The city of Spokane Valley has awarded the design contract for its planned new City Hall facility to Coeur d’Alene-based Architects West Inc.

Meantime, two other major projects Architects West is designing will go out to bid this summer. The three projects have a total construction value of $38.2 million.

The budget for the City Hall project is $13.2 million, and the 50,000-square foot-building tentatively is scheduled to be completed in the spring of 2017, says Carolbelle Branch, a Spokane Valley city spokeswoman.

The new City Hall will be located on a 3.4-acre site at the southeast corner of Sprague Avenue and Dartmouth Road, in the former University City shopping center complex.

Architects West currently is gauging public preferences on amenities and design styles for the facility, says Steve Roth, a project manager with the company. He says initial design concepts will be completed this summer.

Following the design phase, the city plans to put the project out for contractor bids in January and to award the construction contract in February or March, Roth says.

The project will be funded through the city’s Capital Reserve Fund, its Facilities Fund, and $8.3 million in bonds. The bonds will be repaid with funds the city currently is paying for leased space in the Redwood Plaza building at 11707 E. Sprague, where Spokane Valley government offices occupy 30,000 square feet of space at an annual cost approaching $435,000.

The project site includes the parking lot to the north of the former Crescent department store.

Branch says mall property owner Dartmouth LLC is demolishing a portion of the complex on the east side of the Crescent building in hopes of encouraging redevelopment there.

Architects West also recently has been awarded a contract from the Post Falls School District to design a $10 million elementary school that’s to be located on a 10-acre site at the northwest corner of Greensferry Road and Bunting Lane in the Fieldstone neighborhood of northeast Post Falls.

The 49,700-square-foot elementary school will have a capacity of 500 students, says Kim Homdrom, a spokeswoman for Architects West.

The project will go out for contractor bids in August and is scheduled to be completed by fall 2016, Homdrom says.

In another imminent project, Architects West is designing the $15 million North Idaho College Technical Education Facility. 

The project site for the 110,000-square-foot facility is on Lancaster Road, just west of the Kootenai Technical Education Campus, a vocational high school on the south edge of Rathdrum. 

Chris Martin, vice president of finance and business affairs, says the project will go out for contractor bids soon and construction will begin this summer. The project is expected to be completed in July 2016.