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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Spokane developer planning to buy portion of Ridpath

A Spokane developer said Friday he may be a step closer to buying the foreclosed Y Building, one of several parts of the shuttered Ridpath Hotel properties.

Stephen Antonietti said the Las Vegas lender that financed the building’s sale in 2008 failed to find a single bidder to take over the building, at the corner of First Avenue and Stevens Street.

The auction was for most – but not all – of the Y property, due to several owners ending up with different parts of the building. Built in 1910, it was used for hotel guests and for business meetings.

Las Vegas-based Integrated Financial Associates wanted a bid starting at $2.9 million, said Antonietti.

With no bidders, Integrated Financial Associates is now free to review Antonietti’s offer for the property; he declined to specify that offer.

He’s trying to buy the building’s top three floors, the middle section of the main floor and the basement.

Other parts of the building are owned by Spokane-based Riverbank and by private investor James Darling. Antonietti said his goal is to eventually acquire those.

He said he doesn’t expect an immediate response from the lender.

Friday’s failure to find a buyer allows IFA to take back the note held since 2008 by Poachers Rock LLC, a company headed by Spokane developer Greg Jeffreys, one of a number of owners of different parts of the Ridpath properties.

Poachers Rock defaulted on that loan and other deals connected to the hotel.

The Y Building at 502 W. First Ave. takes its name from once being the home of the Spokane YWCA.

It’s one of four properties the Antonietti Investment Group is currently trying to buy, Antonietti said Friday.

The other three are the former Halliday Building that housed the Hart & Dilatush Pharmacy at Sprague and Stevens; 11 floors of the hotel Tower building with more than 300 rooms; and the Sprague Avenue nightclub-restaurant next to the Tower building.

He said his investors hope to buy out other Ridpath property owners and reopen them with music, dining and hotel accommodations.

Antonietti said he can’t predict how soon those plans could materialize. “It’s taken us two years just to get to this point,” he said, referring to the maze of disputed deals and multiple owners that entangled the Ridpath.

Another major hurdle facing developers is the city’s ruling in 2011 that the main building is uninhabitable due to numerous code violations.

Until it closed in August 2008, the Ridpath was touted as Spokane’s oldest continuously operated hotel.