Three separate development projects that together have an estimated eventual value of more than $4.6 million are being planned for Airway Heights.


The projects include a 60-room hotel, an eight-acre, mixed-used industrial park, and a 12,000-square-foot storage building. Rudy Torres, Airway Heights building inspector, says building-permit applications have been filed for the hotel, the storage building, and the first building in the industrial park. All of the permits are expected to be approved as soon as design plans are reviewed and remaining details are worked out.


A Spokane development company called Red Mat LLC has filed a building-permit application for a 60-unit, two-story Microtel Inn franchise hotel that would be constructed on a two-acre parcel at 1215 S. Garfield, in Metropolitan Mortgage & Securities Co.s Airway Business Centre. The hotel parcel is just north of a complex along U.S. 2 that includes a Conoco gas station, Burger King restaurant, and a car wash, and is a short drive from the Airway Heights Corrections Center.


An executive with Summit Property Development, which represents Metropolitans property interests, first disclosed tentative plans for the gas station-restaurant complex and a nearby small motel about three and a half years ago, but only the complex next to the highway was constructed.


Torres estimates the value of the hotel project at about $1.4 million. He says a building permit likely will be issued as soon as Metropolitan provides plans for storm-water handling and for improving an unpaved section of 12th Avenue that borders the development site on the north. The building permit application lists RBI LLC, of Spokane, as the general contractor for the hotel project.


The proposed budget hotel would be the first Spokane-area affiliate of Microtel Inns & Suites, one of three hotel chains for which U.S. Franchise Systems Inc., of Atlanta, Ga., has exclusive franchising rights. Microtel claims on its web site to be the fastest-growing chain of all newly-constructed, interior corridor, budget/economy hotels in the U.S, with nearly 600 hotels open or in development as of the end of September. Its average daily rates are $35 to $45 for rooms and $49 to $59 for suites.


Citadel Construction Inc., of Spokane, has applied for a building permit to erect a 16,000-square-foot, office-and-light-industrial building in a mixed-use industrial park that Bob McConkey Jr., president of Dealers Auto Auction of Spokane, plans to develop near 21st Avenue and Hayford Road.


The four-acre site on which the first phase of the industrial park is to be developed is just west across Hayford from a large, new auction facility that Dealers Auto Auction moved into about three and a half years ago.


McConkey says the industrial park, which will be developed in two phases, is expected to occupy about eight acres when completed and to include from one to three more buildings, depending on tenant demand. He says he and his wife, Sandy, own 20 acres there, stretching from Hayford to Hayden Road, and plan to retain the remaining acreage there for Dealers Auto Auctions future needs.


The construction cost for the first industrial-park building, a concrete-block structure, is expected to be about $675,000. McConkey says, though, that he expects the overall development cost for the industrial park to be around $3 million.


Users already have committed to take about 13,000 square feet of the 16,000 square feet of space in the first planned building, he says. Tenants in the building will include an auto body-mechanical shop operated by Dealers Auto Auction, an auction-finance company that will provide used-vehicle funding to car dealers, and a volume wholesale importer that will provide services to Canadian auto dealers, he says. Construction of the building is expected to begin soon and to be completed by next spring.


McConkey says his decision to develop the industrial park was prompted by the need to provide space for businesses ancillary to the growing Dealers Auto Auction, which sold 42,000 vehicles this year, a 30 percent increase over last year. He adds, though, that he would consider leasing future space in the industrial park to businesses that arent tied in some way to the auto auction, but that are compatible in nature.


Storage building


Across Garfield Road from where the Microtel Inn is to be built, Trudeau Family Partnership and Trudeaus Marina Inc., both of Spokane, are seeking a building permit for the 12,000-square-foot storage building.


The single-story, steel structure with a concrete-block front would be the fifth building erected by the Trudeaus on a 10-acre site that the family owns there, and would be similar in appearance to the others. Torres says plans for that building, which has an estimated value of $263,000, are being reviewed now.


Inland Building Systems Inc., of Spokane, would be the general contractor on the project. Cecil Harmon, owner of Inland Building Systems, says he hopes to have the building erected by mid-February.


The Trudeaus plan to store boats in the building and also will offer space there for lease on a seasonal basis, says Bill Trudeau Jr., who manages the Trudeaus Marina store at 304 E. Sprague. In addition to that store, Trudeaus Marina operates three stores in Seattle and one in Portland, he says.