A Spokane-based real estate investment company says it has bought the 152,000-square-foot River Ridge Shopping Center, at the southwest corner of Wellesley Avenue and Assembly Street, for $1.3 million.

The company, AJR LLC, which also has several other real estate holdings in the Spokane area, purchased the neighborhood center from Seattle-based BGN Properties Inc., says Jessey Nagra, who co-owns AJR with his parents, Ajit and Rachhtal Nagra.

AJR hopes to secure a new tenant soon for the center's vacant 43,100-square-foot anchor space, Nagra says. It already has made some cosmetic improvements to the retail complex and hopes to complete other upgrades by late fall, he says.

"Right now we are just trying to make it look nice," he says.

Nagra says he and his parents bought the shopping center because they think its corner-lot location makes it a good investment with the upcoming opening this August of the new Dwight Merkel Sports Complex, located about six blocks north of the shopping center on the west side of Assembly.

The new sports complex will feature several playfields, a BMX bike track, a skate park, a park area, and a splash pad, as well as concessions stands and a walking path.

"We want to do something by the time the fields open up because it was looking a little dumpy," Nagra says.

Currently, tenants at River Ridge include the Care-A-Lot Learning Center and Stadium Pizza Parlor. Its anchor space was occupied most recently by a Food 4 Less grocery store, which closed last year. Before that, a Yoke's Fresh Market occupied that space for 16 years until it closed in 2007.

Nagra says AJR owns several convenience stores in the Spokane area, but declines to disclose where.

Joel Crosby, of Coldwell Banker Tomlinson South, handled the sale.