The Arc of Spokane, a nonprofit organization here that serves people with developmental disabilities, is spending about $1.8 million to remodel and renovate a building east of downtown that it purchased last year for its new offices.

The 21,000-square-foot building, located at 320 E. Second, formerly was owned by Inland Power & Light Co., which sold the property to The Arc for $1.4 million last year, after the electric cooperative relocated to its new headquarters on the West Plains.

"The new location is in closer proximity to downtown, so we will be more accessible and visible to the people we serve and the general public," says Greg Falk, Arc of Spokane's executive director. "Many people come to us by bus and there are major bus lines on Second and Third."

Walker Construction Inc., of Spokane, was selected in March as the general contractor for the remodeling and renovation, and also is providing architectural services, he says.

Construction work, which began late last month, is expected to be complete sometime next spring, Falk says, and the organization is hoping to move into its new location by May.

He says the most extensive part of the project is the remodel of the lower level of the building to accommodate The Arc's community center, which serves about 110 people each month.

That space formerly was designed with garage doors as a maintenance facility for Inland's service trucks, but has been gutted and rebuilt, and a new exterior wall will be erected in place of the garage doors, Falk says.

The project also includes installation of underground wastewater storage tanks under the parking lot, which will be resurfaced after the tanks are in place, he says.

The rest of the building will be updated with new fixtures and finishes, and the electrical and heating and cooling systems will be replaced, he says. Rooms on the second floor also will be reconfigured, and a new roof will be installed.

Currently, The Arc of Spokane occupies two different buildings it owns north of downtown. Its main offices are located at 127 W. Boone, and it also occupies about 10,000 square feet of an 18,000-square-foot building at 116 W. Indiana, Falk says.

The organization put both those buildings up for sale last year when it decided to buy the building on Second and since then has sold the 5,000-square-foot building on Boone to an investor, he says.

That building was constructed in 1905, and Falk says rather than renovate it, the nonprofit decided to consolidate its services into one location. It currently is leasing that building back from its new owner until it moves.

"Having two separate buildings a mile apart was confusing to the people we serve and duplicated costs, having to have two receptionists," he says. "It was fragmenting our communication and our needs. We needed to update, but we decided it would be better to be under one roof."

The second location on Indiana is still for sale, he says.

The Arc will use the money from the sale of both of those buildings, as well as money raised from a capital campaign, to pay for the $3.2 million total cost of purchasing and renovating the former Inland Power building, its Web site says.

So far, the organization has raised almost 70 percent of the total funds needed for the project, it says.