Downtown Spokane Macy’s bids due Wednesday

Offers to buy the former Macy’s department store building in downtown Spokane are due Wednesday, and two local organizations say they’re interested.

Developer Kent Hull confirmed that he and former National Basketball Association and Gonzaga University star John Stockton will join an unnamed minority partner and submit an offer.

Hull, the managing partner in the Iron Bridge Office Campus in Spokane, also is working with Stockton on the Matilda Building, a retail and apartment project near Gonzaga University.

Hull said he and Stockton, who played for GU and the Utah Jazz, are pitching a joint venture where they would develop about 75 percent to 80 percent of the project and the other partner would develop the rest.

He declined to disclose the nature of that project.

The other group that confirmed it will make an offer on the historic Macy’s building is Centennial Properties, a subsidiary of Cowles Co., owner of River Park Square and The Spokesman-Review.

Doug Yost, director of real estate investments at Centennial, said, “we’ll be making an offer on it; we’ve not done it yet but we plan to.”

Like Hull, Yost declined to say what Centennial Properties’ redevelopment plan entails.

The former Macy’s store is connected to River Park Square by a second-floor skywalk.

Both Hull and Yost said they believed there will be only a few developers submitting offers on the building.

Jim Sluzewski, Macy’s senior vice president of communications, said in an email that the Cincinnati-based retailer won’t comment until the property is sold.

Macy’s closed the historic downtown store in March, part of a wave of store closures across the country. Before Macy’s, the store was home to The Bon Marche department store for more than 50 years.

Historic retail buildings sold by Macy’s in other downtown areas typically have been redeveloped for mixed uses – retail on the bottom floors and residential, office or hotel space above.