County, Companies Agree To Land Swap Firm To Get North Bank Land; County Will Get Warehouse

Four crumbling buildings near the Spokane County Courthouse would be leveled and a longtime Spokane business would move under terms of a complicated land swap.

The deal involves the county, Graybar Electric Co. and Metropolitan Mortgage Co., which initiated the land swap. Metropolitan plans to develop the north bank of the Spokane River and needs county land to reroute roads to the project.

Graybar plans to move from 1033 W. Gardner to Freya Road in east Spokane this year, said general manager Tyler Gibson. He would not be more specific about the company’s plans.

The Graybar building on Gardner would become a county warehouse under the land swap, which involves no public money.

Commissioners agreed to terms of the agreement Friday, and negotiators are working on a final draft.

Appraisers say the county is giving up land worth about $1.5 million and gaining a building worth slightly more than that amount.

Here’s what’s involved in the deal:

Metropolitan gets four acres of county land south of College Avenue. The land will become part of the company’s proposed 90-acre Summit development of houses, shops, offices and hotels.

The company will demolish three steel Quonset huts and a concrete warehouse on the land. The county uses the World War II-era buildings for storage.

“Deterioration is just rampant in them,” said Bert Haight, who negotiated the deal for the county. “We’ve got holes in the roof. The plumbing is bad.”

Metropolitan also will receive an isolated 60-foot strip of county rightof-way that runs nearly a mile through the company’s commercial business park at Liberty Lake.

Metropolitan will buy the Graybar building for an undisclosed amount, put a new roof on it, and give it to the county. The 38,000-square-foot office and warehouse was constructed in 1953 and is adjacent to a warehouse already used by the sheriff’s department.

Metropolitan will pay up to $30,000 to move county goods out of the old storage buildings and into the Graybar building.

Eventually, the county and Metropolitan will develop a 75-foot-wide promenade between the Courthouse and the river. The promenade would stretch four blocks, two of them county-owned and the other two owned by Metropolitan.

“It (the promenade) is going to make it safer to walk back and forth and it’d be a lot more attractive,” said county Commissioner Phil Harris.