April 27, 2010

Kendall Yards in Spokane getting its first new housing

Image courtesy Greenstone Corp. [enlarge]

Construction has started on the first phase of Kendall Yards in Spokane, a long planned community on 78 acres north of the Spokane River Gorge and west of Monroe Street.

Greenstone Corp. is building nine townhomes and nine single-family homes designed to appeal to young families as well as empty nesters, according to Jim Frank, owner and founder of Greenstone. “We are excited to start bringing the vision for a compact, urban, pedestrian-friendly community alive.”

Eventually Greenstone plans to have up to 1,100 housing units that will also include condos, apartments and lofts. The urban-style community is designed to have open space as well as a network of trails connecting to the Centennial Trail and downtown Spokane.

The first 18 houses will be built on Bridge Street and should be completed this summer. Work also will begin soon on infrastructure development, Summit Parkway and the first phase of Great Gorge Park and the Centennial Trail.

Townhome units will start at $119,990 and the single-family houses will start at $149,990.

North Gorge Partners, a subsidiary of Greenstone, acquired Kendall Yards last November. The developer said in a press release that it plans to build commercial and residential space within biking and walking distance. The town center one day will have about 600,000 square feet of retail shops, restaurants, office space and other businesses.

More housing will be started along Summit Parkway this year, with 18 homes north of Summit Parkway and more than two dozen homes south of Summit Parkway on a bluff overlooking the Spokane River Gorge.

The homes will be Energy Star certified.

Greenstone has built mixed-use communities in North Idaho and Liberty Lake.

Here is the project team for Kendall Yards: Weber Thompson, architect and land planner; Steve Cox, lead architect; Michael Terrell, landscape architect; Whipple Engineering, transportation planning; Greenstone Corp., civil engineering; and Kiemele & Hagood, commercial brokerage.

Greenstone said it will seek LEED for neighborhood development certification for the project, which will integrate smart growth, urbanism and green building into the design.

Metropolitan Mortgage & Securities had approval in the early 1990s for a planned unit development on the site, with 1.5 million square feet of commercial space and 1,500 housing units. The property has changed hands several times over the years.

It was contaminated by railroad maintenance activities but was cleaned up in 2005 and 2006.