New owner plans changes for Crescent
A California company recently purchased the Crescent building in downtown Spokane for almost $20 million and has plans to update it and fill it with retail and office tenants.
FPA Crescent Associates LLC paid $19.7 million for the Crescent and the adjoining Paterson building on Nov. 15, Spokane County records show. The seller was Red Lion Hotels Limited Partnership, formerly known as WestCoast Hospitality. FPA Associates is Fowler Property Acquisitions of Larkspur, Calif.
FPA, headed by Gregory Fowler, is a private real estate investment firm focusing on multifamily, industrial, office and retail properties nationwide, according to the company Web site. Its properties are managed by affiliate Trinity Property Consultants. Since its inception in 1985, the company has completed $2.5 billion in acquisitions, the Web site says.
“They’re planning on bringing it up to date,” said Johnathan Makus, the Tomlinson Black agent who will lease the space in the Crescent for FPA. “The storefronts don’t look the same. The ceiling heights aren’t the same level. It doesn’t have one feel to it; it has about 15 feels to it.”
Makus said the new owners are having architects inspect the buildings and draw up renovation concepts.
The historic seven-story Crescent, built in 1918, and adjoining three-story Paterson, built in 1973, together offer 243,000 square feet of retail and office space. About 40,000 square feet of office space is available for lease and about 25,000 square feet of retail space, Makus said.
The seventh floor is available, as is most of the second floor retail space on the skywalk level. The restaurant space formerly occupied by Cucina Cucina also is available, as is retail space on Main between Weldon Barber and Starbucks. Other street-level tenants include Red Robin, Scottrade and The Moose Lake Co. Office tenants include the Bonneville Power Administration and the U.S. Postal Service.
“We’ve had quite a bit of interest ever since people found out about the new ownership,” Makus said. “There has been local interest in the restaurant space, as well as national interest.”
The Crescent’s adjoining second-story food court is part of Sterling Savings Bank’s building and is leased for the “next couple of years” to G&B Real Estate Services, said Jennifer Lutz, a spokeswoman for Sterling. Though many food court tenants have left in the past year, Lutz said G&B, a division of Red Lion, is actively seeking new businesses to occupy the space.
Red Lion Hotels originally had listed the Crescent and Paterson buildings for sale at $21.5 million with brokerage firm CB Richard Ellis. Red Lion announced last November its plan to sell 11 hotels and other properties in order to raise $40 million to renovate its remaining hotels, which include the Red Lion River Inn, Hotel at the Park and Red Lion Templin’s Hotel on the River in Post Falls. Several of the properties have sold, but the Ridpath Hotel in downtown Spokane remains listed.
“We’ve had a lot of interest (in the Ridpath) but have no signed agreement,” said Julie Langenheim, investor relations manager for Red Lion.
Red Lion, then Goodale and Barbieri Companies, bought the Crescent in 1993 for $1.4 million from creditors of the former Frederick & Nelson department store chain. The Crescent department store preceded Frederick & Nelson at the downtown location and was Spokane’s premier retailer for decades. When G&B bought the site in 1993, the building had been vacant since Frederick & Nelson went out of business in 1992.