On its way to becoming an incorporated city, Liberty Lake is experiencing anotherand some say its biggestwave of general commercial construction.


Liberty Lake area residents voted earlier this month to form their own city, rather than remaining an unincorporated part of Spokane County, within the next year. That vote came as at least $45 million in new commercial construction activity either is proposed or under way there.


Liberty Lake is on fire, says Kevin McCathren, vice president of the Spokane-based Janek Co. real estate agency, which is involved in a couple of new developments in that area.


I think its the hottest area in Spokane County, or even in North Idahos fast-growing Kootenai County, he says.


Jim Frank, president of Greenstone Corp., of Spokane, and a longtime developer of big projects at Liberty Lake, says, I think there is a higher level of activity (there) right now than weve seen before, specifically in commercial construction.


The area is benefiting from a synergism that has been brewing over the past few years. Steve Schmautz, president of SDS Realty Inc., who is involved in developing two office buildings there and has three more planned for next year, says a lot of developers and individual businesses have been eyeing the Liberty Lake area for years. Many now are going ahead with projects there, he says.


Spokane has never had a community like this, Schmautz says. The Seattle area, California, Arizona all have had hot cities. Liberty Lake is the first in this area, and I think thats very attractive.


Commercial land at Liberty Lake now is selling for $4 to $8 a square foot, compared with 50 cents to $2 a square foot on the West Plains, another area where theres a lot of activity on undeveloped land. While land still is available, many commercial investors are buying it before it becomes scarce and prices shoot up, McCathren says. Already, he adds, some of his clients have lamented having decided to wait to get into that market.


Still, even though many businesses there are thriving, Schmautz says that small, professional, or service-oriented companies should proceed with caution when opening outlets there, because the area eventually could become overbuilt.


Most of the major projects currently proposed or under way in the Liberty Lake area are within the boundaries of the coming city voters have approved. The borders for the city of Liberty Lake are jagged, but they generally are defined by the Spokane River to the north, just past MeadowWood and Liberty Lake golf courses to the east, Sprague Avenue to the south, and Henry Road to the west.


The larger projects include:


A three- or four-story office building with between 45,000 square feet and 60,000 square feet of office space, and possibly three restaurant buildings, that Pring Corp., of Spokane, would develop on eight acres at the northwest corner of Liberty Lake Center business park. No timeline has been set for that project, which is expected to cost $8 million to $10 million.


Two speculative office structures with a total of about 84,000 square feet of floor space, that developers Schmautz and Bill Lawson, president of A&A Construction Inc., are developing along Molter Road through limited-liability companies. One, a 48,000-square-foot structure, is expected to be completed late this year, and the other, a 36,000-square-foot structure, is to be finished early next year. Together, the two are expected to cost about $7.1 million.


A $2.5 million, 24,000-square-foot office building that Greenstone has announced and hopes to get under way this month along the south side of Appleway Avenue, just east of the Liberty Lake Town Center retail complex. The proposed structure, part of which will be occupied by Greenstones corporate offices, is to be completed next summer. The company owns another seven acres there that it plans to develop later.


A 155,000-square-foot plant for Accra-Fab Inc., the Spokane-based precision sheet-metal fabricator, along Appleway in Liberty Lake Center. Accra-Fab plans to move into the $6 million structure either late next spring or early next summer from its current 80,000-square-foot facility nearby. It plans eventually to build a second, 155,000-square-foot facility just west of the first structure. Jubilation Enterprises LLC, which is owned by Bill and Judi Williams, the chairman and vice-chairwoman of Telect Inc., has bought the building that Accra-Fab will vacate, but havent announced plans for it.


Two big additions on the Telect campus that currently are being wrapped up. They include a total of 89,000 square feet of manufacturing and office space and have a combined $7.5 million value.


Also, just east of the boundaries designated for Liberty Lakes incorporation, the Williamses have bought 300 acres of land for an envisioned technology and educational industrial campus. The propertys previous owners had proposed a large residential development there.


