As the sun starts to set on Saturday nights in the summertime, Jim Frank frequently can be found at the city of Liberty Lakes Pavilion Park.


People, mostly neighbors of the park, start to spread blankets and set up lawn chairs on the parks amphitheater-like hillside as the 57-year-old Frank raises a 20-foot-tall, 30-foot-wide movie screen and sets up a video projector for the movie of the week.


Frank is acquainted with many of the hundreds of people who show up for the free flick each week. The development company he founded and of which he is CEO, Greenstone Corp., created many of the neighborhoods in which those people live, and Greenstone Homes, an affiliated construction company, built many of their homes.


This is part of the social fabric of the community, Frank says. Thats the kind of thing were trying to build up in these communities.


Frank does more than movie night to promote community cohesion. A resident of Liberty Lake, he also helped start a concert series at Pavilion Park and helped bring farmers markets to both Liberty Lake and the South Hill, as well as a fun run, a garden tour, and kite-flying day.


He builds neighborhoods, rather than just subdividing land and building houses, says Grant Person, vice president of Tomlinson Black Commercial Inc. Thats something that most developers dont really do.


Franks philosophy of building communities has paid off for Greenstone.


In addition to developments at Liberty Lake, Greenstone has developed large mixed-use and residential projects with thousands of residential lots in Coeur dAlene, Post Falls, and on Spokanes South Hill.


Last year, the company developed more than 400 lots for new homes and built 325 houses.


The company also continued to develop apartment complexes and now has developed about 1,000 rental units in the past four years. Its revenues for 2003 totaled $70 million.


Corbin Park influence


Franks inspiration for cultivating a community feel in his subdivisions originated halfway across the county from Liberty Lake, in an old neighborhood on Spokanes North Side.


A Spokane native, Frank grew up in a house two blocks south of Corbin Park. His parents still live in his boyhood home.


He remembers the Corbin Park neighborhood as one where everybody was well acquainted and could drop in to visit one another unannounced. There were few organized youth sports and activities, but neighborhood children always could find a pick-up game of some sort.


Many of the physical features of that neighborhood make it a nice place to live, including the abundance of foliage, sidewalks, and an easily accessible park. Those might sound like small things, Frank says, but he sees them as important characteristics for a community. He places a strong emphasis on ensuring that his new subdivisions include walking paths and plenty of treesGreenstone has planted more than 20,000 trees in its developments.


Such extra efforts make business sense, he contends.


That makes them nice places to live, Frank says. People buy houses in nice places to live. People rent apartments in nice places to live.


A third career


Development is Franks third careerand by far his favorite.


Its fun. Its interesting, and its important, he says.


A graduate of Gonzaga Preparatory School and Gonzaga University, Frank first worked in Soda Springs, Idaho, as a chemical engineer for Monsanto Corp., a St. Louis-based agricultural-products company. It was the early 1970s when some new clean-water and clean-air regulations were going into effect, so Frank worked on regulatory compliance issues for the company.


After five years in Soda Springs, Frank returned to Spokane and enrolled in Gonzagas School of Law, from which he graduated in 1976.


He formed his own law practice here and focused on environmental and natural resource law, representing developers, municipalities, and neighborhood groups when dealing with land-use and regulatory issues.


It was while practicing law that Frank became exposed toand knowledgeable aboutland development.


After a few years as an attorney, Frank says he became more interested in development and less interested in practicing law.


He maintained his law practice for a number of years after forming Greenstone, but the legal profession had lost some of its attraction for him.


Part of the reason I didnt like it is that the law, in many ways, gets in the way of solving problems, he says. I dont miss practicing law.


Even though Franks interest in practicing law waned, his legal training has had a lot to do with his success as a developer, says Jim Kirschbaum, president of Action Mortgage Co., of Spokane.


Jim (Frank) really understands the government piece of developing and has a very good manner with government agencies, Kirschbaum says. He understands what they want and how to give it to them. From Day One, thats why he was successful.


Without Kirschbaum, Frank says he might not have had a Day One as a developer.


For his first foray into development, Frank and a partner planned to buy 106 surplus military houses that the U.S. government had built at Garden Springs, on Sunset Hill, for military personnel.


The government was auctioning them off, and Frank and his partner hoped to buy, renovate, and resell them at a profit.


Kirschbaum was president of Bancshares Mortgage Co. at the time, and he agreed to lend Frank the money, even though Frank didnt have much money of his own or much experience in that field.


He didnt have a lot of anything at that point in time except a lot of guts and a good idea, Kirschbaum says. Today, that wouldnt get you very far.


Frank and his partner won the houses at auction, fixed them up, and sold them.


For his next project, in the early 1980s, Frank partnered with Person, who at the time was co-owner of Coldwell Banker Feldman Person, to develop Manito Place, on Spokanes South Hill. With high-end homes built on a bluff along Manito Golf & Country Club, the project was completely different from that at Garden Springs, but just as successful.


Person says that at the time, it was apparent that Frank was learning the business quickly.


Normally, Im not comfortable stepping back because I like to be in control, Person says. He was such a quick study, though; it didnt take long before I had confidence in his decision-making ability.


Frank stopped practicing law altogether about 10 years ago and began operating his development activity full time as Greenstone. The company has developed several thousand lots in some of the biggest developments in the Spokane-Coeur dAlene area, including MeadowWood at Liberty Lake; Coeur dAlene Place, in Coeur dAlene; and Montrose at Post Falls.


MeadowWood was the first several hundred-lot subdivision that Greenstone undertook and accounts for much of Liberty Lakes growth.


Wayne Williams is president and CEO of Telect Inc., the Liberty Lake-based manufacturer, and has watched that community grow from a largely rural area to a city of 4,500 people over the past 14 years.


Williams says Greenstone set the bar for new-home development in Liberty Lake.


Whoever builds first, others follow suit, he says. When you see other developers come in now, they tend to follow the same look and feel. Thats what Greenstone did a really good job of establishing early on.


A part-time New Zealander


Frank doesnt spend all of his time dividing land and creating neighborhoods.


In the summer, he says he borders on fanatical in following his favorite sport, baseball.


He travels to Seattle about a dozen times each year for Seattle Mariners games. Also, he hosts minor-league players for the Spokane Indians baseball club.


For two to four months every year, Frank is halfway around the world at a second home in New Zealand. Hes an amateur photographer and enjoys taking pictures there.


He first discovered the countrys beauty while partaking in another passion, long-distance bicycling.


Single with three grown children, Frank says he was attracted to New Zealand largely because of the people who live there. Americans have a high standard of living and know how to work, Frank says.


New Zealanders might not have the same material wealth, but know how to live, he says. They place more of an emphasis on spending time with family and friends.


Its a wonderful counterpoint for me, Frank says. It reminds me theres another side of life.