The Dirt: Memory care facility coming to Spokane’s Southgate neighborhood

A nearly 40,000-square-foot memory care facility will be built in Spokane’s Southgate neighborhood, according to permits issued by the city.

The $9 million facility at 4515 S. Freya St. is being built by Yakima’s Cascadia Development and will be one of the company’s Fieldstone Memory Care facilities. It will be called Fieldstone Memory Care Spokane. The one-story building will be 39,432 square feet and is being built on nearly 5 acres of vacant land.

The facility will have 60 beds in 48 living units, which will be a mix of private studios, one-bedroom apartments and companion suites, Justin Younker said. Younker owns Cascadia Development, which builds the facilities, and Cascadia Senior Living, which owns and operates them with a partner, Doug Ellison. They founded Cascadia in 2013 after working for a decade on other memory care facilities.

“The building itself features a town square,” said Younkers, describing it as a realistic-looking town that is centrally located within the facility. The squares include a theater, 1950s-style diner, spa and salon, artist’s studio and sensory room. “It’s a town square that actually feels like a town square.”

The facility also will have large residential wings and long, wide hallways, offering ample walking space. Doors will lead to a secure courtyard outside.

The company currently has six memory care communities in operation and is in the midst of expanding across the Pacific Northwest. Four more facilities will be open by year’s end, and construction is beginning on four more, including in Spokane. When the expansion is complete, there will be facilities in Yakima, Portland, Kennewick, Olympia, Puyallup, Wenatchee, Issaquah and Spokane.

“We’re based in Yakima, so we’re local,” Younker said. “We’re building this out to be a regional operator.”

Pricing for the facility hasn’t been set, but is anticipated to be open in fall 2019.

The project’s general contractor is C.D. Smith Construction Services, of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Poston Architects, of Yakima, designed it. – N.D.

4 Seasons Roasting moving from downtown Spokane to Valley

Spokane’s first specialty coffee roaster, 4 Seasons Roasting Co., is planning to move its coffee-roasting facility to Spokane Valley by next year.

Jeff Henry of Pine Partners LLC filed an application with the city in August that calls for a more-than-9,000-square-foot coffee roasting facility in the same building as Sounds on Wheels at 12410 E. Indiana Ave., Suite 1.

The roasting facility will be designed by Rex Anderson of Spokane-based Fusion Architecture PLLC., and will include more than 7,000 square feet of warehouse space, two small offices and a 2,000-square-foot retail showroom, according to plans filed with the city.

Pine Partners purchased the building in June for $1.1 million, according to records from the Spokane County Assessor’s Office.

Tom and Leslie Hutchinson moved to Spokane from San Francisco and established 4 Seasons Coffee in 1976.

Hutchinson said he’s planning to retire from the business and Henry, his son-in-law, is taking over company operations.

Henry said they are moving the roasting facility from 10 S. Grant St. in Spokane because of increased construction on Sprague Avenue.

Also, space in the current facility is maxed out and the option to buy a building in Spokane Valley made sense financially, he said.

Henry said it’s possible the company will open a downtown Spokane facility in four to five years.

“Our goal is to try to be back down here, because 4 Seasons has been in downtown Spokane for more than 42 years,” he said. – A.E.

Restaurant, pub envisioned for old schoolhouse in Vinegar Flats

A Spokane schoolhouse that closed its doors 60 years ago is back on track to become a restaurant and pub, according to permits issued by the city.

The historic Lowell School, 2225 S. Inland Empire Way, hasn’t welcomed students since 1954, but it remains a landmark in the Vinegar Flats part of town in the Latah-Hangman neighborhood.

Lynda Peterson, who purchased the building in 2005 for $340,000, began work to convert the 6,000-square-foot structure into a neighborhood gathering spot in 2011, but its renovation has sputtered along because she didn’t want to go too far into debt on the project.

“I’d already laid in a lot of money and I’m by myself,” said Peterson, who is part owner of Dick’s Hamburgers and Frankie Doodle’s restaurant. “I didn’t want to make a major loan on it.”

The original Lowell School – named for James Russell Lowell, the American philosopher, educator and poet – opened in 1899 and a decade later had 56 students. It was replaced in 1919 by the current building, a four-room brick-and -concrete structure, for a cost of $18,900.

The old prairie school building was part of the thriving Vinegar Flats area of the city, a name derived from local apple farmers delivering their harvests to a plant there to be made into vinegar in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A community of homes and small farms blossomed in the valley, leading to the need for the schoolhouse.

By 1933, there were just three teachers and 71 students. The school closed and the students were transferred to Irving School. In 1940, the school housed National Youth Administration classes, a New Deal program. A technical-vocational school occupied a portion of the building until 1941, when it closed again.

In 1943, the school reopened with 57 students and by 1945 enrollment had risen to 124. Within a decade, the student population dropped to 39 and the building closed again.

Since then, it’s traded hands a few times, sat vacant some and, now, has a chance at another public life.

Permits issued by the city cover $350,000 worth of work paving a parking lot behind the building, as well as a terrace, which Peterson said would be done before winter. As for the restaurant’s opening, Peterson was wary to predict.

“Hopefully by next year,” she said. “We need to make some decisions on what we want to do down there.”

The project’s general contractor is Construction Management and Forensics Engineering, of Spokane. The architect is R.E.J. Designs, also of Spokane.