Garco Construction Inc., of Spokane, plans to start construction in March on a $35 million, 227,000-square-foot apartment and retail complex in the city of DuPont, Wash., about 17 miles southwest of Tacoma.

The project, named The Trax at DuPont, will include 179 apartment units and 12,000 square feet of retail space, says a press release issued by DuPont Trax LLC, the Spokane company that's developing the project. James T. "Tim" Welsh heads that development company and also is president of Garco.

"At a time when the economy is still stalled in most places, we welcome the opportunity to begin construction in DuPont Station and support the area's growth," Welsh said in the press release.

The apartments will serve an expected rise in demand for housing there due in part to an ongoing expansion of Joint Base Lewis-McChord, which is within six miles of the project site, Welsh says.

The project will be located on a 4.5-acre parcel of land that DuPont Trax recently bought from DuPont Station LLC and will be a large component of the overall DuPont Station development envisioned there, says Bellevue, Wash. architect Paul Franks, who designed The Trax at DuPont project.

"This is one of the final pieces and will be the largest building project in the DuPont Station development," Franks says.

The project site is directly west of a Liberty Inn hotel and just north of Interstate 5, which runs in a nearly east-west direction at DuPont.

The first 46 apartment units in The Trax at DuPont are expected to be completed within nine months, and the remainder of the apartments and retail space will be completed within another 10 months, Garco says.

DuPont Station LLC began developing DuPont Station in 1999. The company's website says the development currently is home to about 20 retail shops, dining establishments, and services, including a McDonald's restaurant, a pet-supply boutique, and a Pierce County Library branch.

Apartment units in The Trax at DuPont will range from 428-square-foot lofts to 1,140-square-foot two-bedroom units, Franks says.

The complex will include five buildings. Two of them will have ground-floor retail space with three stories of living units. Two buildings will be three-story apartment structures, and two buildings will have two-story, townhouse-style units, he says.

The four-story buildings also will have 49,000 square feet of underground secured parking for residents, Franks says.

The Trax at DuPont project, which is located near a Sound Transit park-and-ride facility, is designed to promote the use of rapid transit, Franks says.