Copper Basin Construction Inc., of Hayden, Idaho, has begun a flurry of planned residential construction valued at roughly $25 million on a portion of the big River Run development near the Spokane River in northwest Spokane.

The construction will include a 118-unit apartment complex, a total of 16 townhouse-style rental units, and 38 single-family homes, says Steve White, a principal with Copper Basin.

The construction is planned in a number of phases, some of which will be developed simultaneously, in the northwest section of River Run, White says.

"There's an 18-acre parcel remaining where we'll complete the development," he says.

Copper Basin's portion of the development is called the Cottages at River Run.

Copper Basin has applied to the city of Spokane for building permits to construct the apartment complex, which would have 12 buildings with six to 16 living units each. The company also will soon begin the permitting process for the first single-family home planned in the Cottages at River Run, White says.

Meantime, Copper Basin is constructing the first of four planned four-unit townhouse-style structures in a transition area between the planned single-family homes and the apartment complex.

"Things are starting to pick up," White says of the market for the planned residential units. "It's encouraging."

The Cottages at River Run project site is located at thesoutheast corner of Government Way and Fort George Wright Drive, near the Spokane Falls Community College campus.

Access to the property will be from interior roads in the River Ridge development that connect to River Ridge Boulevard east of the project site and Sand Ridge Boulevard southeast of the site.

ML Architect & Associates Inc., of Post Falls, designed Cottages at River Run, and Taylor Engineering Inc., of Spokane, provided engineering services.

White says he expects the city will approve the permits for the apartment complex, valued at $14.5 million, in four to six weeks.

The apartment units will have 850 to 1,100 square feet of living space, and units will have one to three bedrooms, White says. Copper Basin, which will own the complex, plans to rent out the units for $750 to $990 a month, he says. The company expects to complete the apartment complex by the fall of 2014.

Copper Basin plans to begin the permitting process yet this spring or summer for the first homes in an 18-lot phase of the planned single-family homes, which are expected to be priced starting in the low $200,000 range, White says. Living space in the single-family homes will range from 1,800 to 3,000 square feet with three to five bedrooms, he says.

Homes would be built on the remaining 20 planned lots in a later phase.

The first of the four townhouse-style structures, which is valued at $568,000, will be completed in late June, and Copper Basin plans to construct the three other fourplex structures one at a time as warranted by market demand, White says.

Those rental units will be located south of the apartment complex and north of the planned single-family homes. The 1,400-square foot, two-floor units each will have three bedrooms.

The original River Run development includes 170 single-family lots on 130 acres with the southern edge of the development fronting the Spokane River. Fort Wright LLC, of Spokane, which is headed by brothers Tim, Mike, and Dan Murphy, has been developing the subdivision for more than a decade. Homes in River Run are constructed by Spokane homebuilders Dave Largent Homes Inc. and Ted Miller Construction Inc., with prices ranging from $300,000 to more than $1 million.

Separate from the Cottages at River Run, Fort Wright LLC currently is marketing its final 15-lot phase in the River Run development.

Copper Basin, a longtime North Idaho developer and home builder, expanded into the Spokane market four years ago, buying lots in residential subdivisions that had been started by other developers in Liberty Lake, on the Five Mile Prairie, and on the West Plains. The company has specialized in building homes for the entry-level market, in the $130,000-to-$260,000 price range.