Metropolitan Mortgage & Securities Co., of Spokane, is feeling bullish about the potential for its Liberty Lake Center business park project following its first three land sales there.


Metropolitan expects the center eventually will include 50 to 75 office, retail, and industrial buildings comprising about 1.3 million square feet of floor space and housing at least several thousand workers. At a projected development cost of $80 to $100 a square foot, the total price tag for the park could top $100 million. The development includes no completed buildings now.


The latest company to buy property there is S&D Development, of Coeur dAlene, which reportedly plans to begin construction of a 39,000-square-foot, speculative medical office building there this spring.


Earlier sales were to Seattle auto dealer Biff Brotherton, who is developing a Land Rover dealership there, and to WAM Enterprises Inc., of Spokane, which plans to construct a new 13,000-square-foot call center there for Dakotah Direct Inc., the big Spokane-based telemarketing concern.


Im pleased inasmuch as we really havent gone to market yet, says Russ Johnson, marketing manager for Summit Property Development, which oversees Metropolitans commercial real-estate portfolio.


Liberty Lake Center is the designated second phase of MeadowWood Business Park, a large development that includes such tenants as Olsy North America Inc., Altek Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., Telect Inc., Egghead.com Inc., Itronix Corp., Screen Tek Inc., and Group Photographers Association Inc. Liberty Lake Center will occupy a 100-acre site east of Liberty Lake Road between Appleway Avenue and Interstate 90. The site adjoins, and wraps partially around, the Olsy and Altek properties.


Metropolitan is finishing up about $1 million worth of initial infrastructure work, which has included installing sewer and water lines, fiber-optic communications cable, roads, curbs, and landscaping, Johnson says. It just now is beginning to kick off some widespread marketing of the business park, he says.


He speculates that Liberty Lake Center will take five to seven years to develop fully, but he adds that the construction timetable will depend on market demand. The park will have to compete for tenants with Liberty Lake Corporate Park, a planned 235-acre commercial, office, and industrial development that is to be located less than a mile away, on the west side of Liberty Lake Road. Its being developed by a Seattle investment group called Liberty Lake Land Co.


At that competing park, Vandervert Development LLC, of Spokane, last summer bought a 16.4-acre parcel and said it plans to develop a $20 million mixed-use project there that would include a hotel, supermarket, and strip retail center. Work on that project is under way.


Summit hopes to set Metropolitans Liberty Lake Center apart from such competing developments by devoting a lot of attention to protective covenants, design guidelines, and extensive landscaping that collectively, it believes, will give the center lots of aesthetic appeal. Through the installation of the fiber-optic lines, it also is seeking to make the business park attractive to high-tech and other companies with substantial communications-related needs.


The about 2.5-acre site bought by S&D Development is located at the northwest corner of Appleway and Molter Road, in a central portion of the business park property that Summit is calling The Campus. As envisioned, that 29-acre portionsandwiched between Molter and Madson, the two main roads extending north into the business park from Applewayeventually will be home to office, medical, and retail users.


Summit hopes to attract four or five restaurants to an about 10-acre area just north of there that its calling Front Row Center. Those restaurants would be located along the north side of Knox Avenue, the main east-west road running through the development, and would be just west of the Land Rover dealership.


Thus far, only the Molter extension from Appleway north into the development and a connecting westward segment of Knox have been paved. Johnson says Summit is seeking Spokane County approval now for plans to pave an eastward extension of Knox, which would lead to an area designated for larger industrial users. The company also might seek to complete an access road loop through the development by paving Madson and a remaining unimproved eastward extension of Knox yet this year if market activity warrants it, he says.


Metropolitan expects to spend up to about another $1 million on remaining infrastructure improvements at Liberty Lake Center. Shea Construction Inc., of Spokane, has been the general contractor on the initial infrastructure work.


S&D Development officials couldnt be reached immediately for comment about their building plans. However, Johnson says the multitenant medical building that S&D plans to erect is to be a two-story, brick structure with a daylight basement. The company expects to break ground on the project in May, he says.


S&D recently has been involved with North Idaho Immediate Care Center, also of Coeur dAlene, in the joint-venture construction of an 18,000-square-foot addition to the care centers Post Falls clinic. A second, similar-sized addition is to be built there later.