The owner of a longtime grain elevator complex just north of downtown Spokane has put the property up for sale, and the commercial real estate broker marketing the massive structure for possible mixed-use redevelopment says he has received an offer on it from a prospective buyer.


The complex, owned by V&M Investments LLC, of Spokane, includes a long office-warehouse building adjoining eight concrete grain elevators of varying diameters and heights with a combined storage capacity of 400,000 bushels.


It sits on a 45,000-square-foot site just north of Cataldo Avenue between Division and Ruby streets, near the south end of the Division-Ruby couplet, and shares a diagonally-split block there with a Mister Car Wash.


Its one of only a few grain-elevator facilities still standing in the city, and perhaps is the most visually out of placea towering agricultural structure, rising to 120 feet at its highest point, surrounded by low-rise retail and commercial buildings.


Its a hell of a piece of property, claims listing agent Joseph K. Nichols, owner of Windermere Real Estate/Manito LLC. I think it would make an excellent condominium (development), an excellent hotel-motel, apartment building.


He says the property has a listing price of $850,000. He declines to identify the potential buyer, other than to say its a local developer who is interested in converting the structures there for mixed uses rather than demolishing them.


Redevelopment makes the most sense there, Nichols says, because the elevator structure would cost half a million bucks to tear down, due to its location, concrete construction, and sheer size.


The property has captured the interest of Tony Janson, an architect with ALSC Architects PS, of Spokane, who has toured the elevators and done a conceptual sketch on how they might look if redeveloped.


The warehouse building and elevators provide the equivalent of 74,000 square feet of developable floor space, but the challenge is connecting them all. Vertical ventilation is an issue as well, he says. Those and other obstacles aside, he says, The shape and form is what makes that space kind of unique.


Janson envisions the structures possibly being converted for retail space on the ground level and condominiums or office space on the upper levels, or for Gonzaga University student housing. ALSC is working with Gonzaga on the design of new student housing planned at the site of the Colonial Bowl, about two blocks away on Boone Avenue, and the two developments potentially could feed off of each other, Jenson claims. (See related story page A1.)


Tom Keigley, one of the owners of V&M Investments, says the company bought the property in 1984, when the demand for grain storage was high. It rented the elevators to Reardan Grain Growers Inc. for some time, but lost that tenant after some cutbacks in federal financial support, and decided, This was no longer a viable place to store grain, so hard to get in and out of, he says.


V&M put out some feelers for prospective buyers about a year ago, but didnt formally list the grain-elevator complex for sale until recently, he says.


We had some earlier people interested in it, but their interest in it was to knock it down and put something else on the site, until they found out how much the demolition would cost, Keigley says. Now focused on marketing the property for redevelopment, he says, Were calling it creative re-use.


Keigley also is majority owner of Keigley & Co., a longtime Spokane designer and supplier of conveying equipment to grain and industrial customers. That company, at 1002 N. Division, occupies part of the warehouse building that adjoins the grain elevators. Western Millwrights, which makes conveyor components, occupies space at the other end of that building, Keigley says. Both businesses would move if the grain-elevator complex is sold, he says.


He says records show that six of the elevators were built in 1921, the warehouse building was erected in 1922, and additional elevators were constructed in 1947 and 1959. The last one built had the largest girth, with a 51-foot diameter that made the others look thin by comparison.


A grain seed and feed company called Boyd-Conlee Co. originally operated the elevators, followed in 1960 by Coast Trading Co., whose weathered name still is visible high atop the structure. V&M bought the elevators from New York-based Continental Grain, after that company bought Coast Tradings assets in a bankruptcy sale, Keigley says.