With Wal-Mart Stores Inc. breaking ground on its planned West Plains supercenter, a crush of additional retail development is expected in the mostly undeveloped Crosspointe Plaza Shopping Center.


Spokane developer Dick Vandervert says that Granite Investments LLC, a company he leads, owns about 40 acres of largely vacant land just east of the Wal-Mart site, near the northeast corner of U.S. 2 and Hayford Road, and plans to develop up to 300,000 square feet of additional retail space there. Including the Wal-Mart store, Crosspointe Plaza would have a total of about 500,000 square feet of retail space. Total cost to develop the center likely will be about $45 million, he says.


Further development in that power center could happen quickly, he says.


Everybody was waiting for the announcement of Wal-Mart, and now theyre saying, Lets go! Lets go! Lets go! Vandervert says.


Granite Investments currently is negotiating with other big-box retailers that would be interested in opening a 200,000-square-foot store at the east end of Crosspointe, Vandervert says. Smaller retail buildings would be constructed between the two large retailers, he says.


Some planned retail buildings are in the design stage now, and Vandervert says work on those structures could begin yet this year. Other structures could get under way next year.


Jennifer Holder, a Seattle-based spokeswoman for Wal-Mart, says foundation work is under way on the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailers 195,000-square-foot store there. She says the store will take nine to 11 months to construct, and it will take another three months to stock the store and train its 350-some employees.


Overall, Vandervert says, Crosspointe likely will take between three and four years to develop fully, he says.


The project has grown substantially since Granite Investments disclosed plans to develop Crosspointe about three years ago. At that time, Vandervert said he envisioned a 195,000-square-foot retail center that would be anchored by a supermarket on the site where the Wal-Mart is being built. Granite Investments secured building permits from Spokane County for such a project, and Wal-Mart now is working with the county to convert that collection of permits into one permit for its supercenter.


In recent years, Vandervert says, Granite Investments has bought more land to the east of there for the envisioned additional retail development there.


Currently, Crosspointe is home only to a 12,600-square-foot retail strip building and a Taco Bell restaurant. Current tenants in the retail building include a Starbucks coffee shop, a Quiznos sandwich shop, and the West Plains Animal Hospital. AmericanWest Bank has leased space that its remodeling in that building, and a liquor store is negotiating to lease another space there. About 4,000 square feet of retail space is vacant in the building at this time.


Vandervert-led companies have developed a number of shopping centers in the Inland Northwest. Vandervert says, though, at that 500,000 square feet of retail space, Crosspointe Plaza would be the second-largest power center developed by his concerns. Only the Nez Perce Plaza, which Granite Investments developed in Lewiston, Idaho, is larger, he says.


The Crosspointe development includes a 383-unit apartment complex, called Cedar Summit on the West Plains, that Cedar Builders Inc., of Spokane, has developed north of the Wal-Mart site.


East of the apartment complex, Condron Construction Inc., of Spokane, is developing the Sekani at Crosspointe neighborhood. Condron Vice President Corey Condron says the company has built 60 homes at Sekani and has developed another 60 lots. An additional 60 lots will be developed in future phases, he says.


Contact Linn Parish at (509) 344-1266 or via e-mail at linnp@spokanejournal.com.