New to the area


In addition to the flurry of office and manufacturing projects, the Liberty Lake area has attracted types of businesses that werent there previously.


For instance, the first hotel in the Liberty Lake area is being built, and a second is planned there.


Liberty Lake Hospitality LLC, of Spokane, is well along on construction of the four-story, 76-unit Best Western PepperTree Inn thats scheduled to open in January. The $4 million project is located northwest of the Liberty Lake-Interstate 90 interchange and is one of the few projects north of the freeway, though a pair of large projects, a new George Gee Pontiac/GMC auto dealership and the Ice World USA ice-skating facility, have been developed there in the last couple of years.


A four-story, 90-unit Courtyard by Marriott is slated to be constructed early next year along Liberty Lake Road and is to open in late summer or early fall. Spokane hotel developer KVC Development Inc. is planning that project.


Two retirement facilities also are planned at Liberty Lake and would be the first such facilities there. In one of the projects, Ashley Gardens Management Inc., of Issaquah, Wash., recently broke ground on the first of two planned 20-bed facilities for patients who suffer from Alzheimers disease and other forms of dementia. That $4 million complex is being built north of Valley View Golf Course, off of Country Vista Drive.


The other retirement project, a 54-unit Guardian Angel Homes assisted-living center, is to be built early next year along Mission Avenue, east of the Big Trout Lodge apartment complex, and likely will open next August or September. That $6.2 million project is expected to include four buildings with a combined 30,000 square feet of floor space.


Corralling growth


As the aggressive development pace continues at Liberty Lake, the number of people living there is expected to grow at a brisk clip as well. A Liberty Lake incorporation study prepared for Spokane County by the Washington state Boundary Review Board forecasts that the citys population will triple to about 9,800 residents in the next 10 years.


Ludlow Kramer, a member of a group called Liberty Lake 2000 that campaigned for incorporation, says backers want local control over growth in the Liberty Lake area, rather than being governed by the county. He says that doesnt mean shackling development, but does mean ensuring future development fits well with whats there already. Liberty Lake 2000s Web site includes language that suggests regulating development strictly.


Once a city is in place, it will have the ability to place a moratorium on new development so that zoning which preserves our way of life can be put in place, the Web site says. We dont want to allow our beautiful community to turn into Spokane or Seattle, but we cant prevent developers from turning us into the next Tacoma unless we incorporate now.


Kramer, who was Washington states Secretary of State in the 1970s and now is retired and lives at Liberty Lake, says such language refers more to residential than commercial development. The commercial areas of the planned city provide much of the tax base that will allow incorporation to occur without creating a significant, added tax burden on residents there, he says.


The business communityareawisehas already been designated and is set out, he says. No way in heck that you will find anybody in Liberty Lake 2000 stopping that development from taking place.


Frank, who also is a member of Liberty Lake 2000, estimates that Greenstone has developed about 75 percent of the residential lots in the Liberty Lake area over the years. He says the comments on the Liberty Lake 2000 Web site dont reflect the opinion of all those involved in the group, but he envisions a city with a quick, responsive regulatory process that sets high standards.


(The Liberty Lake areas) growth has been based on the fact that its been developed at a very high quality, Frank says. I think youre going to see a continuation of that.


Uniquely becoming a city


Residents of what will be Spokane Countys newest city speak of how the Liberty Lake area is unique. Along the same lines, its incorporation has been unlike most others, says Susan Winchell, director of the county boundary review board.


Compared to other newly incorporating Washington state cities, Liberty Lake is small in population, yet has one of the largest assessed tax values per capita. Also, while most recently formed cities in the state are bedroom communities, Liberty Lake cant be classified as such, because more people currently work there than live there, Winchell says.


Additionally, she says, Because it passed on the first try and by a decent margin, they have some cohesiveness. The incorporation measure received 65 percent of the vote.


The earliest date that the new city could finalize its incorporation would be next May, but Winchell says the best time for a new city to incorporate is late September, so revenue from the October tax collection is available immediately.