Riverstone developer foresees big future

Within five years, an old mill site in Coeur d’Alene could support a population of 2,500 people on a landscape that developer John Stone calls “a town within a town.”

Theoretically, the residents of the Riverstone development could find everything they want and need within the 160 acres.

They’d have their pick of casual restaurants and fine dining, more than 50 retail stores, a public park and recreational trails. Nearby office buildings could provide a source of white-collar jobs.

Riverstone will even have its own “Main Street,” a shop-lined thoroughfare that could close to traffic for jazz concerts on summer evenings.

The development caters to a specialty market – empty-nester baby boomers who yearn for a return to a downtown-style living. Affluent and anticipating active golden years, they’re giving up suburban homes for the ease of close-in condo living.

“I’m one of those over-50 people … who would be attracted to a development like this,” said Stone, a principal in SRM Development.

Stone’s Spokane firm bought the first acreage for Riverstone – a former sawmill site along the Spokane River – in 1999. The company later doubled the development’s size with the purchase of a former gravel pit.

For the first few years, Riverstone progressed slowly, adding commercial buildings and eventually a movie theater. Now, however, 14 buildings are in the construction, design or permitting phase.

Stone, who’s in his early 60s, said he wants to get the project finished before he retires. In three to five years, he anticipates $475 million worth of development on the site. Plans include:

“1,000 units of housing, including higher-end housing that will be built by Black Rock developer Marshall Chesrown.

“500,000 square feet of office space.

“320,000 square feet of retail space, nearly as much as the Silver Lake Mall.

“It’s like the rebuilding of Berlin,” said Stone, who’s shelling out thousands of dollars per day on earthmoving equipment to contour the site and fill in 100-foot-deep pits from the gravel operations. The only markers of the site’s industrial past are sepia-toned photos featuring mill workers and log drives, part of the décor in Riverstone’s real estate sales office.

Taxpayers are bankrolling part of the reclamation. SRM Development will receive about $8 million in tax increment financing for public improvements to the 160 acres, including roads and a 10-acre park being built on the site of a former gravel pit. The company is paying for the improvements upfront. It will recoup the $8 million over several years, from money paid in property taxes generated on the site.

Next summer, residents will begin moving into Riverstone’s first condos, priced between $300,000 and $550,000. The condos are intended to appeal to a “mid-range market,” a condo segment that was missing from the local real estate market, said Erin Maher, Riverstone’s marketing and sales director. “They were either really high end – over $1 million – or lower end,” she said.

Sixty percent of the first phase is pre-sold. “It’s exactly the baby boomer demographic we identified,” Maher said.

By next summer, a 50,000-square-foot office building should also be open in Riverstone, along with the first retail stores and three new restaurants.

For the past 10 years, SRM Development has focused on “urban-housing” projects on the West Coast, building condos above an Albertsons in San Diego, along with similar mixed-use developments in Seattle, and Portland.

In real estate lingo, Riverstone is the Inland Northwest’s first “lifestyle center” to include housing, said Mike Craven, SRM’s development manager.

Lifestyle centers started about 15 years ago, when retailers began moving out of enclosed malls to open-air venues. The centers are often located at the edge of affluent neighborhoods, and they take their cue from “the old Main Street-type models,” Craven said.

Ambience is a key part of the shopping experience. Elements such as the theater and recreational activities, which encourage shoppers to linger, are also important, Craven said.

Riverstone will offer many of the amenities found in downtown Coeur d’Alene, but it should be a complementary, not a competing, force, Stone said. “In our minds, we think of Riverstone as part of downtown,” he said.

As a result of Riverstone, thousands more people will be living and working within a mile of downtown, Stone said. The city bus and the Centennial Trail will connect both shopping districts.

“We’re not bringing in a Wal-Mart that will be a category killer,” Craven said.

Most of Riverstone’s shops are regional and national brands, whose 2,500- to 5,000-square-foot stores would be too large to fit into downtown’s available retail space, according to Craven. Sherman Avenue, he said, also has the distinction of featuring locally owned shops.

Terry Cooper, general manager of the Coeur d’Alene Downtown Association, said he’s confident that the town’s historic shopping district can hold its own. “We have the lake and the Coeur d’Alene Resort,” he said.

Cooper also anticipates working closely with Riverstone merchants on marketing and special events. Anytime more people visit Coeur d’Alene, everyone benefits, he said.

“I think we’re more in competition with the mall than with downtown,” said Jim Rivard, SRM’s director of real estate sales. The Silver Lake Mall lies three miles north of Riverstone.