Harlan Douglass, a prominent Spokane developer, has started site work on a $28.6 million apartment complex north of Shelley Lake, in Spokane Valley, says Carolbelle Branch, a spokeswoman for the city.

Douglass couldn't be reached for comment, but Spokane Valley recently issued building permits for the 256-unit Shelley Lake Apartments complex, for which Harlan Douglass Inc. is listed as the contractor. The project site is located on 15 acres of land at 215 S. Conklin Road, just north of a single-family home development that fronts partly on Shelley Lake in the Veradale area of Spokane Valley.

Plans on file with the city show Shelley Lake Apartments will have 16 buildings. Seven of the buildings will be three-story structures, each with 24 living units. The other nine structures each will have two stories. Four of them will have 10 units, three will have 12 units, and two will have six units.

Floor space in each building will range from 8,900 to 27,500 square feet, and the two-story structures will have attached garages, plans show.

The apartment complex also will include a swimming pool, the permit information says.

Douglass originally had declared the project's value at $2.6 million, but the city of Spokane Valley arrived at a value more than 10 times higher than that based on its own building-standard calculations, Branch says. The new valuation is more in line with the $20.7 million valuation it placed on the 216-unit second phase of the Granite Pointe apartment complex in the Mirabeau area.

Roy L. Wyatt Architects & Associates PS, of Spokane Valley designed the project, and Whipple Consulting Engineers Inc., of Spokane Valley, is the civil engineer on it.