Al French and business partner Robert Daugherty have bought back the Franklin Park Medical Center building they developed in 2005 and sold to a California ownership group in 2009. 

The partners also plan to develop a $15 million-plus apartment building next door, French says.

French, a Spokane architect and Spokane County commissioner, says he and Daugherty paid $3 million in a trustee’s sale for the three-story, 30,600-square-foot building at 220 E. Rowan, after the former ownership group defaulted on a loan with an outstanding principal of $3.3 million.

Prior to the recession, French and Daugherty had announced plans to develop a $20 million, 10-story condominium building on vacant land they own on the west side of the Franklin Park Medical Center building.

“The economy crashed right as we were beginning to pull the trigger, so we didn’t do it and that turned out to be a good decision,” French says. “Now with Trader Joe’s nearby, and all the remodeling at the NorthTown Mall, it’s a great location for a high-end apartment project.”

French says he’s working currently on construction drawings for the envisioned apartment project.

Franklin Park Medical Center was 100 percent leased when the partners sold it in 2009.

It was more than a third vacant when he and Daugherty bought it back through their development company, Franklin Park Medical Center LLC.

“Several tenants left because of the recession, the Affordable Care Act, and changes in the medical community,” French claims.

Now, he says, several potential tenants are negotiating for space, and one has signed a lease, although he declines to identify that tenant.

The signed tenant will occupy 7,000 square feet of space, leaving 5,200 square feet still unoccupied.

The county assessor’s office has appraised the taxable value of the Franklin Park Medical Center property at $4.4 million for the 2017 tax year, down from a year-earlier taxable value of $6.3 million.

Current tenants in the Franklin Park Medical Center building include Pathology Associates Medical Laboratories LLC, The Doctor’s Clinic of Spokane PS, and Spokane Orthopedics PLLC.