Crown West Realty LLC, the Spokane-based company that owns and operates the big Spokane Business & Industrial Park, has bought a Tempe, Ariz., office building for $20 million.


The newly acquired structure, called the Elliott Corporate Center, is four years old and includes 224,000 square feet of office space. It had been owned by Phoenix-based Hardy & Elliott LLC.


The building, located in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe, currently is 93 percent occupied, with six large tenants occupying the bulk of its space, says Richard Rollnick, Crown Wests president.


In addition, Rollnick says Crown West has agreed to buy 14 acres of vacant land adjacent to the Elliott building and plans eventually to build a second office building there with up to 180,000 square feet of floor space. Crown West hasnt decided yet when to go ahead with that project.


The acquisition is only Crown Wests second outside of the Spokane area. It made its first such acquisition late last year, when it acquired controlling interest in a nine-story office structure in Charlotte, N.C.


The two acquisitions signal a change in philosophy at Crown West, Rollnick says. In the years following its purchase of the 600-acre business and industrial park in the Spokane Valley in 1996, the company had confined its investment-property searches to the Spokane area. After wanting to pursue larger properties, but not finding any such transactions here, the company expanded its search last year to include real estate in other cities, he says.


Now, he says, Crown West currently is looking into buying six properties in the markets it currently servesSpokane, Phoenix, and Charlotte.


Although Crown West hasnt acquired properties here outside of the business and industrial park, it has invested heavily within the park. Over the past six years, the company has built four new buildings there at a combined cost of about $16 million.


It also has obtained building permits to construct an 80,000-square-foot, $3.6 million office-and-warehouse building along Euclid Avenue in the southern portion of the park.


Crown West hasnt scheduled a start date for that project yet, but could break ground there this spring, Rollnick says. Crown West bought the 224,000-square-foot Tempe, Ariz., office building for $20 million.