Washington state is evaluating two purchase offers it has received for Eastern Washington Universitys downtown building and expects to make a recommendation to EWU by the end of this month on which one to accept.


Steve Valandra, a spokesman for the state Department of General Administration, says the two bidders are Fred DiCosola and Meriwether Partners LLC, but declines to release any more information about their offers since theyre still being evaluated.


DiCosola, of Seattle, is a member of a private investment group thats seeking to buy the building with the intent of leasing it out, says Tim Redfern, of R.H. Cooke & Associates Inc., of Spokane, who is representing the group.


Meriwether Partners is a five-year-old, Seattle-based commercial real estate company. A call to that company seeking information about its proposal for the EWU building was referred to one of its partners, David Rothrock, who couldnt be reached immediately for comment.


Meriwether Partners Web site says the company has bought 11 properties since making its first investment in 2003. Those properties range from office buildings, an industrial warehouse, and a hotel, to ranch and residential land. Four of the properties are in Western Washington, and the rest are in Boise; Salem and St. Helens, Ore.; Salt Lake City; Crested Butte, Colo.; and Milpitas, Calif.


Valandra says the Department of General Administration is working through a due-diligence phase that includes looking at whether the bidders are financially able to buy the building. Although the agency will make a recommendation to EWU on what it regards as the best proposal, the final decision on whether to sell rests with the university, he says.


The state had set a minimum asking price of $3.77 million for the four-story, 67,000-square-foot downtown structure, which is called the EWU Spokane Center and is located at 705 W. First. The university has housed its Spokane branch operations there since 1983, but now plans to construct a larger building in the nearby Riverpoint Higher Education Park as part of a broader effort to expand the universitys academic offerings in Spokane.


It intends to use money from the sale of its current building to fund design and planning work for the envisioned Riverpoint building, and expects to seek state construction dollars for that building in the 2009-2011 biennium.