Investors plan to build in U of I Research Park

Multimillion-dollar building slated for area just north of Jacklin Science building

By Marc Stewart

http://spokanejournal.com/spokane_id=article&sub=2144

A group of Spokane investors plans to develop a multimillion-dollar office building in the University of Idaho Research Park, in Post Falls, next year.

The envisioned structure would be built on a two-acre site just north of the University of Idaho’s Jacklin Science and Technology Building, at 721 Lochsa, says Doug McQueen, executive director of the research park.

Inland Northwest Investment Properties North Idaho LLC, the Spokane investment group, would develop the building.

The company hasn’t decided on the building’s exact size yet, says Joel Crosby, one of the company’s owners.

The structure would cost between $2 million and $4 million, Crosby says. He adds that the building would have between 20,000 and 40,000 square feet of floor space.

“We’re still going through the process, and we haven’t finalized the details of the building,” says Crosby, a real estate agent with Tomlinson Black Commercial Inc., of Spokane. “We feel that it’s an excellent place, and there is a great synergy with the research park.”

Inland Northwest Investment also is owned partly by Spokane contractor Barry Baker and Avista Corp. economist Randy Barcus.

Crosby adds that the investment group has lined up several tenants to move into the building, but declines to say who they are until their lease agreements are finalized.

“We’ve made progress, and we’re enthusiastic about it,” he says.

Jacklin Land Co., of Post Falls, owns the land and is negotiating with Inland Northwest Investment Properties to become a minority partner in the project, says Tom Stoeser, president and CEO of Jacklin Land Co.

“It’s an ideal situation for new tenants and new companies,” says McQueen. “We would help them market the building.”

He says that at least one tenant in the 30,000-square-foot Jacklin Science and Technology Building has expressed an interest in moving into a bigger space, but declines to name it.

Today, that building houses two federal agencies, two University of Idaho institutes, and nine private companies. The university research park’s master plan calls for the 120-acre site to be developed over the next 20 years and to have about 25 buildings, which would house dozens of business, McQueen says. There are three buildings in the research park.