Longtime Spokane developer Rich Dahm has submitted a preliminary plat application to Spokane County to develop 345 single-family homes on 121 acres located south of the city of Spokane Valley.


The development, to be called The Vistas at Morningside Heights, is being developed by Dahm through a company called Summit Properties Inc., and is eventually expected to have a value of about $120 million.


It would be located near Dahms mostly completed Morningside Heights, Morningside, and Windsor Ridge developments, which were developed under different business names and, together, total about 330 lots, says Dahm.


All four of the subdivisions are adjacent to one another and are located on a plateau between Sullivan and Barker roads, north of 32nd Avenue and along Chapman Road, says Frank Ide, a land-use planner for Taylor Engineering Inc., of Spokane, which is engineering the development. The Vistas would be located on both sides of a proposed northeasterly extension of Chapman, which currently provides access to the other three developments from 32nd. That extension, if approved, eventually would connect Chapman to about 14th Avenue and Barker, Dahm says.


The Vistas would be the largest of the four developments.


We plan to get infrastructure construction under way by the end of the summer, and try to at least get the infrastructure for the first phase done by the end of the year, says Dahm. He anticipates the first homes in the project will be completed early next year.


Like homes built the last two or three years in Dahms other nearby developments, the first of which launched in 1996, home prices at The Vistas of Morningside Heights would be expected to begin at about $250,000 and range up to about $800,000, Dahm says. He says lot sizes would vary in size from 8,000 square feet to 20,000 square feet.


He says Summit would plan to sell the lots in the project to the same seven builders whove worked most recently in the other three subdivisions. They are Sullivan Homes Inc., Johnson Brothers Construction, Gordon Finch Homes, W.R. Libby Construction Co., Cornerstone Homes, Schmitz Construction, and Arrow Enterprises Inc., all of Spokane.


Dahm says only about 50 more homes, all of which are currently under construction, need to be completed before his other three developments there are completed. He says those remaining homes should be completed by the end of the year.


The project could be extended to eight or nine phases, says Dahm. Theres no telling how long it will take to build Vista out, as it all depends on the market. If Spokane continues growing and recruiting jobs, who knows? Right now there is a shortage of lots and a lot of pressure on the land.


Contact Rocky Wilson at (509) 344-1264 or via e-mail at rockyw@spokanejournal.com.