Developers hope to pivot on Wandermere property once lauded as next Kendall Yards

The developers tasked with turning a former gravel pit into the next Kendall Yards have asked the county if they can alter course.

Four years ago, Spokane County sold a 41-acre plot to Tampien Enterprises for $2.5 million, hoping it would be transformed into a mixed-use development with homes, offices, restaurants and shops.

The property, known as the Old Corral, is at 12807 N. Mayfair Road, a block west of U.S. Highway 395. It’s adjacent to Mead High School’s baseball field and running track to the southwest, and sits just across the street from Twigs Bistro and Martini Bar.

The Spokane County Commission felt the property should be an asset to the entire community, in terms of bolstering the lackluster housing supply in the county, providing green spaces for recreation and local businesses to frequent. The retail space would also serve as a fundraising arm for the county, ensuring tax proceeds on the land would make it back to county coffers.

The county made those desires clear in the terms of the sale, which stipulate whoever develops the Old Corral would need to devote at least 20% of the space toward businesses and parking, and another 10% toward outdoor recreation areas.

The Old Corral has since changed hands, but those requirements are still in place, much to the chagrin of the new owner and developer, Lakeside Companies.

The private equity firm met with county commissioners Monday to see if they would agree to change the terms of the deed so they can focus on building an assisted senior living facility, a storage unit facility and an adjacent suburb of single and multifamily homes.

While it’s not clear what the county had in mind for the property, Commissioner Josh Kerns said Lakeside’s draft plan has a lot of features that would still make the project worthwhile.

“I don’t think this is a bad proposal by any means,” Kerns said. “This seems like a nice community, and right now it’s a giant hole in the ground.”

The county owned the Old Corral for decades, and once used the gravel and sand extracted there for icy roads during the winter. But the large plot sat mostly vacant for years, as businesses, offices and residences popped up around it. It remains one of the largest patches of undeveloped land within the county’s urban growth area.

County commissioners had a vision for the plot when they began discussing its imminent sale in 2018. Kerns, who served as the board’s chair at the time, said the former gravel pit in his district could one day rival Kendall Yards.

“This is an opportunity for us to have something like that up on the North Side, in unincorporated county,” Kerns said during the State of the County address that year.

Bolstering retail tax proceeds was an area of focus for the county at the time, who wanted to ensure the prime real estate continued to benefit the county well after it was developed.

But Kerns said priorities have shifted as the Old Corral continued to sit empty over the years, lending him to be more supportive of a project that centers housing over retail space. The county needs a larger inventory of homes and living spaces, including for seniors.

“You could argue what’s important right now, if not more important, is housing units,” Kerns said. “They’re asking to go a little less on the retail side to do more on the residential side.”

County Commissioner Al French, who introduced the discussion at the meeting, said a change in the market also spurred the change of plans for Lakeside. The nearby 1,400-acre Mead Works development on the former Kaiser Aluminum land is shaping up to be similar to what the county envisioned for their former parcel, he said.

The newly proposed development would place the senior accommodations at the center, including both independent and assisted living facilities. At the core would be a handful of multi-story buildings featuring hundreds of independent units and dedicated shop space on the ground floor. A ring of independent senior cottages would surround the apartments, and large multi-bed assisted living facilities would be placed adjacent to the complex along Addison Street.

Lakeside also plans to put a number of houses and townhomes along the property’s border, separated from the senior and retail spaces by large recreational areas complete with a trail network.

County Commission Chair Mary Kuney asked the developers to specify during the meeting that the homes on the design’s exterior would be available for residents of all ages to purchase, emphasizing the need for a diverse housing stock and accessible avenues to home ownership in the county.

“That’s, for me, one of the things we’re missing in Spokane County right now, is having that ability for someone to buy that first home or condo or townhome,” Kuney said. “To give them the opportunity to start to build that equity for them to be able to do other things, and start to build their wealth, versus just doing apartments that aren’t helping those individuals.”

Melissa Wells, a partner at Lakeside Companies, said the development is intentionally designed to incorporate seniors into an active community.

“That’s kind of the beauty of this product, is that we’re not only supplying what is needed right now in the senior community, but we’re engaging the public in the other homes to be full community and campus together,” Wells said.

Monday’s discussion ended with the commissioners agreeing to have Lakeside examine the deed’s language to propose changes for the board and county’s legal department to consider. Possible changes to the deed may come before the commissioners again within a month, Kerns said.

Lakeside would fall short of the required retail space laid out in the terms of sale, which led to their ask Monday. They estimate only 15% of the Old Corral would be dedicated to businesses and parking.

Kerns said that while that’s a little disappointing, his focus has changed since the initial sale.

“We are in a different place now. We’re in a housing crunch,” Kerns said. “That necessarily wasn’t the case back then.”