Plans for a proposed new office tower at the southeast corner of Howard Street and Riverside Avenue in downtown Spokane have progressed with the naming of a Portland architectural firm to design the structure.


The firm, Thompson Vaivoda & Associates Architects Inc., now will begin working with the development teamprimarily downtown property owner K. Wendell Reugh and Kiemle & Hagood Co. President Jerry Hagoodto determine the overall scope of the project, Hagood says.


That process is expected to take about two months to complete and will determine the floor plate size, the number of stories the building would have, and an approximate project cost, he says. The preparation of schematic designs will follow and is expected to take another 90 days or so to complete.


Hagood declines to speculate on the timetable beyond that point, including when demolition work or construction of the high-rise building might get under way. Those dates, he says will depend largely on the wishes and needs of the buildings anticipated anchor tenant, the Spokane law firm of Paine, Hamblen, Coffin, Brooke & Miller LLP.


Their timing becomes our timing, he says.


Shaun Cross, managing partner for the aggressively expanding Paine Hamblen, says the firms principals are familiar with the Thompson Vaivoda architectural firm and are extremely pleased that it was chosen to design the office tower.


Hagood says the development team and the Portland architectural firm will be working closely with the law firm on their vision of what this building should be, in addition to working out timing issues. Negotiations with the firm are crucial to the project, he says, because, Without a major anchor tenant, no one is going to build a high-rise in Spokane.


Cross says Paine Hamblens current leases expire in 2004 and 2005, but that it might be able to sublease that space if the new office tower were to be completed sooner. I personally hope this alternative space would become open prior to the expiration of our lease, he says.


Hagood disclosed last February that Kiemle & Hagood was working with Reugh and another potential investor, who preferred to remain anonymous, on plans for the office tower. Since then, the other investor has decided not to participate in the project, but Hagood says that hasnt affected the viability of the project.


I feel very good (about where things stand). I see nothing to discourage us, he says.


Reugh and Reugh family interests would own the tower, and Kiemle & Hagood would be the managing and leasing agent for the building. Reugh owns most of the buildings on the block where the tower would be constructed, including the Rookery Building, the Mohawk Building, and the Merton Block.


As currently envisioned, the $50 million-plus office tower would include about 200,000 square feet of leasable office space atop 400 to 600 parking spaces and a retail main floor.


All of the parking spaces would be above ground level, but enclosed behind walls to give the parking garage an integrated look with the rest of the building, Hagood says.


Its unclear at this point how many floors the building would have, but its average floor size probably would be at least 15,000 square feet, he says.


Based on those figuresequaling perhaps 13 floors of office space, four to six floors of parking space, and one floor of retail spaceit would appear unlikely, or at least uncertain, whether the new building would become Spokanes tallest structure. The citys tallest building currently is the 20-story Bank of America Financial Center, at 601 W. Riverside, which was completed in 1981 and has about 330,000 square feet of leasable space.


The architect


Thompson Vaivoda was selected from among four finalists to design the proposed Spokane office tower following a lengthy evaluation process, Hagood says. A fifth architectural firm, from Spokane, was among the original group of firms invited to compete for the design contract, but it withdrew out before the final selection was made, he says.


We had some wonderful interest, including from some Spokane firms that aligned with Seattle firms experienced in designing high-rise structures that incorporated above-ground parking, he adds.


Thompson Vaivoda designed Fox Tower, a 27-story, 600,000-square-foot building in downtown Portland on which construction is just wrapping up now, and also designed about 2.5 million square feet of building space on the Nike World Campus, in nearby Beaverton, Ore.


Ned Vaivoda, a principal with the Portland firm, says the firm is stoked about the whole idea of designing a new high-rise office building for Spokane.


We feel the downtown is poised on the edge of a renaissance, ready to make another leap of sorts, and a new high-rise building could be a catalyst for that effort, he says.


Hagood says, We want this building to be very interactive with the street level. There will be no skywalks going into the building. Also, certain materials gathered during demolition of older buildings on the site would be integrated into some sort of remembrance to show sensitivity to historical aspects of the project, he says.


Construction of the new office tower, once work begins, should take about two years to complete, he says.