If you look at the market as a whole, I think it's been put on hold because of the economy," Keck says.

Other retail chains that had been publicly mentioned as interested in building outlets at the Pointe at Post Falls development prior to the recession included Minneapolis-based Target Corp. and Atlanta-based Home Depot Inc.

The interchange will be roughly halfway between the Pleasant View Road and State Line interchanges, and will involve extending Beck Road south to connect to Riverbend Avenue.

Beck Road, which connects to Seltice Way north of the Pointe at Post Falls, currently terminates north of the freeway, which is on the south side of the commercial development.

Beck Road intersects with Pointe Parkway, which bisects the Pointe at Post Falls development. Cabela's and Walmart both front Pointe Parkway, and much of the rest of the Pointe at Post Falls is vacant land.

RLW, through its parent company, Sterling Construction Co., of Houston, also will finance the project initially with repayment anticipated through sales taxes from the area serviced by the interchange, Keck says.

The project will be the first in Idaho to benefit from a funding mechanism called state tax anticipated revenue, or STAR funding, that was approved by the Idaho Legislature in 2007.

Since then, the Beck Interchange project proposal has wound through a complex federal approval process in which the developer had to show that existing access is inadequate and that the interchange would have no adverse effects on highway safety. The project also had to meet Post Falls' and regional transportation plans, and go through an environmental evaluation that included other options.

The interchange itself will be a standard diamond interchange with exit ramps and onramps on each side of I-90. Keck says.

When the project is completed, the interchange will be turned over to the Idaho Transportation Department.